Wilson Little will 36" CB antenna differences??

[niceguy71]

Hi Guys
well, I am slowly getting ready for my big antenna test of 2025
I have a

1 Sirio 5000 mag mount
2 Stryker Sr-a10 mag mount
3 Wilson 1000 mag mount
4 K40 with mag mount
5 Tram 3500 mag mount
6 Larsen NMO34 with 64" whip mounted to a magnet mount ( for testing reasons ))
7 Wilson Little Wil ( the only one I need to get )

I've been waiting to get my Stryker SR-A10 back from my sick Jeep friend... it's taking forever so I bought another one.

all I have to get now is the Little Will and I'll "borrow" one from Amazon

I had wanted to buy a cheap one... but they get over 53.84 bucks and it's so small I highly doubt I'd ever use it or even let someone try it out.... maybe I'll fall in love with it??? ( HIGHLY DOUBTFUL )

so they sell two different Little Will 36" CB antenna's????? one has gold lettering, and one has silver lettering... one is $53.84 and one is $63.89 on Amazon
one is the Wilson 305-38 300 and the other one is the Wilson 880-300100B anyone have any idea what the difference is... both say they come in a box
I wanted to e-mail Wilson but can't find a customer support e-mail

I guess I'll just buy the cheaper one.....

while looking I found a Wilson 500????? I never heard of it before.... it's been around for at least 15 years???? it's a 54" tall whip... and it has # 12 wire coil VS the #14 coil on the Little Will VS the # 10 coil on the Wilson 1000 .......I thought that was pretty cool..
the Wilson 1000 is 62" ...a Wilson 500 is 54" and the Wilson Little will is 36" .........got to give them credit for giving options.... even though I'm sorry anyone ever had the chance to get anything smaller than a 58 inch antenna as all the little antenna's have killed the hobby with their terrible range. ( in my opinion)

so if anyone knows the difference between the Gold and Silver lettered Little Wil please let me know.

 

[K9KLC]

Our testing was done in the 90's, against a Wilson 5000, 1000, 500 and Lil will. Other than Slightly wider bandwidth on the 5000 vs 1000 there was little difference in actual use or looking at it on a iFR 1200 Super S spectrum analyzer. I'm not sure they didn't come out with the 5000 simply to handle more power but really in actual testing it was simply too close to tell.

The 500 Held it's own but again, bandwidth was slightly less, and we did notice slightly less signal in both use and on the analyzer but honestly it was pretty close and if someone needed a few inches shorter, it might have worked out for them.

The Lil Wil, "worked". It did have Acceptable SWR thru the 40 channel CB band but not too much more, there was a noticeable difference in range and signal levels on the Spectrum analyzer.

A MFJ 259 was used to check bandwidth and set SWR, all antenna's were used on top of a 1995 GMC pick up truck center cab, and all were tested in Magnet mount fashion to make the test more fair.

I do not have the actual results still but this is from memory dating back almost 30 years so, there's that. I think it was 1996 when we did the actual testing. May have been a few years later. I honestly don't remember the year.

I'll be curious to see what your test yields, I know Wilson "now" may not be what they were back then, honestly when we had a problem then, I simply picked up the phone and called in and talked to the owners daughter Vicky. She was pretty knowledgeable about things and if it was something she couldn't answer she just sent me up the line.

 

[K9KLC]

so if anyone knows the difference between the Gold and Silver lettered Little Wil please let me know.

I've never seen silver lettering on the Lil Will, that's news to me. All the Wilson's I tested and sold (literally hundreds when I had my shop) had gold lettering unless I was not seeing colors correctly. While probably 75% of the clientele was OTR or local truckers, we did a fair amount of "4 wheeler" business too, as well as base antenna installs. I honestly have no idea what the difference in lettering is unless somehow they have some early Wilsons and then later ones after the move to Rock Island (or Moline) I forget.

 

[kc2asb]

On Amazon, depending on which item you click on, it appears there are silver and gold letter Lil Wills. There are no obvious differences between them and the prices are around $49.95 - $56.49 for both. The price differences appear to be due to different third-party sellers.

