Hi;
I believe cushcraft came out with an r6 to replace the r5. At the last
time I checked they had a r9 which replaced the r8. I had an r8 and as
verticals go I loved it. There was decent band width and rather low
noise. Just one problem, I couldn't keep the thing up. Definitely
needs some ropes to hold it. My last one died when we had an ice storm
here in October 2006. They sell a gui rope kit which I'm not certain
I'd recommend. Its basically four metal stakes and some rope. Didn't
help much when the antenna was on the roof of a two story house. Also
as full sized verticals go the r8 was a heavy vertical so you needed a
number of folks to raise it. Wish I had another just to see if the
noise would be as low as it was at my prior qth.
--
richard