Got the eBay refund sorted. I’m probably going to get the Wimo version, the MA-8300?
What mag mount should I get from Wimo? Will anything do? I also found this one on Amazon that might work?
Any other places with decent priced shipping to get the Komunica or its variants in the EU?
Or somewhere IOSS registered that ships to EU countries?
Any other antenna recommendations while I’m at it?
Thanks all, appreciate the feedback and insight for this.
Hi Ian,
That mag mount looks fine in that it has a nice wide base. One thing with the CB parts however is that the connectors (at both ends of the coax) are often crimpted rather than soldered and while that is fine to start with after lots of use you might have to go in and solder the connections.
The company in Holland - Komunica Power used to be at their stand in Friedrichshafen, so yes, they were a Komunica distributor but there no longer seems to be a list of distributors on the Komunica website.
In the UK, LamCo is the agent but of course - thanks to Brexit, the obvious choice is no longer the best one (customs duty, high shipping costs).
The WIMO MA-8300 is another badged copy, not an original Komunica for €40 more than other copies and €10 less than the original Komunica.
Here’s the original - also on the WIMO site:
Kommunica Power HF-PRO-2-PLUS-T Antenne 3.5-30 + 40/50/70/144 MHz
73 Ed.
Thanks for that, I am thinking of all sorts of options again now - it’s got me thinking about maybe some sort of antenna I could run vertical up a 10m mast?
I have the Wimo 10m HD mast and also a Wimo 7m and Decathlon 7m fishing pole masts, also a Wimo smaller drive on mast holder.
Maybe clamp a whip to the 10m HD mast? Or run a wire up the 7m masts?
Are there any good vertical antennas or whips or anything that I could use? I’m thinking then I could get more bands and still work from the car. When the weather improves I could use it elsewhere, maybe for a SOTA or something. Just get more mileage out of it than a car antenna.
I would be looking at something off the shelf, not DIY as I’m not experienced or confident enough to go that route yet.
Also nothing like dipole, doublets, slopers and so on. Just something like a vertical wire antenna or something like the Komunica but obviously more lightweight (just thinking of the mast and using the height).
Just seems a waste to go the mag mount route now when I have all the other gear I could use.
73!
Ian, You are spoilt for choice!
If you are considering hanging a wire from a mast, make sure the mast is NOT carbon fibre but fibreglass. Carbon fibre will de-tune a wire antenna next to it.
Commercially made (single band) J-antennas that don’t need any ground plane wires were available from LambdaHalbe in Germany for very reasonable prices but he has now closed his store.
With a mast approach, supporting, say, an off-centre fed, linked, or trapped dipole, you will need some way to support the base. Extender cords on the end of the dipole elements can form two of a three-guyed mast system. Dipoles need no radials or counterpoise wire.
Then there are end-fed antennas - but they also need a counterpoise wire set out and some work best with an ATU.
For quick and easy set-up, the Komunica (or copy) is (in my opinion), still the better option. For performance, the dipole on a mast is better.
73 Ed.
SotaBeams in the UK make a nice range of antennas while in Germany we have spiderbeam and Aerial-51.
Cheers Ed. Sotabeams looks good but not really Brexit-friendly it would seem. A shame, their stuff seems to have a good rep.
I was having a look there at trying my hand at a vertical of my own, maybe using an LDG unun? Buy some wire, cut it, run it up the mast, cut another wire, there’s a radial (or five!).
Could be a big money saver and would be all my own making more or less. Monoband though.
For vehicle use it has to be vertical, a radial is fine, but no slopers or dipoles etc as where I would go I couldn’t use them in a car park. Plus I have a Chameleon LEFS 8010 for that sort of stuff when chucking a wire up a tree etc.
That MA-8300 still seems a good bet, but i wonder should I go the LDG UnUn route (maybe a 9:1?) and have a dabble!? Could be great for SOTA and POTA to take in a bag with me in the Spring next year, particularly when I pluck up enough courage to try my first ever CW-only activation when my QMX arrives!
Oh how my thought process (and this thread) has changed!
Be careful … once you start making your own antennas, there’s no route back - I know …
If you are willing to make your own antenna - take a look at portable-antennas.com -Rob keeps adding more and more portable wire antenna design tools there.
If you haven’t got an antenna analyser at the moment (even a NanoVNA is fine) you will have one soon if you start building antennas.
