Stan Cooper wrote:
Hello I hope I'm not intruding by asking for advice on a CB antenna but I
figured this would be the group to ask about such things for the straight
scoop. At any rate I'm considering a store bought beam with both vertical
and horizontal polarization and my choices are limited to these two below.
(not many being manufactured anymore)

The Maco has a 16 foot boom and an advertised gain of 12.5 db, while the
JO
GUNN has an 8 foot boom and an advertised gain of 14.5 db. I know there is
a
lot of smoke and mirrors involved with advertised gains and so my question
is...is it possible for the JO GUNN to perform as well as the Maco
antenna?

The GUNN is of much stronger construction and a smaller windload so I'd
rather put it up, but the short boom makes me wonder if the gain and
rejection numbers are suspect.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, antenna choices, price tags and
urls
below.

73
Stan

MACO-Shooting Star $279.95
http://www.mpaudio1.com/Macobeamantennas2.html

JO GUNN 3 + 3 STAR $382.00
http://tinyurl.com/6hzteu

Oh btw, I'll be tower mounting it about 40' from the ground and turning it
with a hamIV rotator.

Thanks again.

Hi Stan,

The Maco Shooting star "data" says it has a gain of 14dB (the Comet is the
one rated at 12.5dB). Both manufacturers claim decibels of gain as well as
power gain. The relationship is logarithmic, where dB = 10 log(base10)
P1/P2. The Maco Shooting star claims 28X power gain. This would be
14.47dB... close to what they claim. The JO GUNN 3+3 Star claims 40X power
gain. This would be 16.02dB... 2dB more than what they claim. The Maco
item doesn't make any claim about Front/Back or Front/Side rejection, while
the JO GUNN item makes some very wild claims of over 40dB. Based on this
information, I'd probably go with the Maco.

The late William I. Orr said it best in the preface to his book, 'The Truth
About CB Antennas', "PT Barnum is alive and well, and writing CB antenna
ads."

Bryan WA7PRC