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write your own review of the DX Engineering MBVE-1.
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KI7YY
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 10, 2012 04:34
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Great for a small lot
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Recently we moved to a small lot with no trees (not uncommon here in Wyoming) and I assumed that my antenna situation was dire. Having been a ham for better than 30 years I knew not to expect much from a vertical.
The documentation is great technical writing and I had no problem getting this antenna up and running with the help of my grandson. We have not yet landscaped so I just put out a few radials at this point.
Performance is excellent and far beyond what I expected. I dropped my plans for a tri-band beam after a weeks use. My signal on local 75 meter ragchew and nets is fine. DX on 80 is excellent. 40 meters you own the band. The high bands are great for DX and good for stateside.
160 Meters was the big surprise. I've worked Cuba, Europe, and South America with decent reports.
For the price and the space I have this antenna far exceeds any rational expectation.
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W3ATM
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 13, 2011 15:42
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Addition to My Previous Review
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I found the antenna works great on 10-40m. But 80 and 160m were causing my tuner fits. Particularly 160m. This is because you have more capacitance introduced on these lower frequencies. Hardly any power is getting out of the antenna. How did I fix it? Credit goes to http://www.ad5x.com/images/Articles/Match160.pdf. Phil Salas i.e. AD5X has an incredibly well written article on why you need to cancel out the capacitive resistance and low radiation resistaince by adding some inductive resistance (Impedance) using coils at the base of the antenna. Even better one of his tips uses relays. So I went and built his schematic. The setup works fantastic. My auto Z-11 Pro II by LDG and my manual AT2K by Palstar tuners both easily handle 160 and 80 meters across the entire bands. I switch three positions - one for all bands except the following, 1 for 80m and 1 for 160m. Most of my power is getting out and I get very good reports on these two bands now. Thanks AD5X!
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K6CTA
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 3, 2011 19:08
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Solid construction
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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My almost 18 year old Butternut had come to the end of its useful life, and I needed to either rebuild it or replace it. I chose to replace it with the DX Engineering 43’ vertical. The first thing that was noticeable is the mechanical strength of the 43’ antenna. Solid construction from the radial plate to the antenna itself. I used a 4 foot section of sonotube for the form for the concrete base which worked out quite well. The tilt-over mounting system allowed me to erect the antenna by myself without any issues. I have a very good ground field that I used with the old antenna, and simply attached it to the radial plate. I have a 1500W auto-tuner which adds to the ease of operation of the 43’ antenna. I have been very pleased with the performance (as compared with the old vertical). It tunes quite easily on all bands, and takes full power with ease.
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N1FDX
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Rating: 5/5
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Sep 17, 2011 18:43
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Works good for me.
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Time owned: months
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I replaced my Butternut HF9V with the DXE 43' vertical and radial plate. Assembly was very easy and straight foward. Everything was included and excellent quality, very well made. Installed as stated in the instructions using an Icom AH4 remote tuner at the antenna in place of the MFJ. Used my existing 32' radials for the Butternut which are about 25' long, plan to add some 40-50' one in addition. There is a noticable difference between the DXE and the Butternut in performance, very happy with the upgrade. DXE's tech support were great to deal with and they produce quality products.
This antenna is a project to install but worth the work.
http://home.comcast.net/~n1fdx/site/?/page/DXE_43ft_Vertical/
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W0AAT
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 7, 2011 11:28
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Great antenna and strong
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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My 43 foot base tuned vertical is 2 years old and has given great service. Last weekend tested the strength of the antenna with 85mph+ winds that took out power for 2 days and there are still areas that are being worked on. The antenna has zero damage and is still working fine so kudos to DX Engineering for a product that stands up to its specs under extreme conditions.
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AAR5AC
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Rating: 4/5
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Jun 28, 2011 15:31
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Good product and very pleased
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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After reading all the reviews I decided to get one. Everything that others have said about it is true. Very professionally packaged and high quality. Went together quickly and the tilt mount is fantastic. The quality of the materials used is top notch from the antenna itself to the radial plate and balun.
