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Review on πŸ“‘ PCTEL A/S APR153 On-Glass Open Coil Antenna - Black: 150-174MHz High-Performance Solution by Corey Krull

Revainrating 1 out of 5

Impedance does not equal 50 ohms on the 151MHz band no matter what you do.

The instructions are poor, important installation details are missing, e.g. B. what's in front? what do you do with a cheap base plate? Which brings me to my next point: the junction box requires a cheap "ground" plate that needs to be plugged into metal somewhere, it looks damn cheap for a high quality antenna, it looks awful with an exposed/braided cable depends on it. Despite being much longer, the TRAM glass post has a small "radius" and doesn't feel cheap or a fraction of the price. If you then try to tune this antenna in the 151.4-151.8MHz range then forget it, the short circuit impedance you will get is around 60 ohms. not good. TRAM is much better and easier to set up, partly because it's 8 inches longer (which is why I tried that option). BTW I tried it in two different setups and the best return loss I got was under -20dB. . This is the bare minimum if you expect decent performance. In contrast, the return loss for the TRAM glass mount was -32 dB. Disappointing, so I cannot recommend this antenna.

Pros
  • Maximum power (watts): 50
Cons
  • Some small things