[Mobile-Portable] New car and considering new antenna setup!

[Zyg Skrobanski]

>You're proud of your results, but it's unclear just how the results came 
>about.  Was it locale, or was it antenna.  Further, is your audio better 
>than the other stations, or any of several other variables I can think of.

I used my results to show that the Comet CA-HV does in fact work well.
Obtaining those DX contacts meant that my mobile signal was competing with
non-mobile stations running much higher power and much better antennas.
The location was in the metro Atlanta area, certainly not a prime DX spot.
My HF mobile radio equipment is the Alinco DX-70TH with an outboard
clearspeech DSP receive noise processor unit.  A picture of the mobile, and
the Comet CA-HV is available at QRZ.COM under my call AF4MP (the picture
was taken in Florida).  You will also notice that my automobile is not
particularly exotic either, it is a 1992 Ford Escort GT and currently has
about 158,000 miles on it!

>One other point to consider is that many 
>mobile hams like to operate on 40 meters or 75 meters, and your 
>comet/diamond is in no way competitive.

The Comet doesn't have 75 meter capability.  It does, however, work on 40
meters.  I don't have any on-line logs that you can use to verify my
results on that band, but for what its worth when I'm visiting my in-laws
in the very NW part of Ohio I can get acceptable signals back into Georgia
and Florida on 40m SSB during the day.  Admittedly, the available bandwidth
on 40m with the Comet is only about 50 KHz, but that is still good enough
for my purposes.  I check into a number of nets, most often South CARS on
7251 KHz, and am usually told that I have a good mobile signal.  Again, the
signal results show that the Comet is as good, if not better, on that band
as other mobile antennas.

So to summarize, the Comet CA-HV works very well on all its available
bands.  It is a nice, inexpensive, low profile antenna.  Yes it has its
disadvantages in that coils have to be changed, and bandwidth is narrow on
some bands, but those are the trade-off's I am willing to live with.  The
antenna coupled with my Alinco radio gives me capability to operate on 6
meters too.  It also has a 2 meter capability, which I will use for APRS.
(I have a separate dual band antenna for my Kenwood 2m and 70cm FM radio).
--
Zyg AF4MP
Roswell GA USA