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You can
write your own review of the Hy-Gain 12AVQ.
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M3MQR
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Rating: 5/5
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May 15, 2011 05:11
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Great antenna
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I bought my Hy-Gain off Ebay for £60.00. It’s in fair condition with the expected weathering for its age. The manual states that it’s a ‘Telex Hy-Gain’ so I’m told its pre 1999 MFJ. The construction of the antenna is fairly strong and it has not encountered high winds as of yet. I have a postage stamp garden in a built up area so I decided to mount the antenna 5 meters on a pole. I have 6 thin wire elevated radials that run at 45 degree angles ‘that the XYL was not too impressed with’! I have constructed the tuned 6 radials as recommended in the Hy-Gain 12AVQ manual for roof top mounting and added an earth wire. I set the antenna to the markings set by the person who sold it to me, average SWR is around 1.5 on 15 and 20m. SWR on 10m is a little high at 2 so I will re-adjust this and set all for the CW part of the band. I was pleased to find that the noise levels were not too bad as I have been told that verticals can be noisy.
On air, 10m when open EA3 (CW) 599, 15M PY2 (CW) 599, Asiatic Russia (CW) 599. Lots of EU with good reports. I used an ATU to tune to 17m and worked VE so that was a nice surprise. This was in the first two hours of setting the antenna up. I hope to update this later on in the year and maybe extend the antenna up a few meters. You can see a picture of the antenna on my QRZ.COM page 73 M3MQR David
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G1MQQ
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Rating: 4/5
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Mar 13, 2011 07:33
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Great once set up
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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Amazing performance from such a small unobtrusive antenna, and it's reasonably priced. Mine is ground mounted. I've added a couple of radials but they don't seem to have any effect.
Instructions are not too good for the novice. "shorten the 10m adjustment one inch" etc. Fine if you have enough experience/knowledge to work out where the 10m adjustment is. To achieve one of the dimensions specified I had to attack the antenna with a hacksaw!
SWR on 20m and 10m is as claimed (about 1.2:1) but on 15m I cannot get it below 1.5:1 anywhere on the band (despite the hacksaw!)and at one end it's 2:1 but I can live with that.
On air performance is outstanding. Better than the 20m homebrew quad loop on my roof.
Behaviour in 30mph winds is frightening. I'm not convinced the traps will withstand much more, let alone 80mph as claimed! but it's very light and easy to dismount.
Despite the above negative comments in my location it's way ahead of the cushcraft MA5V (2 wrecked in the space of 3 years) or the Sandpiper MV on the three bands it's designed for.I wish I'd bought the quad band version.
It's my doubts about the claimed survivability and the quality of the instructions which stops me giving it 5
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AB0RE
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 4, 2011 23:31
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Love it!
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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Quite honestly the AV-12AVQ is not an antenna I think I'd normally consider purchasing (It's a sister-company of MFJ, it's a vertical, it's a "cheap" antenna, etc, etc). however, I ended up getting one for free from the estate of a silent key who lived a couple blocks away. I thought I'd give it a whirl at Field Day and November sweepstakes this year to see how it did.
I mounted the Hy-Gain AV-12AVQ on a 17' mast with two tuned radials per band, made from #12 stranded THHN wire. The radials have a short run of black dacron rope on the ends of them which, in turn, are staked in the ground using tent stakes. The radials are mounted at approximately a 45 degree angle. I used the assembly dimensions for "roof mount" and "CW", and it provided a good SWR (<1.5:1) across the CW and voice portions of the CW and voice portions of the 10/15/20M band.
How's it play? It seems to usually be on-par with my roof-mounted multi-band dipole, and sometimes has the edge of an extra S-unit or so over the dipole, more than likely because the dipole is a bit directional.
So why bother with the AV-12AVQ? Well, first of all, it is a *resonant* antenna. In a contest environment it brings much delight to spin the dial, find the station, and hit the PTT button. No fiddling with the tuner is necessary! For a new ham who wants to get his feet wet on 10/15/20M the AV-12AVQ would make things much less expensive to get set up and provide much more operating enjoyment than a non-resonant antenna ran through a tuner (and it'd likely perform better as well).
Secondly, the extra S-unit here and there can make the difference between working the station and not being able to get the job done.
Third, the AV-12AVQ is not an expensive antenna. One can get an AV-12AVQ new for $140, which is not bad at all. Sure, it's probably not in the same class as the Butternut or DX-Engineering vertical, but it's construction is not at all bad and the antenna should last many, many years.
