Sirio Starduster M400 10/11 Meter

I had one of these great antennas in California in 2012 for my Galaxy 2547 b ase station. Worked great, no tuning needed out of the box. I was fortunate to buy a house that had a 60' tower in place. Once mounted the Starduster was visible 2 miles away. Great DX and reception was clear and strong across the US.

Compared to the A-99, what one do you like best? I'm going to buy one of these, just need someone who tried both. Thanks Bill

Well, I don't know else to add to all of the positive comments already posted. All I can say is that it is an EXCELLENT GROUND PLANE ANTENNA. I have had one put up for years and it is still going strong. I ordered two from Copper the other day, just to have on hand. Those spares should do me the rest of my life.

FROM RADIOMAN 445,HAVE RUN THIS ANTENA FOR YEARS,EASY TO PUT TOGETHER,TRIED IT AT 36 FT AND WORK LOCAL AND DX WELL,WENT TO 50 FT,WOW DIDNT KNOW WHAT I WAS MISSING,EXCELLANT EARS(RECIEVE)AND MADE LOTS MORE CONTACTS(dx).HAVE TRIED MACO 5/8,PRETTY CLOSE COMPARISON,THE M400 HAS LESS WHITE NOISE I THINK,EXCELLANT SWRS 1.1,CANT GO WRONG WITH THIS ANTENA.

I ran this antenna for 3 years on my Amatuer radio station for 12 and 10 meters, As well as the Antena for the Propagation Beacon (Which is a Emperor ts 5010 purchased from copper back in 1994 and still works great-24x7 CW at 28.238 ) I was able to load it on 1 meters, made some decent contacts there, but of course that far down the band, It has its faults. the only negative I could say was the fact that the center "hub" the ground plane attached to needed to be "opened up" to fit in the 50 foot aluminum military mast kit I was using at the time. A little JBweld needed to be applied after that (oops!) We have some nasty thunderstorms rip through my QTH, I have a weather station with an alarm that sets off at 75 MPH, 5mph less than the reported survival rate of some of my most expensive VHF antennas, the Skylab took the worse that Storm could throw at it. Baseball size hail, torrents of rain and a max gust over 88 MPH in the midst of it all- I checked it out as soon as the storm was cleared off- SWR NEVER BUDGED! I highly suggest that you do two things: 1. ADD A "WEEP HOLE" at the Plastic inserts at the bottom of each ground radial, I take all my Antennas down every 6 months for Service- In the Fall when It cool and dry so I can be sure things are squared away for Wintertime weather and 10 meter Es, and 2- a LIBERAL coat of Liquid tape at each joint to seal out and rain or ice. Optional but it was a great help is a heavy coat of turtle wax on every metal part. It helps the antenna slough off the rain, and prevents corrosion (A MUST if you are within 50 miles of any salt water!) Overall - The Antenna was a good one, I went to a Antron 99 on a 55 foot crank up tower and ground radials (forget that ground plane kit-makes the antenna hard to load on other bands) Only becuase I needed that extra gain as NCS for the North Georgia Laryngitis net- we have a huge hunk of real estate to cover! the Skylab was given to one of the folks I helped get into Ham radio- Its working Great still!