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Reviews For: CHAMELEON HYBRID SERIES

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : CHAMELEON HYBRID SERIES
Reviews: 41MSRP: 225
Description:
The Chameleon HYBRID Series is the next generation of Chameleon Antenna. This new generation of antennas and accessories will be fully compatible with almost any previous and future products.

The Chameleon HYBRID design revolves around a specially designed antenna base: the Chameleon HYBRID Base. This special base offers instantaneous bandwidth performance from 6M to 160M which will depend of the selected antenna configuration. The base is mainly designed to fulfill multiple tasks, enhance performances of the antenna system and facilitate antenna installations. It also has an integral broadband impedance matching allowing broadband waveforms to be utilized even after the addition of higher power amplifiers up to 1500W SSB.
Product is in production
More Info: http://chameleonantenna.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00414.9
N9SWR Rating: 2012-04-15
Great Antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I mounted the Hybrid Base/MIl Whip configuration on a 10 ft pole about 4 ft away from the side of the house. Using an FT-897 at 100w trough 100 ft of RG-8x I had no problem contacting EI9JU 3823.2 miles away. Who says verticals don't work??
PJ2LS Rating: 2012-04-02
Great Results Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Yesterday ( March, 31, 2012 ) I made a test setup for the coming Lighthouse event August 18th. I made the setup on the North-coast of Curacao Island at 200 meters away from the Caribbean sea. Using a military pole and tripod with the Chameleon Hybrid and Military whip and four radials. Equipment I used is a Yaesu FT897, Expert 1K amp running on generator power.
Conditions on 17 meters where not the best at 13:00 utc, but a little later the band was open for me, with 400 watts I was working to Finland, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Netherlands, Croatia, Canada and several stations in the US. Reports variate from S5 to 10db over 9. You can imagine how happy I was with this result.After one hour I stopped because the temperature was getting to high for me. The Chameleon Hybrid is a great antenna, simple and fast to setup.

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Earlier 5-star review posted by PJ2LS on 2012-02-14

Yesterday I received the antenna,the first impression was the great quality of all materials. I could not wait so make a fast setup in my backyard. Put a tripod and a 3 meter pole on it and connect the Hybrid, Mil whip together. Fist contact under poor conditions at 17 meter was Florida ( 5/8 )report, the second on 17M was Guantanamo Bay ( 5/9+ ). What a fun, no ground radials, just 3 meters above the ground. Amazed ?? Yes, I made several tests with other antennas in the same position in the backyard and under far more better conditions, but this antenna amazed me. In the coming days I will test the antenna in different setups and on other locations and will make a report about it.
Before I forget, Carl is a great communicator, he answer on all my questions very fast and clear in his explanation.

73' Louis
PJ2LS
K5TCP Rating: 2012-03-25
Great product! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Purchased 2 hybrids, 2 V1 and one MIL whip with various accessories. Great customer service by Carl. Set up one hybrid and the MIL whip on an outbacker tripod next to my pool and attached 3 radials out of one of the radial package I ordered. Worked the following from my QTH north of Dallas, TX during the contest this weekend:
Australia, Hawaii, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Cape Verde Island, Madera Island and several stations in the Caribbean. Heard stations from Japan and several European countries as well with strong signals. Also worked some US stations (coast to coast) prior to the contest. Max output on my end was 100 watts. VERY HAPPY WITH THE RESULTS and looking forward to using the hybrid / v1 combo mobile as well as the hybrid / long wire combo in the near future. If you are thinking about this hybrid STOP!!! Just buy it and have fun! Used an outbacker Outreach 500 before. That antenna is now retired! Band changes with the new setup are great. No more going outside to change the band settings on the outbacker. Yaesu FC-30 tuner on my Yaesu FT-897 worked fine to tune the hybrid / MIL whip combo (80-10). Also the setup was only about 3 feet off the ground and next to my 8 ft fence on one side. Longest distance covered sofar was over 8000 miles!!!
WB7DXA Rating: 2012-03-14
Works great on the boat Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Installed the Hybrid as well as the new Mil antenna and they worked great while I was MM. Easy to setup. Loaded up easily, <1.2 SWR, and was able to get on 20 and 40. Haven't tried the other bands yet. Running 100 W barefoot.
K6UDW Rating: 2012-02-27
Hybrid Install Under V2 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After receiving my Hybrid, I mounted the new Hybrid on my Tacoma, a low mount as to get in under the garage door without removing the V-2. I had to forego the 4 inch spring in my design just to get the V-2 under the door. With the V-2 attached to the Hybrid I picked at least 1 S-unit on reception of the same signals and overall my auto tuner doesn't seem to be working as long to tune a good SWR. If I swap out the V-2 for the Mil Whip I pick up at least 2 more S-Units. One station on 7.235 jumped from S-7 to S-40 just by switching between V-2 and Mil Whip both with the Hybrid for the base. Either way reception is much better all around with the Hybrid and signal reports are better than without it as well. I am a happy camper!
KD0JOF Rating: 2012-02-21
Incredible Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is one incredible little tube of magic. I have it installed in a pretty precarious way with the Hybrid mounted on the side of the house at 1' above ground and the 30' end feed wire (that comes with it) tied up about 10' in a tree. In this configuration the SWR is pretty bad but it doesn't seem to matter.