Overall I'd say the AV-12AVQ would be a great antenna to add to your antenna collection. Remember if it is ground-mounted to use a bunch of radials and not just run a ground connection to a ground rod like the manual suggests - if you install it with no radials the ground will suck up a lot of your signal and you'll never know what you've been missing.
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LA5LIA
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Rating: 4/5
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Jun 20, 2010 11:08
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Good value for money
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Bought one at the webshop here in Norway. When it arrived, the plastic spacer at the base of the antenna was cracked. Not possible to tell if it was due to manhandelig in the mail or by tighening of the screws at the factory. Got the part replaced with a new one.
The Clamps supplied is just not up to the job! I broke 3 of them before I even got close to fitting the sections with enough toruque to prevent slipping. I bougt new one at my local hardware store, And they where mutch better.
So I put the 12AVQ up on my garage metal roof. At first I tried it on a 4 Meter aluminium rod with radials. It looked like a christmas tree and I could not get good SWR on 10 and 15 meters. Anyway, I could not just leave it up there as ugly as could be. Did not try any adjustments.
I decided to take it down and changed the length dimensions from roof mount to ground mount. I went over the entire roof whit self drilling screws to make shure that I had an electrical connection between all the metal plates. I also included a giant steel boom that support the upper wheels for the sliding garage doors. It was a BIG peace of steel so I thought It would be a good idea to include it.
Then I hammered down a 1.5 meter long copper spear and connected the whole metal roof to ground.
I put the antenna at one end at the top of the roof using a short metal pipe.
No radials. Just a 10 cm short groud wire onto the roof wit a self-drilling screw.
Went inside my shck to test it. Heard a G7 station on 20 meter with 59 signal. Gave him a call and got 59 back.
Promising result!
When checking the SWR I found it 1:1 on the whole 20 meter band. 1.1:1 on 15 and 1.3:1 on 10.
WOW ! Must be something wrong. I have read on the net that the 1/4 wave antenna is incapable of such low SWR over the whole band.
Well. I decided to let it run like that for a while and see what reports I get.
I also have i Dipole antenna to compare performance with.
I worked Japan with 100W and got 55 on the 12AVQ and 53 with the dipole.
Other times I work stations with the oposite result. I guess it`s depending on the conditions.
In general I get the best report on my 12AVQ.
Satisfied customer here!
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IK0FUX
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 31, 2008 03:28
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Great buy and performer!
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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Hello dear collegues; i am using this vertical antenna from 6 months, orderer directly to Hy Gain USA. Very easy to install on the roof of my new location with radials at more or less 45 degrees. Following the instructions the 3 cw bands are perfect as SWR and also as results (also VP6DX on 15 meters, pacific on 20 meters).
Really a nice 10-15-20 meters vertical antenna!
73 de IK0FUX Francesco
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KB3ONA
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 19, 2008 19:43
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Outstanding Value
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I recently moved from a large semi-rural property in Pennsylvania to a smaller property in Arizona that has a HOA. Back east I had a GAP Titan which performed really well, but when I moved to my current home the Titan was out of the question due to the usual restrictions associated with HOA's. After some research I decided to get the 12 AVQ since it would be relatively low-key with it's slender profile at only 12' tall. I thought the performance probably wouldn't be half as good as the Titan due to it's size and the fact that I would have to ground mount it so it wouldn't be in the clear. The antenna arrived and was very easy to assemble and tune. I ground mounted it about a foot off the ground and attached (16) 14' radials. Yesterday was the first day I tried it and was extremely surprised to get 5-9 reports from Minnesota and Nebraska on 20m. Today I had more time on the air and logged about 50 QSO's from just about every state on 20m and 15m. I received most @ 5-7 to 5-9, and the operators on the other end were giving me similar reports. Even though I've only been using the 12 AVQ for two days, I am extremely impressed. I thought for sure the performance would be marginal due to it's small size and the poor soil in Arizona, but with a few radials this antenna seems to be outperforming my old Titan that was over good soil mounted 10' above my roof in the clear. For the price of about about buck thirty this antenna is a really outstanding value.
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NK8A
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 1, 2008 11:26
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Fine vertical antenna
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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The 12 AVQ for me was simple to assemble and the instructions were easy to follow.I used my trusty MFJ 259B to tune the antenna, that I installed on my chimmney on my short roof. I have had good results on CW, which is mainly the mode that I use. For the price of the 12 AVQ I think it is a very good antenna, if you only need basic coverage on 10-15 -20 meters like I do.
