He dude I had one made about 4 years ago. I love it. An alligator wombat storm came through about a year ago and blew it over. Didn't put a scratch on antenna. I had 5 guy wires and it still blew it over. Just took it loose from chimney and put it in basement. Gonna put my imax 2000 back up, im retired an can't get around so that's about all I can do. All my friends are gone that could help me so I have to do what I can. I have 4 or 5 big power units the imax will handle because I don't talk much anymore. Couple have 750 to a 1000 watts an one has about 3500 watts. Imax worked ok then so it will now I guess. You got a good one.
It makes no sense to use such long radials, in every simulation you can see that several shorter radials bring a higher gain to the antenna system and the antenna is better balanced, especially in the far field. It is better to use about twenty thin top loaded mobile antennas with 3/8 threads which are shorter than a quarter wave and that have been tuned to resonance frequency with an antenna analyzer. Calculations show that 1/4 wave radials are more difficult to symmetrize in practice, phase cancellations is the result, the antenna no longer radiates evenly. If you have the space, it is best to place your antenna on an approximately 50 foot tower, or higher At this height, a 5/8 antenna on the CB band radiates very flat and most efficient. The rule applies to all antenna structures: It is better to invest first in the height of the antenna, then in the antenna.
Just shows the glitches & failures of antenna design programs. In field testing, a Three 1/4 wave radial counterpoise exhibits the highest efficiency at the lowest TOA along with the most (incidental) horizontal energy. A 1976 Hy-gain Penetrator will wipe the floor with a Sirio 827 and tie or best a Vector-4K - depending on distance. Tested and proven, each to each and each to the other at 10, 25 & 50mi.
I've even gone so far as to remove 3 of 4 - 1/4 wave radials from the Hy-gain Super Penetrator and mount it on a rotor so I could spin it 360° and there was ZERO difference to 4 different various distance "local" stations. The only point where I saw a little gain was incidental horizontal performance to a Moonraker-4 with three 120° 1/4 wave radials (instead of four 90° 1/4 wave radials) - on the same Super Penetrator.
Interesting, MY Ø5 Colossal came with a capacitance hat for the top which helps to lower the Q and widen the useable bandwidth, not a simple rubber cap. There's no need for parallel capacitance to ground unless there's series capacitance, such as a capacitance hat, on the tip of the radiator because the impedance matching ring finds 50Ω between the 200Ω radiator and 0Ω ground @ Ø reactance. - No other successful 5/8 utilizes parallel capacitance to ground except the MACO V58/5000 and that is fictitious in terms of any helpful capacitance occurring between the bottom of the radiator and the ground bracket since it's is negligible at best and proven to be so by raising the radiator up and out of the base onto a fiberglass rod insulator and finding as we did - that there's no difference in tuning nor performance. CB myths abound and are almost measurable by the DB! 😁😂🤣
In two steps: 1) Adjust the inductance arm for best SWR at desired frequency 2) Adjust the capacitance piece for final SWR adjustment Its basically a parallel tank circuit
