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| Reviews Summary for Sommer XP Series multiband beams |
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write your own review of the Sommer XP Series multiband beams.
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VK6XH
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 15, 2008 06:13
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A great all- rounder
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Our club VK6ANC, bought a 2nd hand XP808 about three years ago and myself and VK6YEL spent a lot of time refurbishing it as it had been in storage at 2-3 locations before we acquired it.
With help from Neil VK6NE who has an XP 807 at his home QTH we ordered the missing/damaged parts from Charlotte. All arrived and the result can be seen at our club website www.ncrg.org.au
We also have a TH6DXX at approx the same height and the Sommer just has the edge on the 10,15,20 mtr bands but of course it has the advantage of the WARC bands. 40 mtrs has never worked for us on this antenna despite many attempts to tune it in and 30 mtrs has always been around 2:1. We didnt put the 6mtr element on as we already have a 6 ele beam above it on the tower.
Overall it has proved to be a great contest/dx antenna for us and we would happily recommend it to anyone needing the same type of coverage, and the service is excellent.
73 Keith VK6XH
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KB5OZE
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 31, 2007 15:55
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Excellent Antenna
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I have had this antenna up for a little over a year and it is an exellent performer. It has survived multiple severe thunderstorms with no problems.
Definately a winner!
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K5ZR
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 12, 2005 16:47
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Very Good Performer
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I’ve had the XP-808 for several years now. It’s large, 13 elements on a 26 ft. boom, and weighs around 110 lbs. It takes up most of the real estate on my tower, so it needs to be versatile and it is. It covers 40 through 6 meters, with SWR under 2:1 throughout all bands except 30m where SWR is around 2.4:1. It was not exactly plug and play-- took a lot of trips up the tower for the initial tuning, but it turned out well. It has been a very respectable performer on 20 through 10 meters, and surprisingly effective on 40m, 30m and 6m where it’s even more of a compromise. Over the years I’ve had a number of wires, verticals, and tribanders (Moseley, TET, Telrex TB6EM, KT34XA), and just before the XP-808, two excellent Force 12 monobanders, for 20 (4 el) and 15 (6 el).
After a couple of years experience with the 808, out of curiosity I put up a 17m 4 el. monobander (F12, EF-417) for comparison on that band. The playing field was not level – the 417 was at a fixed height about 24 feet above ground, on a pipe mast about one foot above the chimney, whereas the 808 was about 45 feet up on a crankup tower. SWR on both antennas was in the 1.4:1 area. Observation through my receiver showed the 417 to have a noticeably sharper pattern (front-to-rear, front-to-side) but otherwise performance on receive was close, with the 808 having an edge as the quieter antenna even though its less-sharp pattern presumably allowed more competing noise.
Personally, I prefer the ability to hear more around me afforded by the pattern of the 808. I’m not an avid contester, and my dxing is starting to move downscale from avid to casual. I would also like as much forward gain as is reasonably obtainable (wouldn’t we all?), but I understand that gain is closely related to an antenna’s directivity pattern (as well as to losses in the antenna). In QSOs from Texas with stations in the Indian Ocean and Europe the transmit performance of the two antennas was about the same, as evidenced by reports from FR5xx (“exactly the same”), GI0xxx (“no real difference”), EA1xx (almost the same, 808 perhaps slightly better), and ON7xx (“not much difference,” although the 417 seemed slightly better). The tighter pattern of the 417 would suggest that it has more gain, perhaps serving to overcome its height disadvantage in this case. This exercise proves nothing really, but gave me the comfort I was looking for that the 808 was hearing OK, and I concluded that on 17 it could at least get into the ballpark with a 4 el. monobander.