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VK2IMM
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Rating: 5/5
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Oct 23, 2006 20:30
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Good simple antenna
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Although I have built several vertical antennas over the years this is my first commercially made vertical. I needed something simple for high HF bands I could install at my temporally QTH. I generally opt for the verticals using elevated radials and I was looking for a reasonably light antenna and simple which I could mount high enough and which would not have too much compromise in the performance.
This antenna seems to offer what I was after. It uses traps but it is still 80% of the length of a full size 1/4 wave on 20 meters. In my configuration this antenna is installed on a 3 m high mast above the roof. It uses 8 resonant radials (four for 20 m and two for 15 and 10 m bands each). The radials are sloping at the angle close to 45 degrees. With such dimensions it fits well on a roof of a regular size house so the base of the antenna is about 7 M above ground level.
Both, radials and the antenna may require some tuning as the linier dimensions in the book were on the short side for the CW part of the band for the active element on 10 and 15 M and for the 10 M band radials. It can be specific for any installation.
The interesting point for me was to compare this antenna with my other larger vertical. That one is an elevated design 7.8 M vertical element with 3 radials with the base about 2 M above the ground. It is about 3/8 lambda on 20 M and close to 1/2 lambda on 15 M. Although the feed point of this one was lower, the tips of both antennas were roughly at the same hight 10-11 m. The result of this comparison was rather interesting (I compared RX only). The larger vertical clearly had more noise on 20 M band and as a result it was losing in performance to the smaller one on the roof. On 15 M band both verticals were rather close on RX although the larger one was just a fraction better in some cases depending on the time of the openings. These reading have been taken for the stations at 7000-12000 km distance (W6 to ZL and VK). On TX both antennas worked fine and I could work most of those stations with 100W if I could hear them.
Based on these measurements I left the Hy-Gain vertical as the main antenna for high HF bands as it seemed to offer good efficiency for DX operation. There is some useful reading on the web authored by L.B. Cebik, W4RNL in the article where a model of a 1/4 wave elevated vertical mounted at different hight and with radial at different angles has been compared with an elevated 5/8 wave length design. Although not the 5/8 lambda in my case the larger antenna seemed to pick up noise coming at the higher angle while the smaller high mounted 1/4 was not doing that, simply offering good reading of DX signals coming on low angle. I probably would not mount that antenna on the ground on the back yard expecting to get the same result however the small size and weight of it make a roof top installation with radials very simple.
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KE0Z
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Rating: 5/5
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Sep 17, 2006 20:59
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Solid antenna
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I wanted to a fairly inconspicuous antenna for 20 thru 10 meters (non warc) so I picked up a 12avq. I am a bit of a minimalist and found this antenna to be delightfully simple which made it really quick and easy to assemble. The antenna is mounted on the roof of my garage about 15 feet AGL, with the prescribed two radials per band. My first contact was a DX! It is not so easy to work DX from South Dakota. I called a OH8 on 20 meter CW and he came right back to me. The surprise was that I had just finished checking the SWR and forgot to turn the carrier up so I was only running 20 watts. Later I busted a pile-up to work a VYØ in Nunavut who came back after the first call. This is a great antenna. Put it on your roof if you can.
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W0VC
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 8, 2003 19:44
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Solid Classic
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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This is my second 12AVQ, the first was back in the 1960s. It's a solid, time tested, classic way to deal with limited antenna space, or when a light, short vertical is required. Went together in 10 minutes and was on my chimney in an hour. The time consuming part of the installation was building the four triband radials using Spiro T-15 traps. Nice tight little footprint with low visibility that works all the DX it hears. Instead of the heavy duty plumbing pipe recommended, I used a chain link fence post with the same outside diameter. It's lighter, less expensive, and easier to handle during installation. Hygain traps are time tested. Yes, they have some loss, but these antennas survive in Minnesota's weather, and I don't perceive that I've lost a DX contact due to the loss. Oh, there are signals the guys with yagis will hear that I won't, but if I hear'em, I work'em. The best part of the deal is that this sturdy antenna is around $100. If you have limited space, a limited budget, limited time, and need a low-profile antenna, this vertical is an excellent value. By the way, the instructions include information on how to phase two of them to create a directional vertical array. Hope to try that next year.
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