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Reviews For: Niljon SUPER-M ULTRA Mobile Antenna

Category: Antennas: VHF/UHF+ Omnidirectional: verticals, mobile, etc

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Review Summary For : Niljon SUPER-M ULTRA Mobile Antenna
Reviews: 1MSRP: $119.00 (US)
Description:
Designed for HAM, Scanner and Two-Way Government / Commercial communications, the new Super-M Ultra™ Mobile Antenna seamlessly covers the frequency range from 25 MHz to 6 GHz. With its Ultra Wideband capability, The Super-M Ultra™ Mobile is also well suited for demanding military, first responder, and homeland security applications. The Super-M Ultra™ Mobile Antenna is the gold level standard of two way communication incorporating MP Antenna technology making it the widest bandwidth mobile antenna on the market.


Scanner 25MHz-6GHz
HAM Radio 120MHz-6GHz
Two-Way Radio 120MHz-6GHz
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.mpantenna.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0014
KF7K Rating: 2010-04-24
Very miltiband, very wideband! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
First, I don't know why this is listed under the Niljon name. Looks like the company is called MPAntennas now.

This is a strange-looking antenna, like it used to be cool until you hit a tree limb. But the performance is pretty great. It's a multiband antenna, and due to all the aerials and the configuration, wideband. SWR measurements on a mag mount on the cab of my truck:
144 1.7
145 1.7 (SWR neetle dipped to the minimum here)
146 1.7
147 1.7
148 1.8
See? Wideband. No tuning needed (nor would it be easy). The air band SWR ran between 2.0 and 2.3. Absolute minimum SWR I measured between 70 and 170 was 116 MHz. Peak SWR was 2.3 (@ 131 MHz) and 3.7 (@ 170 MHz). The multiband aspect is a big advantage for me, because I spend a lot of time monitoring airband and train radio channels.

So, not tuneable (easily, anyway) but not all that bad. An SWR of 1.7 will lower the radiated power, and heat up the coax some if you drive it at the max of 200W, so I took a star off.

Build quality is pretty good. The antenna itself is an aluminum block with holes for the six elements, each with a single set screw. I had to push the straight elements into the hole with some force, and one of the allen set screws stripped out a bit, but it's hanging together pretty well so far. The aluminum block has a 3/8 inch screw stud, and I use an NMO-to-3/8" adapter on the top of my mag mount. It doesn't catch the wind too much.

One thing the company advertizes is that the configuration of the antenna makes it receptive of both horizonatally- and vertically-polarized signals, and that it can also help eliminate picket-fence multipath interference, but I'm not in a location prone to those difficulties, so there is little I can say about that. I haven't notices any picket-fence interference, but I can't remember hearing it with my old whip antenna either.

Conclusion: this is a good antenna for us scanner types, for those who want to be noticed, or those who can live with a bit of power loss on transmit. It's not for those who need to get into a repeater from a remote location, nor for those who need 1:1.0.