I was dubious at first but bought one recently as the price dropped even further on AliExpress. I brought it on top of OK/OL-022.
It worked well. This was my setup:
Fully extended whip (obviously)
4 radials (the flat cable can be split) on the ground
KX2 @ 10W + internal ATU
It was a late activation but easily made contacts on 30m, 20m and 10m, with 2 DX on 10m.
My takeaways:
Advantages
Cheap
Quick to setup
Lighter than a fishing pole + dipole/EFHW.
Small overall footprint (10m radius circle) if using supplied radials
Vertical, better for DX
Rated 300W
Spare parts available
Downsides
Need fumbling to tune manually if not using a tuner
Whip is probably quite fragile
Need soft-ish soil
Heavy PL-259 connector
Poor performer on anything below 20m
For those who own this antenna, what are your impressions, your recommendations (e.g radial configuration)?
A few pictures from the activation below.
PS: yes, I know home brew is cheaper and more satisfying
I’m considering making/buying a coil for 40 and 30m. Not sure yet how worse it would be to put that coil straight on the feed point instead of a few decimeters above with one “extension” shaft.
I use it with the PAC12 coil and you can easily find the tuning at 40m with the entire whip extended by looking for the point of greatest noise/reception on the coil. You can use almost the entire whip in 10m with the help of the coil in the same way looking for more noise like a 1/2 wave. It is a great portable antenna, effective, small, simple and quick to assemble
I also bought this antenna but not yet tried it, but I am confident. On 20 m it should work well. You confirm that on the higher bands you need a tuner, easier than shortening the stylus because it is rather stiff.
A curiosity Rémy @F4LEK.
What system do you use to mark the different resonance points (10,12,15,17,20m respectively) of the stainless steel telescopic whip?
A piece of string with knots tied in it at 20, 17,15, 12 & 10m positions. String attaches to base of telescopic antenna, extend antenna to knot. Fine adjust as needed.
Edit: the problem with the string and knots is the height. You cannot reach. Therefore the antenna has to be unscrewed to “measure” it on the ground everytime you want to change band. Not very practical.
Also possible to just count the number of unfolded sections and remember it or write it down. Fine tune with swr meter if needed.
I have several prototypes to give away for postage cost only. This is a proven 60-10 antenna that weighs around 0.5 kg. and can be set up in a minute. JS6TMW
How is the durability of that coil ? Radio gear in my backpack is not having an easy life. I’m afraid such a coil with “exposed” wires would not survive.
What about a coil directly wrapped around the pipe in different portions with a banana clip between them ? Many commercial versions are designed like this.
It’s not as fine tunable as the crocodile clip method but maybe good enough ? I saw you tried some of those.
I built this coil, and it’s almost indestructible. I wound the coil section for the 2.5m whip directly on the tube, and the rest as in Steve’s article. Also put the choke onto a small Fair-rite toroid into the tube. Makes a very compact and neat setup, even quite a bit of pressure in the backpack will not have much impact. With the clip you can finely tune down to about 1.2 SWR. Coil losses are minimised by the copper - the commercial coils are typically steel with a noticeable resistance / loss.