Wilson is definitely not what it once was. None of these old brands are. Tram, along with Browning, once made some of the highest quality and best performing radios for the CB band. Today, Tram is just another brand label owned by a faceless conglomerate.

 

[niceguy71]

Our testing was done in the 90's, against a Wilson 5000, 1000, 500 and Lil will. Other than Slightly wider bandwidth on the 5000 vs 1000 there was little difference in actual use or looking at it on a iFR 1200 Super S spectrum analyzer. I'm not sure they didn't come out with the 5000 simply to handle more power but really in actual testing it was simply too close to tell.

The 500 Held it's own but again, bandwidth was slightly less, and we did notice slightly less signal in both use and on the analyzer but honestly it was pretty close and if someone needed a few inches shorter, it might have worked out for them.

The Lil Wil, "worked". It did have Acceptable SWR thru the 40 channel CB band but not too much more, there was a noticeable difference in range and signal levels on the Spectrum analyzer.

A MFJ 259 was used to check bandwidth and set SWR, all antenna's were used on top of a 1995 GMC pick up truck center cab, and all were tested in Magnet mount fashion to make the test more fair.

I do not have the actual results still but this is from memory dating back almost 30 years so, there's that. I think it was 1996 when we did the actual testing. May have been a few years later. I honestly don't remember the year.

I'll be curious to see what your test yields, I know Wilson "now" may not be what they were back then, honestly when we had a problem then, I simply picked up the phone and called in and talked to the owners daughter Vicky. She was pretty knowledgeable about things and if it was something she couldn't answer she just sent me up the line.

thank you K9KLC
you certainly have a lot of knowledge on the Wilson Antenna's!

I just got off the phone with Road Pro they said they only make a yellow one??? I thought it was gold.... then they said I bet it's the image is coming up as silver on line even though it's actually yellow? .... I've seen them in the stores and on vehicles and I have seen silver.... so I asked why is there two different numbers?... one Wilson # comes back to yellow and one Wilson # comes back to silver with a $10 price difference?????.... they said there is only one Little Wil ...... so glad I got it from the horses mouth

so I guess I'll buy the cheaper one.

again thanks for the info everyone.

 

[niceguy71]

On Amazon, depending on which item you click on, it appears there are silver and gold letter Lil Wills. There are no obvious differences between them and the prices are around $49.95 - $56.49 for both. The price differences appear to be due to different third-party sellers.

Wilson is definitely not what it once was. None of these old brands are. Tram, along with Browning, once made some of the highest quality and best performing radios for the CB band. Today, Tram is just another brand label owned by a faceless conglomerate.

yup
I've heard many times now that Wilson.... K-40 and Tram are now all owned by the same company.
that company made the decision to discontinue my go-to antenna the Tram 3500 as it didn't make sense when they are trying to sell the more expensive K-40 and Wilson antenna's

 

[K9KLC]

thank you K9KLC
you certainly have a lot of knowledge on the Wilson Antenna's!

I just got off the phone with Road Pro they said they only make a yellow one??? I thought it was gold.... then they said I bet it's the image is coming up as silver on line even though it's actually yellow? .... I've seen them in the stores and on vehicles and I have seen silver.... so I asked why is there two different numbers?... one Wilson # comes back to yellow and one Wilson # comes back to silver with a $10 price difference?????.... they said there is only one Little Wil ...... so glad I got it from the horses mouth

so I guess I'll buy the cheaper one.

again thanks for the info everyone.

FWIW, I had just checked with a couple buddies of mine, one has antenna's from the 90's and the other just got one not long ago and they both said they're "goldish yellow" on the writing. I mentioned to another forum member I wondered if it was the right photo but he said the one description was "black and silver" so I don't know that that's about.

