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If the topic isn't, "Which radio should I buy?" then there's a pretty good bet
that it is, "Which antenna should I buy?" Given the makes and models available
today it's pretty hard to pick the one that will suit the buyer's needs. And
while handheld and base models usually evoke enough comments from owners to be
helpful, the same usually can't be said about mobile models. For some reason,
this product area isn't catered to as well as others and that makes reliable
info hard to come by.
Starting today I want to do my part to help potential buyers pick a mobile scanner antenna to meet their needs. Thanks to the gracious efforts of Niljon Antennas, one of the newest kids on the block, we have before us a pretty interesting model for testing. Here's hoping it's just one in a long line of many others to follow. What follows are my personal impressions regarding the features and performance of this antenna. This, in no way, should be viewed as an endorsement to purchase this radio nor is it intended to discourage anyone from buying it. These are simply thoughts offered to my fellow hobbyists who may be interested in purchasing this particular radio. A lot of hard work and effort has gone into the testing and writing of this review. I would appreciate it if every effort is made to keep this document whole with me as the original author. Of course, it doesn't hurt that this document is copyrighted and therefore protected by US law and international treaties governing intellectual property. Except for personal use, and for the sake of brief passages quoted in reviews and given appropriate credit, no part of this work may be reproduced in any forms or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. And if you want to share your thoughts about this review with me or have further questions, feel free to send e-mail. Thank you and enjoy!
Rich Wells |
The simple design of the SUPER-M basically consists of a small, gold-colored (I'm told it is not brass but machined aluminum with a gold irridized coating) conically-shaped base with three small whips sticking out of it. The whips are inclined 30 degrees from the vertical and are evenly spaced around the circumference of the conical base. The whips appear to be stainless steel and are tipped in protective covers. The lengths of the whips as I measured them coming out of the base were 16.25, 17.75 and 18.25 inches.
The whips slide into the base through very small holes and are then fixed into position using even smaller set screws. We've had the SUPER-M mounted on our car for roughly a year and a half with no adverse effects noted from either rain, wind or sun. Most of our driving is on the Interstate commuting every day to and from work at 70+ mph.
Niljon was kind enough to also ship a Radiall/Larsen magnet mount with their SUPER-M. It took 10 seconds to screw the SUPER-M securely on to the LM mount and slap this assembly onto the rear deck of our car. It took just another couple of minutes to snake the 12' of co-ax cable from the trunk, up through the rear seat, under the front passenger seat and into position for use.
If you are particular to NMO mounts, then I hear that there is an LM-to-NMO adapter that can used to fit the SUPER-M to this more popular style mount. Some dealers may know to stock and offer this part while others may have to be prompted accordingly. There is also word that the SUPER-M will also be made available with a standard NMO mount for those of you who already have this type of mounting in your arsenal.
Design Considerations
I shall use this section to relate comments about the SUPER-M's design which
were passed along by Niljon themselves. Remember, I am just the messenger here.
If you have questions about this techno-jargon, I'm sure that Dr. Jack Nilsson,
President, CEO and designer of Niljon Antennas will be glad to entertain your
queries.
While I did not have a chance to see them, I am told that the very first batches of the SUPER-M came with black whips instead of the stainless steel versions seen today. I was told that whips were increased in diameter by 66% (0.060 to 0.100) to give added strength/rigidity to allow less movement between the radials as the automobile upon which it is mounted moves about and creates wind currents, thus maintaining its highly 'triple-interactive effect' and reduced (over other designs) flutter desirable properties.
Niljon indicated that the three whips were not each tuned for a different band but were designed instead to increase the overall bandwidths in all off the receive bands.
I was told that gain is inherent in the bands where element length is over 1/4 wave length and because the usual vertically polarized pattern in every band (incl. 150 MHz where element length is 1/4 wave) is adjusted/increased in gain by sloping the elements with the resultant beneficial interactive characteristics. Also resulting from this slope is an effective secondary pattern, in this case dual polarized and 'skyward-bound' (each sloped element acting in conjunction with the other side of the ground plane).
As a result, Niljon has designed a short antenna allowing optimum top-of-vehicle-roof mounting, if desired, and travel beneath underpasses with greater vertically polarized gain near the horizon and a more steady signal going in and out of valleys (also in satellite communications) due to the adjunctive dual polarized (inherent flip-flop of polarization of reflected/refracted signals and circularly polarized satellite signals at issue) upward pattern.
Niljon states that further investigation shows that via interactive principles, omni-directional pattern and proper impedance are achieved/maintained with good SWR, which varies less than with most designs with ground plane changes.
Lastly, picket-fencing/flutter in this no-lossy-coil design is reduced also in that if one element is in a null spot, another is in a hot spot.
One of the original considerations in developing the SUPER-M was to make a high performing, low-height antenna so that it may be mounted on the roof-top of the vehicle (the best position). However, if that is not possible, it has a history of "outperforming the others" on other mounting locations as well; even on a window frame of a jeep which is simply essentially a rod of metal (the SUPER-M is less ground plane-dependent).
Certainly, Niljon stated that when a trunk mounted competitor was quite long with the tip well above the roof line, that competitor occasionally had an edge depending on terrain and azimuth direction of the station but still, with the SUPER-M's ability to reduce flutter/nulls and "grasp" signals in a dual-polarized / dual-pattern method, the SUPER-M was still the overall leader.
