I am not your normal Flagpole user. I was running an Icom 7610 when I bought it, 24' + 4' extension with LDG tuner, and it was the best vertical I have used. I then went digital and upgraded to a Flex 8600 with an Antenna Genius and a Tuner Genius. I was having a lot of trouble getting the LDG to work consistently with the 8600 system. In desperation I removed the LDG from the equation and installed a Balun Design 4115T 4:1 Balun to the ladder wire from the Flagpole. I was amazed that I could tune most bands to less than 1.5 to 1, but I could not tune 160m, 12m, and 10m. I then added the extension. I took the kit apart and used galvonic grease on all of the connections. I then set the length to 138 7/16 inches and use shrink wrap on all of the connectors. I had to rent a lift truck to get the extension on the Flagpole and used galvonic grease on the connection. The extension made the Flagpole not tune on 6m, but everything else was great. I do not believe in a perfect world so having a 160m to 6m antenna that did not do well on all bands in-between was not a surprise. When I cranked up the new system with the Flagpole feeding the 8600 I was stunned. I know that you might think that that is just marketing talk, but it is true. I run WSJT-X and JTAlert. Yesterday, a Thursday, I started a session around 3:00 Pensacola, FL time. I started on 30m with the Tuner Genius giving me a 1.19 to 1. I was able to get a QSO from every contact In my JTAlert list. Anyone I could see I could receive. I then tuned to 20m. For whatever reason the pattern was full. I started making contacts and was able to make 20 straight QSO's in a row, all from outside of the USA. The average distance from Pensacola to the QSO's was around 4,000 miles. They spanned from South Africa to Australia to Finland. That is a coverage area of around 18,000 thousand miles. Do atmospheric conditions work that way? If they do I have never experienced it before. You should be the judge on just how good this Antenna - Radio combination is.
73
Bill - NO4ON