I previously had a 24' vertical mounted on a fence 5' above ground and the Hybrid blows it away. With the vertical my farthest contact was Mexico City from Boulder, CO. Yesterday with the Hybrid I was making contacts all across South America and one contact in Japan at 5900 miles from my QTH. All on 15w. I can't wait to get this installed better and use some of the other configurations that are available. If you get one you will not be disappointed.
VK2FABB Rating: 2012-02-21
Versatile Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
There are many reasons why the Hybrid is a great foundation antenna when space is a consideration.

For me, I live in an apartment and after receiving complaints from neighbours for the 16 ft vertical, I needed something that I could easily put up and take down. But, what I have found is that the Hybrid with the included 30 ft end feed is something I can keep up. I have a 45 ft long balcony, so I have been able to keep it up, and it goes largely noticed by may neighbours. It is true the antenna would be better in the clear, but while other Sydney apartment hams have trouble getting heard in Sydney, I managed to work a Station near Adelaide in South Australia (1400 KM), and can hear South America, Japan, & Indonesia. If I could throw it out to something, that would help, but nothing is available. I am hoping to add a Zepp to the hybrid to add to performance.

That is the great thing about the hybrid, you can add a vertical whip or mil, or both.

Additionally, I bought a jaw clamp so I have easily put the hybrid up anywhere and no ground is needed. I am looking forward to taking camping at Easter.
N6OG Rating: 2012-02-11
Excellent Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just received my second Chameleon Hybrid base with the Mil whip. I had the antenna within 2 days of placing my order.

I installed my first Hybrid base on a mirror bracket mounted to a piece of 1/2" copper pipe which I pounded into the ground with the base being at 2' above the ground using a 102" CB whip attached to the spring that I had laying around. I tested the antenna on the air from 2-30 mHz with good results but not anything special. Using an LDG AT-200 Pro antenna tuner I was able to match the antenna across the band with HF ALE and the highest SWR at 1.7:1 at around 2 mHz. The antenna performed just under my Comet vertical at 35' above ground. Next I replaced the 102" whip with the 30' wire the antenna base came with. I slopped the high end up to the corner of my fence while the low end was still at two feet. Much better results. At this point the antenna was performing as good as the Comet still at a much lower level. Next I raised the low end up to about 10' above the ground by mounting the Hybrid base to the top of my heavy duty tripod. Amazing results. This antenna really shined at 20mtrs, but all across the band it now outperformed the Comet still 35' higher up.

I now have a V1, V2 and Mil Whips along with (2) hybrid bases. All of the produces are well made and should last a life time under active use.. The company has great customer service with any technical question I have answered quickly using their forum located at the companies webpage.

These antennas have worked great for me as a portable and as a limited space base antenna.
KC7ZWG Rating: 2012-02-08
Excellent. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I now have two of these HYBRID units, they are excellent for home/mobile/portable use.

I had an inverted-v at 33ft to the apex, the HYBRID with the MIL (also a Chameleon Antenna product) and the HYBRID/MIL combo has now replaced my ugly and huge dipole.

I am actually getting better reports with my HYBRID at 20ft above ground then the G5RV.

My HYBRID is installed as a vertical, and has a much lower noise floor as well.

I know it is hard to believe that this could out-perform my G5RV at 33% lower height, but it is.

Also, Chameleon Antennas has a forum that has shortened any learning curves that I have come across, as well as giving me new ideas for various installations and use.

Communications from Chameleon Antenna's is top notch, all of my questions are always answered within 24 hours, and shipping was only two days.

I also ordered two more times and have repeated excellent communications and shipping experience.

So there you go... Excellent product, support forum with real users, great communications, expedited shipping.

Works for me!
KF7PDV Rating: 2011-12-14
Chameleon Hybrid NVIS Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Used the HYBRID and 30' wire in an NVIS configuration for 40/80m at 10'on a tripod in a RACES event. The system performed well, yielding results within approx. 300 mile radius with a tuner. SWR was 1:2 on both bands. Even picked up some east coast and Florida contacts!
The hardware is first rate, well designed and very flexible. Much easier to erect and configure than a straight wire antenna and much faster.
Intend using as a vertical with the MIL whip antenna in another RACES event.