And before I forget, the SUPER-M was also designed to be used as a government/commercial-business/ham transceiving antenna. To this end, the SUPER-M is capable of transmitting in the 140-170, 200-225 and 400-480 MHz ranges without the need to tune (low SWR) while handling up to 200 watts!
The SUPER-M has been patented ("Dual-Polarized (Tri-Element) (SUPER-M) Antenna") so if you're into reviewing filed patent material at various patent web sites, stay tuned for it should be showing up soon.
VHF/UHF Performance
Now, the moment everyone has been waiting for! Is the suspense killing your or
what? I'll bet Dr. Nilsson is on the edge of his seat! Or maybe not...
It was now time to see just how well the Niljon held up against RadioShack's popular 20-023 magnet mount all-band scanner antenna. And to make the results even more useful I also took readings using a Watson W889 which was fully extended and always positioned vertically for each measurement.
I then tuned to a number of signals between 42 and 938 MHz using a Yupiteru MVT-9000 MkII, taking S-meter readings for each received signal. Listed in the table below is simply the number of bars read off the S-meter. The more bars, the strong the signal, the better the antenna. A value of '0' represents an open squelch but no S-meter bar reading while a '-' means there was no signal received at all.
| Freq | W889 | 20-032 | SUPER-M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 42.6000 | - | 10 | 7 |
| 88.9000 | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| 100.7000 | 10 | 3 | 10 |
| 105.1000 | 0 | - | 3 |
| 120.1000 | 2 | 4 | 9 |
| 123.8000 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| 127.4500 | 6 | 6 | 10 |
| 132.3500 | 7 | 7 | 10 |
| 152.3600 | 4 | 2 | 8 |
| 155.5200 | 4 | 7 | 6 |
| 158.8350 | 3 | 5 | 3 |
| 162.5500 | 7 | 9 | 10 |
| 256.9000 | 2 | 4 | 10 |
| 452.1500 | 7 | 2 | 6 |
| 453.2750 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 851.3375 | 7 | 6 | 9 |
| 855.7625 | 4 | 10 | 7 |
| 864.3625 | 2 | 6 | 4 |
| 868.4625 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| 936.2750 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 938.1875 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
If we treat the bar readings like scores and add up the points for each column we see that the W889 was in third place with 77 points, the 20-032 came in second with 97 while the SUPER-M definitely outclassed both by registering 140!
Looking at the individual results, the SUPER-M does very well on VHF-lo considering its diminutive size! It's also quit hot on FM broadcast (just in case you were thinking about junking the factory radio antenna that came with your car). VHF aero is another strong band for the SUPER-M but by the time we get up to VHF-hi it is definitely not as "hot" of a performer. The SUPER-M picks up UHF quite well and even 800 MHz is quite respectable.
So not only does the SUPER-M look out of this world, so are its reception results!
One small note before I continue: The RadioShack 20-032 used in this review was almost new (the SUPER-M had definitely seen a lot more nasty weather and wear-n-tear) and the 20-032 had NOT been tweaked to perform better on any of its coverage bands.
Summary
What can we say? The Niljon SUPER-M is as good of a performer as it is
unique and revolutionary in design. The results speak for themselves and the
SUPER-M has certainly held up well to 25,000 or so Interstate miles. And let's
not forget how largely inconspicuous it is. Put on top of a large truck or SUV,
we're sure it would go unnoticed by 99% of the vehicular public.
While Niljon does not sell direct, their models are now available through a number of dealers including Scanners Unlimited, Universal Radio, Grove Enterprises, NOARD and DWPC. Each dealer will carry their own set of mounting options which should present buyers with a number of combinations, one of which is sure to meet their needs.
Given its stellar performance, the SUPER-M will become the benchmark to which all other manufacturer models will be held to in our shack. It has certainly earned a place of respect on the rear deck of my vehicle!
Recommendations
I can honestly say that I simply do not have a lot of experience with mobile
antennas. Besides the SUPER-M and 20-032 tested here, I have used CB antennas
as well as other handheld models mounted in a variety of styles inside a
vehicle. What I don't have is experience with the well known models from makers
like Antenna Specialists, MAXRAD and Valor. But I hope to remedy this in the
near future.
For now, I can only attest to how well the SUPER-M performs against RadioShack's best mobile, which is largely held in high regard, and a very good handheld model. Given what I have read about the 20-032 compared to the rest of the competition and how the SUPER-M tested against it, I'm pretty confident that the Niljon SUPER-M will more than hold its own against the rest of the industry.
Keep in mind that the SUPER-M is also now available as a base antenna. Think of a SUPER-M with a set of horizontal, ground plane radials and you get the picture. Niljon is also planning and currently rolling out additional antennas for the 2.4 GHz wireless LAN, FM Broadcast and TV/Digital TV markets. One special item of interest is the new 800-1000 MHz models which are targeted at trunking aficionados!
If you are interested in obtaining more information about this or other Niljon models, the latest dealer listing or customer testimonials, please stop by the Niljon web site.
| Copyright © 2010 by Richard J. Wells |
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