Larsen quality helps overcome typical aftermarket QC (decent design, but questionable manufacture).
Had a truck wrangler use a
Lil Wil on a job where we were building a drilling pad, hauling caliche. A Saturday with 27-big trucks. End dumps and belly dump. 96-mile roundtrip, IIRC. He parked at a good location both visually and for radio.
But we were in South Texas . . no one lives there, just gigantic ranches. The 96-miles was “around” a corner of one of four separate sections of the King Ranch (200k acre parcel). Flat land, scrub trees.
The WILSON did very well given I was running a 5.5’ Wilson
Silver Load and my dual-final UNIDEN
PC-76 on an all-metal cab tractor.
He had a radio with some juice in it.
That probably convinced some that a
Lil Wil was a great antenna. But go 200-miles north to San Antonio and it wouldn’t cope with what’s extant worth beans (and rice) once onto IH-10 or IH-35.
In just a few years the EAGLE FORD shale play changed South Texas from being “quiet” to being pretty loud.
That experience wouldht be repeated, today.
The guys down there with junky radio rigs went deaf. It’s when I spent$$ to get a Galaxy 99v2 and a pair of Wilson 2000 . . . then made the jump to the W-M DSP speaker. 14’ clearance with 5’ antennas + 35W + DSP opened a door running Texas Gulf Coast out to the Permian Basin and back.
View attachment 187599
Heard
very few good pickup truck rigs. Unlike days of old. Usually a guy still dedicated to a 102” who understood a few things.
It’s where the belief came in that big trucks had better radio rigs in that part of the world.
60-inch
plus roof mount on a pickup with NRC would be (is) some phenomenal performance to get past all the new electrical now strung out there (some of it devastating).
Given the high winds and extreme weather the NMO30 + Spring + 64” whip ought to be King-of-the-Hill for long-term
all around 11M performance on a pickup roof.
Pickups almost outnumber cars out there. And fancy aftermarket (Predator 10K) has a tendency to walk away.
Every company pickup truck (and a lot of tractors) has a WILSON
WeBoost Cell Amplifier antenna system on a stake bed mount.
Not cheap as a complete kit.
Wholly dependent on big brother to get anything done involving others.
CB so poor and road dangers now so bad I learned to go 70+ miles out of my way on refrigerated Roswell, NM to San Antonio, TX runs.
You can’t really afford that. Had to
really know how to work electronic logbooks to get the load off at the other end AND to be able to not be penalized the following day. (0200 delivery).
So,
yeah, I’d really like to see NMO30 get a foothold as the roads — nationwide — are trending as badly as the Permian.
It doesn’t take many men to make a difference.
I know this from grim experience.
.
