Didn’t work well at first.. BUT THEN!!

I had a problem with too high of SWR when I first installed my Alpha Sky Antenna, plus it I felt as though it just wasn’t pulling in the signals as strongly as I’d thought it should. After a couple of weeks of tinkering with my setup, I decided that I was going to return the antenna. Before doing so, I wanted to hear if the folks at Alpha Antenna any ideas had as to what might improve my situation. I left a message on their technical support line; pretty cool that there is a technical support line for any antenna manufacturer of amateur radio equipment in this day and age. I received a call back in less than an hour from none other than the Owner of Alpha Antenna, who said that he tries to perform all of the support work so that he gets direct customer feedback on ways to improve their antenna systems. I was impressed! I described my installation, which is a simple radio shack tripod on top of my roof and then the Alpha Sky mounted to the top of it. Steve, who is the owner of Alpha Antenna, quickly pointed out that anyone who uses the Alpha Sky Antenna as a base system for satellite will need a reflective surface below it. Well, I had already read that this would be the case, and I realized I just didn’t follow through with the instructions. Steve was kind and said any old metal would do, it didn’t matter if it were square or round, as long as it is 8 inches or over. So, I moved my antenna, which comes with a mag-mount base, to the top of my metal storage shed. I wish I would have thought of doing that before hauling it to the top of my roof, because it was so much easier to mount it on my shed than on top of my house! Well, now my SWR is 1.4:1 or less and I hear all of the satellites 100%, from 8 degrees off the horizon. Plus, I am now hitting repeaters 30 to 40 miles out! I wanted to try this on my truck next, so I put it on top of the cab, and got the same results as I did on my shed! I’ll not give this antenna up…ever! What a great American Company, with wonderful support and an excellent product! As a result of this experience, I just bought the Alpha ProMaster Antenna for my HF operations and will write a review on it as soon as I have more time.