Playing with the Outback 1899 Multiband Mobile Antenna

If you are - like I was - looking for a cheap solution to be hf-ready on the ham bands you may come across this antenna:

It's the Outback 1899. Designed for 80,40,20,15,10 and 6m. Power rated for 120 watt pep.
Sells for around 50 bucks. Great!

When I first bought the Outback, I only had a magnetic mount on the Jeep. At first sight the antenna was much too short, resonating always to high for the chosen bands, no matter which one. 

1st problem: Antenna length 

The top part of the antenna was too short to tune the antenna on the ham bands. Since this is not much of a deal I changed the top part to a slightly longer welding rod. The result: The SWR was ok on 10 to 20m, medium on 40m and crap on 80m. At this time I thought that could be a problem of the ground connection of the mag mount. 

Finally I managed to install an old Wilson antenna mount. Felt bad to drill a hole in my Jeep though. What must be, must be. 

I was optimistic that the SWR would be better now.

Let me share the results with you

All measurements made with the Rigexpert AA-55ZOOM

10m band

We have a nice SWR 1.13:1 in the 10m band but still below 2:1 on 28500. I consider this to be ok for me. 

15m band

1.16:1 on 21210 kHz and below 1.5:1 for the whole band. Great!

20m band

1.72:1 on 14175kHz, near 2:1 at the edges - usable but not great

40m band

2.1:1 at 7020kHz, not good. I have to use the tuner an the whole band.

80m band

just bad. bad. dips @2750kHz with 3.1:1. bad.

6m band

I don´t make use of the 6m band but for the sake of completeness, here comes the measurement

This doesn't even come close :(

Conclusion

I am sure that there are better pieces of the Outback 1899 around. At least my model doesn't work as promised by the manufacturer. The model of a friend works slightly better but far away from 1.5:1 on all bands. 

Since 6m and 80m bands are really out of tune (antenna too long) but the other bands are in tune, I suspect the coils to be incorrectly tune at the factory. For 50 bucks I still do like the antenna since I use 15m and 20m most of the time.