73 Ed.
I do have a NanoVNA v4. Oddly enough I was using it today to test the SWR on a Slim G antenna I bought earlier in the year from the fella in the UK that makes them.
Turns out he makes them really bloody good as the SWR was virtually bang on across the 2m frequency!
Seriously considering a random wire vertical now. I have a MAT-30 ATU so it could be a runner…?
29’ of wire + 10m mast +X’ radials + 9:1 UnUn +1:1 Balun + MAT-30 ATU + FT891 = Multiband random wire antenna?
…so I’ve bit the bullet and bought the kit I hope will get me on the air!
I already have a 10m HD fiber glass mast, drive on holder thing and MAT-30 ATU. Also have a Nano VNA v4 to measure SWR.
Hoping if I cut the first reel of 20 awg to just shy of 29ft, and the second reel of wire to 17ft.
If my atrocious mathematics is correct, that should hopefully cover me for 40 to 10 bands? 20 is my favourite so as long as I have that I’ll be happy out.
If the thing actually works at all after all of this I’ll be delighted. It should all arrive this week so I will report back with my findings so it might help other newcomers like myself who are very naive to this antenna stuff!
Bit of a derail from my original post, but such is life! 73!
What’s wrong with crimping coax connectors? Done properly they should be better than soldered.
It will!
However… now you have the building bug you will look to extend/improve/lighten/simplify the antenna (we’ve all done that), and once you have an antenna that you know you can rely on, it’ll be in the backpack while you try other new, wild and wonderful, designs.
Even if one antenna doesn’t work as expected - it’s all education and you’ll be back a week later with an updated version that does work!
73 Ed DD5LP.
Agreed - “WHEN DONE PROPERLY” - unfortunately, my experience with some equipment intended for use by our brothers on the 11-metre band - the crimps are not done properly and after a time need attention.
73 Ed.
Would they have been any better if soldered?
As the great Marty McFly once said… “you bet your ass it works!”.
So, as a little amuse bouche, prior to the main course of schtuff arriving at me gaf today and tomorrow, I decided to have a little muck about with an antenna I built ages ago that never worked.
Basically I’d made a pigs ear of it and it had more feedback on it than the complaints department helpline at British Leyland.
Anyways. Yesterday, I got all excited and spent a few minutes calibrating my nanovna (note: not a euphemism for Viz Profanisaurus).
I got all the EI bands plugged in to it and calibrated, then gave my British Leyland antenna an SWR sweep. It was basically banana plugged in to one of those Poundland banana plug things with a BNC connector and two lengths of Amazon Basics 16awg speaker wire.
The SWR across every band except 70cm was about 570 jillion:1. So a load of old pony then.
Anyways, today I had a fiddle and clipped off the end a bit on the vertical to make it roughly 5m.
Then this bloke turns up from Amazon with an LDG 9:1 unun!
So I punted it in to the garden. Javelined a 7m fishing rod pole thing from Decathlon in to a parasol holder and had it away a bit lively with speaker wire up the rod.
Tipped a backpack full of radio gear on to the kitchen table. Plugged it in and started yapping.
Nothing. Not a sausage. Nada. Zilch.
I now know what it feels like to be ignored. I felt like a condom machine at a Cliff Richard concert.
…and then…it happened…
I dug out the aul MAT-30 and gave the antenna a cheeky little tickle with my tuner…
THE RESULTS WERE LIKE THE ARRIVAL OF MARTI PELLOW AT THE OPENING OF A NEW COSTCO IN PETERBOROUGH!
I chose a band. 40m. I yapped.
I chose a band. 20m. I yapped.
I chose another band for the laugh. 10m. I BLOODY YAPPED! (Note: I have never even yapped on 10m before, first time EVER).
All in all in the space of an hour of fiddling, I’d made a handsome FIVE contacts across multiple bands on an antenna I had no idea how or what I’d built.
I chased a couple of SOTA’s, got DX out as far as Moscow and POTA. Check my QRZ logs later today I’ll add them.
All of this with some poxy setup that cost relatively little and literally cobbled together in about 5 minutes and chucked in a heap in the garden with the hopes it would work.
The good thing with this is it was a nice simulation for what I hope to do with the car during the crappier months ahead.
Radio. What a joy eh? 
Forget cables - take alu foil
Armin