Was missing the the two termination braids and when I contacted DX they sent me two more without question. I laid out about 500' of #14 thhn for radials and an additional 20x33' radial kit from DX.
As far as performance it's hard to tell as all my wire antennas are NVIS for Mars use but the vertical outperforms everything that I currently have. I always believed that verticals are more noisy than wire antennas but this vertical is quieter and more sensitive. On AM broadcast stations (for some reason) they sound almost FM quality without the background static/noise which is common on those stations.
This antenna 'usually' is even more sensitive on the closer in regional stations even with the low take off angle than the wire antennas are. To minimize losses I fed it with 75' of Belden 9913 instead of the recommended 150' of RG-213. Even with this I have no problem matching the antenna down to about 2.3 Mhz with a MFJ auto tuner. It won't match 160 meters but I would use a wire antenna for that anyway.
I intend to add another 500' worth of radials in the future and at this point the only reason I label this antenna as good instead of 'great' is my lack of longer experience with the antenna and the DX conditions not being the greatest during the last few weeks. My only complaint (and mild at that) besides not getting the termination straps with the package is I emailed them twice to ask a question before I purchased and never received an answer. Yet when I called them directly the questions were answered right away.
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N2ETJ
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 17, 2011 09:08
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Better than expected
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I have had this 43 foot vertical for about 6 months and am amazed by the results. I pounded a 2 inch galvanized pipe in the ground about 4.5 feet and use dx eng. radial plate... 30 radials at various lengths, and tilt over plate. Installation was a breeze. After raising the vertical and before any radials, had to try it out like any good ham would...lol. Worked into Europe, South America , VK ZL and Japan with only 100 watts. For the next week, worked on improving my radial system and it has improved performance but not drastically. Maybe my soil is good or the hill top location is helping but find I now only use the Alpha for big pileups. It is slightly noiser than my dipole but signal strength is greater so sig to noise about the same. Have used it on 6 meters.. ok... on 10 meters..good... 15 meters good... 20 was surprised it works so well.. 40 meters WOW... 60 meters very good.... 80 not bad, break all pileups... but 160 ugh... too short. Did try adding about 150 feet to it with a clip at top, so kinda an inverted L and is much better. All in all was very pleased with the performance... no more rotors tower etc. Low profile now and still having a ball. Not the big gun but maybe a water pistol. Construction.... the best
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K2JX
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Rating: 5/5
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May 10, 2011 17:10
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Excellent quality
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I just put my DXE 43 footer & Balun kit up today. It's fed underground in 3/4 PVC with 125 feet of RG-213 direct bury lo-loss coax. I have 165 feet of AWG # 8 copper stranded radials and 3, 1/2"X 8' copper ground rods in a star pattern underneath the antenna base, all bonded to the Balun's common ground terminal.
The mounting pipe is 1-3/4" heavy wall Gal 4 feet long, 24" of it in 180 pounds of high strength concrete 12" wide 24" deep on top of 2" of gravel for drainage. Very solid.
This antenna replaced a Hustler 6BTV with DXE add-on kits that served me well for over 8 years in our NYC climate. So how does it load up and perform ? Better than I thought it would to be honest. I can easily load up on all bands with a minimum of "tuning" which tells me things must be close to "OK" ! I will check resonance or lack of with my MFJ-259B to be sure. But initial reports prove this antenna works very well and is fairly quiet.
It's about 2db hotter in received sig strength over my 66' end fed wire. The quality of the components and the use of all stainless hardware is impressive. The aluminum tubes fit easily together and contain no sharp edges or burrs.
Do buy Anti-Sieze and Penetrox-A as recommended by DXE. Do use concrete & heavy pipe. Everything is top notch in the kit, and no missing parts !
For a small NYC suburban lot my choices of antenna's are limited, this one is a winner. Oh, I'm licensed over 35 years...retired from law enforcement communications and the electrical business, I've seen a lot of antenna's ! And no I don't care about 160m, too noisy here anyway.