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9Y4BK
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 11, 2005 20:12
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Great Performance
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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As promised, this is an update on my Sommer XP-506. Previously, the only HF antenna I owned was a centre-fed dipole with the apex at 35 feet above the ground, which provided loads of fun; or so I thought. But since, I assembled the XP-506 multiband beam antenna and mounted it on my 51 foot Tashjian W-51 crank up tower; it has added another dimension to my DX fun. Performance on 10, 12, 15, 17 and 20 is exceptionally good and because of the signal received by stations I worked in ZL, ZS, VK, 5B, ZK, LX; most of them enquired about the antenna system I used. These are stations I would hardly hear on my dipole, but now I hear them with a solid 57 to 59+. It seems to me that the Sommer XP series antenna is particularly good for working distant countries on the other side of the world. As an example, several VKs, ZKs, ZLs, TIs & BSs reported receiving signals of 30db+; at the least, two reported receiving signals of 40db+ coming off my XP-506; and I am happy about it. I have not been very active on 6 meters, but for the few contacts I made on this band, when compared with my centre-fed dipole, the performance is awesome. I would have liked to own the Sommer XP-706 instead, but I settled for the XP-506 because of space restrictions. The Sommer XP series are great antennas and I highly recommend them.
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W7SWB
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 25, 2004 20:54
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Excellant antenna
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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In Sept 2003 I acquired a used sommer xp-504. It is a very early 504. It was originally purchased in 1987. Instead of 10-12-15-20 meter coverage as today's 504 , it is 10-15-20-40. The antenna came from a very wet climate, (western washington), but I was amazed at it's excellant condition. Someone else disassembled it , so that gave me a bit of uneasiness. It came with the original instructions. Basically all I did was assemble per the instructions . I did replace the hose clamps used on the elements. It's quality of construction is top notch. 16 years in western washington was hard on the clamps, but everything else was in excellant shape. The clamps would have been ok if the antenna had not been disassembled. I have used a 2 el quad for a number of years with excellant performance, but was frequently having to do quad maintenance because of wind damage. The XP-504 performs as good if not better than the quad. The quad is known for it's excellant bandwidth, but the sommer beam has better swr bandwidth. 14.0 mhz=1.15:1 - 14.35 mhz=1.6:1. Similar results on the other bands, except 40m. My installation is only at 40 ft, the same height as the quad. Even though the quad is known for its performance at low heights, this beam works very well at 40 ft also. Results on DX have been very good. On 100W have had little trouble working every thing I hear. Even do well in the pile-ups with an amp and about 600W. Have had some 75 mph winds with no ill effects. The only down side of this antenna is the 40 meter performance, narrow bandwidth and my inverted vee performs better. Looking forward to 16 more years of service from this antenna.
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K4KK
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Rating: 3/5
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Jan 26, 2004 06:18
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XP807
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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The antenna works quite well on 20, 17, 15, and 10. It is adequate on 12. The 30 mtr response is limited but tolerable. There isn't a whole lot of reason to chase DX there anyway. However, the 40 mtr action is horrible. It simply is no good. It is money that I would have preferred to have saved and put into a wire antenna. I would have a better antenna and still have a few $$ in my pocket. The bottom line: It is a decent (perhaps even very good) antenna for 20 thru 10 including WARC bands. It is a reasonable solution for 30 meters/10MHz. It is a horrid solution for 40 meters/7MHz. DO NOT PURCHASE THE 40 meter option. Save your time/money/energy. It simply doesn't work. Nothing can help it. I tried calling repeatedly when it was new but there just is no solution. It is a pig.
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K8ZT
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 13, 2004 21:34
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XP-508
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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From the moment I opened the box,the high quality of construction was very evident as was the weight. Using a "double rail" construction for the boom provides great strengh and keeps elements in the same plane. Performance on 10, 12,15,17 and 20 has been great. I have worked over 200 different countries with this beam exclusively using QRP(power output 4 watts on both CW & SSB)in the 3 years I have had antenna up. 15 & 17 meters have been exceptionally good. 40M & 30 M were usually well below my HF-2-V, so I use them infrequently. 6M was about average to sightly below a 5 element monobander. Antenna was mount at 50' using Glen Martin tower with Hazer unit. The hazer has proved to be very helpful as weight of antenna would have made for slightly difficult installation using typical gin pole. If you buy a Sommer Beam you will not be dissapointed.
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NU5O
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 27, 2003 16:00
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Built strong/Works great!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I purchased my XP-508 from Alf Sommer in April, 2003 and took delivery the next month. This is a custom antenna and each one receives custom attention. My decision to purchase this antenna developed over a four year period. I first met Alf and his lovely wife at the Dayton Hamfest. I was intrigued by the construction of the antenna and the LACK of hype coming from the manufacturer.