 

[K9KLC]

you certainly have a lot of knowledge on the Wilson Antenna's

In the 90's I sold more Wilsons than anything else including the fiberglass ones and we sold a fair amount of other antenna brands too. The truckers preferred the Wilsons "usually" but on the same shaft length the Hustler's similarly built did equally as well. Some guys liked the look of those "big coil things" but in testing not only by myself but some customers, they honestly didn't make that much difference and the open coils never held up as well. There was a lot of antenna and radio testing going on in the "not so busy times", I wish I would have kept better track of all the stuff we did. I've no experience with the Tram you've mentioned, but it's likely about the same thing as many of the rest of the base loaded coil antenna's.

discontinue my go-to antenna the Tram 3500 as it didn't make sense when they are trying to sell the more expensive K-40 and Wilson antenna's

Probably more profit margin in the other ones, I guess we'll never know.

 

[AB5ID]

Look forward to test results!

 

[niceguy71]

I just got a fairly local Radio Reference user to volunteer with the "Great Antenna Test of 2025" so this shouldn't be as bad as it was looking.
he brings another Stryker SR-A10 antenna and 5555 NII radio into the mix.... we should learn a lot that day.

 

[niceguy71]

In the 90's I sold more Wilsons than anything else including the fiberglass ones and we sold a fair amount of other antenna brands too. The truckers preferred the Wilsons "usually" but on the same shaft length the Hustler's similarly built did equally as well. Some guys liked the look of those "big coil things" but in testing not only by myself but some customers, they honestly didn't make that much difference and the open coils never held up as well. There was a lot of antenna and radio testing going on in the "not so busy times", I wish I would have kept better track of all the stuff we did. I've no experience with the Tram you've mentioned, but it's likely about the same thing as many of the rest of the base loaded coil antenna's.

Probably more profit margin in the other ones, I guess we'll never know.

if you had YouTube back then..... people would have loved your video's and your knowledge would still be helping people today.... hopefully my videos help people long after I'm gone.

 

[K9KLC]

if you had YouTube back then..... people would have loved your video's and your knowledge would still be helping people today.... hopefully my videos help people long after I'm gone.

I look forward to seeing the results. Yes YouTube would have been something. However also back then, some of the things discussed in these forums weren't dare discussed much in public (ie the export radios and such) for fear of the wrong people walking into the shop and simply causing problems legally. The testing of the antenna's however would have been great!

Please let us know when you get the results in, I for one, am looking forward to seeing them.

 

[robertwbob]

i got a very early lil wil on top middle of my esclade. gets out decent not great.low swr in band.rises quick above or below 1 and 40. reason i used it ,i had it in shop stuck to tin siding

 

[kc2asb]

i got a very early lil wil on top middle of my esclade. gets out decent not great.low swr in band.rises quick above or below 1 and 40. reason i used it ,i had it in shop stuck to tin siding

Sure, they work, but at 36", it's a compromise in performance. Even the 4ft and 5ft whips are a compromise.

A full wave antenna on CB is 36 ft., or 432". Generally, the 102"/108" whips (9 ft) are considered to be the best performing mobile antennas, and are a 1/4 wave. However, not many operators want a 9ft antenna on their vehicles for aesthetic and safety reasons. (The Ch 6 Super Bowl guys aside)

The Lil Wil fills a niche and they will get you on the air. But, don't expect to be a powerhouse. The bigger the antenna you can run the better.

 

[slowmover]

He knows.

 

[kc2asb]

He knows.

Sure, as does everyone else participating in this thread. But others might not.

 

[WSAC829]

Sure, as does everyone else participating in this thread. But others might not.

I’m not commenting on this thread because if i do some peoples heads around here will explode.

 

[kc2asb]

I’m not commenting on this thread because if i do some peoples heads around here will explode.

You know your stuff and your input is always valued.

 

[WSAC829]

Thanks. Appreciate that. However i’m staying out of this one. I don’t need to be ridiculed and put on ignore by some for my input which has happened in the past on this forum when it came to the Little Wil. So i’m just going to be an adult and keep my mouth shut.

 

[K9KLC]

Thanks. Appreciate that. However i’m staying out of this one. I don’t need to be ridiculed and put on ignore by some for my input which has happened in the past on this forum when it came to the Little Wil. So i’m just going to be an adult and keep my mouth shut.

"All it takes for evil to triumph is good men do nothing".