73 de K2JX
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W4HLN
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Rating: 4/5
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May 8, 2011 20:14
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Needs work on 160 and 80
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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When they tell you this is for 160 and 80 take it with a grain of salt...Nothing they send you will help you put out anywhere near a BIG signal because you cant take a 44.5 foot antenna and make it bigger with a UNUN or 150 feet of coax to feed it with like they talk about on the web site! Even the finicky MFJ Tuner and the feed line choke will give very marginal performance on 160. Unlike what a lotta women say .....when you talk about antenna's...SIZE DOES MATTER ROFL!!
Put up a 89 foot long dipole at 45 feet in the air and see who you can contact on 160 meters...simple but its about the same challenge!
If the antenna were 65 or 130 feet tall then you could do much better! I do work a little DX on 75-80(Mostly Europe and Africa on with it but probably with no better than 25% ERP(Effective Radiated Power).
Even with a tuner built like a TANK its hard to tune on 160...most of the time impossible even with a bunch of 130 foot ground radials
40 through 12 however work out quite nicley! Problems matching 20 meters because of the length / High SWR but it does put out a fair signal with a decent tuner (PALSTAR )
On 60 meters is right at a quarter wave antenna (44.5 feet)...works great!....40 meters with 40 32 foot ground radials the world is literally yours! I bust pileups regularly on first call with 200 watts out and work a lot of Asia and Pacific stations from KY with ease. Dx was a challenge in the pacific for me but no longer..New Zealand and Australia / Japan are as easy as checking into a local 2 meter net!
15 meters is nice as well and seems to work about the same as 40 does...17 meters is great!...12 meters works great too but ten meters is a challenge...radiation angle seems to be pretty high.
Do I like it better than a dipole or 3 element trapped beam for DX...Definatley YES!
Better than a Gap Titan or any other "Trapped" vertical ? Definatley YES! (
(I think I've owned em all!)
Better than a bigger vertical for 80 and 160 or TUNED vertical monobander for each band..Definatley NO!
DX
Engineering makes the BEST verticals PERIOD! These things are beautifully crafted...the Tilt mounts and ground plates are so nice you hate to leave em outside in the rain!
But several will be going up here at different lengths to get the max performance on each band!
Worth the Money? HE double hockey stix yea!
They do have a 65 foot vertical kit and extensions that can be added to it...You could go that route and put out a FANTASTIC signal on 80 and a decent signal on 160 with the right matching at the base!
Will be buying MORE DX Engineering verticals at Dayton!
Ernie / W4HLN
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KK8ZZ
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Rating: 5/5
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Apr 16, 2011 19:17
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Great Performer, Great Bargain!
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Had this for nearly six months now, and wanted to wait that long before evaluating this DX Engineering Vertical against other verticals I've had and also against the Alpha Delta multi band dipole recently removed from the antenna farm in my suburban back yard here in Ohio. My first vertical in recent years was the Zero Five 43 footer. Slow taper, went together well, but I found that the mounting and tilt system was a tad primitive and after a few months, clamps loosened. One of the sections actually fell into the one below it, ending the effectiveness of everything above it, of course. Antenna two was the multiband dipole, which was well made and easily deployed, but the relative impression of signals received over time was less than I'd wished for. As expected, however, performance on 40 out to perhaps 400-800 miles was superior to the Z-5 vertical. Wishing to take advantage of the lower radiation pattern of a vertical for nets I was interested in, I found the DXE 43 foot vertical on sale for almost HALF what I'd paid for the Z-5. Since I lived not far from DXE, I plunked down my $194 (free ship) and added a tad more for a few necessary items. Assembled in less than a half-hour, excellent workmanship on the base insulator and tilt-over plate, and it went up easily. It's rather beautiful evenings, glowing in the rays of the setting sun, and it works. No material defects, no missing parts, no disappointing parts, just a solid performer, day in and day out. My Flex-3000 tuner matches it on all bands 80-10 with less than 1.5:1 SWR, and with an LDG AT-600PRO autotuner, I can easily use the ALS-600 amp when I need to. Even with the additional cost of the un-un, I consider this the best value in antenna purchases I've made in the past 20 years (yes, I had the BiggIR vertical too). Just be sure you have the radial plate and set down a good field of wire radials for the counterpoise. Great bargain, great performance.
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