My antenna is side mounted at 80 feet on a Rohn 100 foot SSV self supporting tower. I use the TicRing Rotor and highly recommend it, too. My antenna mounting height is driven by local terrain and housing issues and by windload issues with my tower.
It took me 3 weeks of intermittent work to assemble the antenna. This is not the antenna's fault but mine. Its hot and I don't like heat or mosquitoes so my time was limited each day. During assembly, I was puzzled by several things-all of which were resolved when I sat down and reread the assembly instructions. I did add some 10-32 stainless screws to the clamps for the 40 meter coil to stablize it. I drilled through the clamp piece and element tubing on each element and was quite pleased with the result. I also used lock-tite or thread-lock on all the hardware.
After assembling everything and semi-tightening it, I came back a day later and went over everything again.
Tuning. This was a problem for me. I used my MFJ antenna bridge to tune it and everything was out of whack. Man was I disappointed. After a few emails/calls to Alf, I discovered, I had mismeasured the element distances. This cleared a lot of it up. Then I went from a 6 foot ladder to a 14 foot ladder as a test platform to adjust the elements. This helped immensely, but I found after installation that I was still off on frequency on 40, 15, and 6 meters. One trip back down the tower and 10 minutes of adjustments put everything straight.
I also made a set of test cables that were very helpful out of RG213. I cut one cable for 1 wavelength on 10 meters (figuring velocity factor) and then cut some more to make it work out the same for each ham band below 10 meters. This allowed me to approximate the antenna multiples of a 1/2 wavelength on each band. There was a difference on the MFJ analyzer between a random piece and a 1/2 wave multiple. It was worth the effort to do this.
SWR is great on all bands except 40 meters which is still lesss than 2:1 over 100khz of band but higher than I like.
How does it play? My previous antennas have been: Hygain 204BA, KT34XA, CL3, TA33, and my old favorite: TET 5 el tribander. I will take the Sommer over all of these even with the low sunspots. I know this is subjective, but here is what I notice:
1. Excellent improvement of signal over my Carolina Windom or Alpha/Delta sloper (as it should be).
2. Excellent front/side (5-6 S units on my Icom ProII)and excellent front/back (4/5 S units) on nearby (500 miles) and distant (1500 miles plus)stations.
3. It's broadband.
4. Even on 40 meters, it has some, but not much, front to side and front to back ratio.
5. It is built like a battleship.
6. Alf's support is tremendous. Pay attention to the instructions and LISTEN to what he says.
First Sunday morning, I had it up, I worked two VK stations, one that only NET control and I could hear and another on 20 meters that flatly stated my barefoot signal was the strongest on the band. Of course propagation plays into that but I still get the feeling its not all propagation. There is a definite difference in take off angle from my other two antennas. The first Aussie, I worked, I could not even hear on my Windom or Sloper.
One item that bothers me is the amount of line noise I heard. This may not be an antenna issue because the Memphis, TN area just suffered an extreme series of thunderstorms with straight line winds of up to 100 mph that did significant damage to our powerlines, homes, trees, etc. My sloper hears the noise too.
I would definitely buy another one of these antennas and am very well pleased with it in every respect. It is a monster to put together and hang, but well worth the effort.
73 de Andy NU5O/P29AM
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K1JD
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Rating: 5/5
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Dec 6, 2002 12:46
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XP-506
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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This antenna design is not a Yagi but rather an innovative and very capable design that is built like a battleship. Mine went up on 9 Nov 2002 and its performance has been extraordinary even though the crankup tower's been nested to ~35' due to a lot of strong wind here in the NE. On 15, 12 and 10m, stations I can't even hear on my G5RV are an easy copy and workable.
Initially thought that the assembly instructions were somewhat lacking, but it's all there. Taking the time to study the parts (shipped in 3 boxes) and reading the assembly instructions all the way through helped a lot.
6m performance is very surprising - The pattern is excellent and SWR hits 1:1 right at 50.1 MHz!
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WA4IRE
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 12, 2002 23:59
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XP507
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Just a quick update to my earlier review. I have worked 240 DXCC countries to date with my XP-507 at a height of 50 feet. Most of these DX contacts have been made with 200 watts or less. I have made around 1000 DX contacts with this antenna. It works extremely well. If you are looking for a well designed antenna consider the Sommer antenna.
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