Review – Antennas-Amplifiers.com
antennas in the garage
antennas in the garageAfter some bad experiences with both Flexa yagis (bad/weak construction for heavy duty use, broke antennas after 6 months) and VPA-Systems (half years delivery time, booms damaged, parts missing) i searched the internet in order to find a nice honest manufactorer of heavy duty antennas for amateur use. I tried both EA-Antennas and G0KSC before with both good and mixed results. But for both of them the theme met my demands with heavy duty dimensioned booms and parts.
This time i browsed to Antennas-amplifiers.com, owned by YU1CF.
I send him some inquiry with my thoughts, not expecting any answer right away.
Few hours later i had his answer and he’s calculated plots and expected gains for the solution he recommended for my tower.
I ordered and payed with paypal. Same day i got the confirmation and his (honest) expected time of delivery. Offcourse manufactoring an order like mine was not some stock delivery goods, so he needed some time for producing. I had updates all the way.
By mistake i ordered the wrong type of antenna but Goran changed to rear-mount without any problems.
10-14 days after i got the mail from PostNord. They wanted me to pay customs fee.
They mixed up everything and demanded me to pay half the price from Gorans invoice in fees extra. No way – not gonna happen. then i e-mailed Goran, and few hours later i had the original invoice to forward to customs. Total they wasted 20 days with this.
I can just say Goran keeped his word all the time and allways replied my emails.
Not he’s fault the Danish postal service has become worse lately.
I picked up each element, numbered and labeled from floor to my mounting table.
Very easy done. The 2m dipoles where made from copper. Nice detail, and the choke baluns also included, ready-to-mount.
My plan was to get the antennas mounted during the summer, but since i had to wait for customs i waited about one month extra before actually unpacking the nice sealed tube containing the antennas. Very solid solution for protecting the booms and elements.
As allways, the challenge is the total lenght of goods, but since i ordered short antennas, i had no worries.
I ordered 6×5 element 2m yagis and 1 combi 4/6m yagi with 3elm @6m and 4elm@4m.
Based on my experience with other suppliers, i worried if all screws and stuff where inside the package. But I was completely wrong here, everything was as expected + few extra screws for the big yagi. Everything was pre-assembled and labeled with numbers for each antenna and element. Everything goes to the right place and side of boom. Dipoles and chokes/baluns where sealed as well. Easy to mount. In about one and half hour i have assembled 6 yagis plus the 4/6m yagi. Impressive !
Time for testing the 2m stack :
We mounted the upper yagi in about 35m above ground and set the stacking distance to 190cm each, leaving the lower yagi in about 25m above ground fixed direction to Ruhr district/Holland.
The 6-way-splitter i ordered to connect the antenna stack, was made in superior quality.
I made the connections with RF400UF low loss coax and N type crimp plugs. First impression after connecting the 7/8 heliax feeder was great, S.W.R 1:1 lower band as expected.
Test made with 5w drive only, using FT8 from the ic-7100 showed the pattern very clear of the antenna stack.
Test made with 5w drive only, using FT8 from the ic-7100
showed the pattern very clear of the antenna stack.
NAC September test, SM/SP/OK worked from 4x8elm, DL/PA/G worked from 6x5elm 1KW
I tested in the following NAC tuesday contest with 1kw power, and i worked 20-25 qso’s more than usual, making the two antenna systems switchable (between 4×8 on top and the 6×5 stack). A very wide beam pattern vs the narrow point to point from the 4×8.
Very quiet system, giving me approx 16dBd gain fixed direction and a nice pattern.
Compared to the 4×8 system, offcourse the gain is little less working the ODX, but for wide pattern cq, the new stack meets the requirements in a contest with low angle.
All in all i want to recommend Goran’s service to others.
From oct 25. 2018, 24 hour RX from the antennas to sdr dongle and PSK Repporter :
A few +1200km french stations and one italian station 1800km+ heard. 
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| DB3GI | 2m | FT8 | 391 km | 04:58:30 |
| PH0TV | 2m | FT8 | 494 km | 04:01:45 |
| PD7RON | 2m | FT8 | 505 km | 22:37:30 |
| ON8KW | 2m | FT8 | 690 km | 22:31:45 |
| DF9QT | 2m | FT8 | 637 km | 22:30:30 |
| F8DBF | 2m | FT8 | 1290 km | 22:22:15 |
| GU6EFB | 2m | FT8 | 1103 km | 22:07:15 |