WHY THE Wilson "500" PERFORMS BETTER

The Wilson 500’s higher gain performance for an economical antenna is the result of several design modifications to the famous Wilson 1000. Using the basic design of the W-1000, Wilson is able to produce a mid priced magnetic antenna with great performance characteristics. This produced the most powerful CB base loaded antenna available in its price range.

A large portion of the power that goes into a typical base loaded CB antenna is lost as heat in the coil and as dielectric heat loss in the plastic inside the coil form. Many CB antennas lose more than 50% of the power put into them. The power is wasted as heat loss and not radiated as radio waves. Another weak link in other CB antennas is the capacitor used to match the coax to the antenna, which is a cheap and easy way to make the SWR look good, but has lots of power loss, plus blows out when high power is applied to it.

Wilson’s first priority was to reduce the dielectric loss by removing as much of the plastic inside the coil as possible. This was accomplished by suspending the coil in air, supported only at four small points, 90 degrees apart, in effect removing 95% of the plastic from the inside surface of the coil. This reduced the dielectric loss to a negligible amount.

The second priority was to get rid of the resistive heat losses in the coil. Since most of the RF energy at 27 MHz travels on the surface of the wire, it was decided to increase the surface area by making the diameter of the wire 12 gauge copper.

Finally, to get rid of the losses in the matching between the coax and the loading coil, the lossy capacitor was eliminated and a more difficult but more efficient means of coupling the antenna was used. A Scalar Network Analyzer was used to determine the very precise point to direct match the coil with the coax and obtain the best match with maximum power transfer. The combination of all these accumulated design points allows the W-500 to have a 2,000 watt power rating with a 20-25% increase in performance over the Little Wil.

So far you have read about why the Wilson 500 performs better, but the Wilson 500 is also a very rugged antenna. It is made with Thermoplastic. It costs a lot more, but it’s the best available. All of these are the reasons you get a 2-year warranty.
For the ultimate in performance and power handling see the Wilson 1000 or W-5000 Base Loaded Antennas.

*TEST RESULTS: Test by Dr. Dwight Heim, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan, shows that the Wilson 500 magnetic mount has 28% more power gain than the American K40 CB Antenna (on channel 40). This means that the Wilson 500 gives you 28% more gain on both transmit and receive, on channel 40.

ANTENNA POWER GAIN : the amount of improvement in power amplification over another antenna. The higher gain antenna will transmit & receive farther, but the actual distance will vary depending on the gain, ground terrain and other environmental factors. Individual test results may vary due to the vehicle's ground plane and matching configuration.