| KB1ZUQ |
Rating:      |
2013-11-12 | |
| Great Portable Antenna System |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| The Alpha Vertical is quick and easy to set up, with SWR right out of the box as described. Have been making numerous contacts on 10, 15, 17, and 20 meters thus far, with contacts as far as Eastern Europe and South America from the North East. Customer service is also top notch - Steve is always ready and takes the time to answer questions, and has been quite helpful with suggestions on how to make the antenna system perform even better. I expect to be making good use of this antenna for portable operations for some time to come. |
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| KC2RSE |
Rating:      |
2013-10-30 | |
| excellent antenna |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| This is an excellent portable antenna. It is super easy to set up and take down. It certainly fits my needs living in an adult community in New Jersey. I have recently added the counterpoise kit to this antenna as well and most of my signal reports are good. I am very happy with this antenna and the counterpoise kit. |
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| KF9RM |
Rating:      |
2013-10-30 | |
| Perfect Solution For My Situation |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
The Alpha Antenna Vertical Sr on a 6ft tripod is the perfect solution to my situation. My HOA has a “No Communications Antennas” covenant.
I have been using my Alpha Sr Vertical for several months now. During contests, I can work most of the DX I hear. When the band is open, I can consistently get through the pileups in one or two calls using an Ameritron 80B.
I have had DX stations tell me I was 59+, very strong and ask what I am using for an antenna. When I tell them an Alpha Antenna Vertical on a 6 foot tripod, sometimes they come back and ask, ”What did you say you are using for an antenna?” in an amazed, almost in a voice of disbelief, “A vertical on a tripod?”
I am using 4 counterpoise with the antenna. I have experimented with HF horizontal elements, but cannot really say whether my transmitted signal was any better or not by adding the horizontal radiators. I do need to experiment more here, primarily for 40 and 80.
We all know that there is no magic antenna, but the Alpha Antenna vertical does what it is designed to do and does it well. Easy for me to put up and take down and stay off the HOA radar screen.
Steve, the owner has always been there to answer my questions as I work to see if I can make the antenna perform even better than it does.
Steve takes the time to explain the design philosophy, other considerations, trade-offs and why he chose to implement what he did. He also offers up other suggestions for experimentation.
My next experiments are to try using the Vertical Sr. as a 24 or 33 ft vertical with the additional of wire and slope the wire towards a tree. I also have an Alpha Antenna Moto Marine Antenna. I never found much time to use it on the boat, so I am going to also use it as a 24 or 33 ft vertical same as the Vertical Sr, but vary the slope of the wire to the tree so one should perform better on the lower bands and the other better on the HF bands. I am also going to experiment with the signal strength due to directivity of one having the sloping wire oriented north to south and the other east to west, but while maintaining a constant slope.
I also have an Alpha Antenna 6-160 HF J-Pole which I used to use before I purchased my amplifier. I have the J-Pole hooked to an older backup rig and the receive performance is amazing. I am able to make contacts on it, but do not use it much as it is hooked up to my secondary rig. Looking back at the logs, I was able to work DX with it, although I do recall it took a little more work using it with 100W than the Vertical with an Amplifier. But the J-Pole is oriented pretty much horizontal. I should probably try and add some slope to it at some point in time and then run some 100W and less comparison tests.
I do sometimes switch between the J-Pole and the Vertical to see which has the stronger signal. On 6 meters, I was getting a better signal on the J-Pole, but it is higher off the ground than the Vertical at around 20 feet or so. The J-Pole is usually better on 40 than the Vertical, but due to the extra length of the J-Pole, that should be expected. Funny thing is that sometimes it is the other way around. 80 seems to be a toss-up. 20, 15 and 10 usually favor the Vertical.
In summary, the Alpha Antennas provide me stealth solutions that keeps me off the HOA radar screen, are quick to put up and take down and work very well. And also give me something to experiment with.
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| K7MRU |
Rating:      |
2013-10-29 | |
| Works Best With Counterpoise Kit |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
First of all ARS has great service. I ordered the antenna on Thursday, and received it the following Wednesday. I was able to set it up on Saturday, and it goes together quickly as advertised. I wanted to compare it with my existing vertical, A Butternut HF6V with 15 radials. I ran receive signal comparison tests with the HF6V on 10, 15, 20, 40, and 75 Meters. Receive signals were the same on 10M, and about a S unit down on the rest of the bands compared to the HF6V. I then attached the counterpoise kit, and reran the comparison tests. With the counterpoise kit attached The Alpha Vertical signals were either the same or very close in strength to the HF6V.
I then took the counterpoise kit off and checked the SWR with a MFJ-259B analyzer. The Alpha match keep the SWR below 2 to 1 until I got below about 5Mhz. The match on 75M was 3.5 to 1 which is close to the expected match that Alpha publishes. I was using 55 feet of RG8U which could account for some difference in the my results.
So far I'm very happy with the antenna, and would recommend it especially using the ounterpoise kit. |
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| N0YXE |
Rating:      |
2013-09-13 | |
| EXCELLENT PRODUCT |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
Here is the SWR review with the antenna fully extended (23') and the tripod legs and 25' of coax serving as the counterpoise:
3.8=2.6
3.9=2.5
7.175=1.8
7.250=1.8
7.300=1.6
14.225 through 14.350: 1.4
17 meters=1.4
15 meters=1.6
12 meters=1.8
10 meters=1.8
50.125=2.0
50.500=2.3
Almost all bands are usable without a tuner. The 160 band is, however, over 10:1
This product is well made, easy and fast to set-up, especially when using push on PL connectors and the Comet Window Gap Jumper.
The first time I pushed the mike I was on the 12 meter band with Eduardo, CO8LY, in Santiago, Cuba. Maybe 1,700 miles from Kansas. This is a great portable antenna!
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| VE9GC |
Rating:      |
2013-09-08 | |
| Simply put it works. |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I purchased the Alpha Jr for the sole purpose of having a broadband easily stored and deployed portable HF antenna. I also purchased the HF enhancement kit to give better results on 80 and 160. So what do I think? I used the antenna over the summer at my portable VE1 location. The antenna placement was not ideal (between 2 wings of an E Hut for those of you familar with military style bldg. Like a H hut 4 legs rather than 2) it was between 3 walls in an area with typically S7-9 noise levels on almost every band. Needless to say, I wasn't hearing the weak signals. I fed the antenna with about 50ft of RG-213 to get it as far from the walls as possible though it was anything but clear of the building. I was using my FT-857D and LDG YT-100 tuner. In many cases I did not need the tuner inline and was able to make contact with stations with or without.
I was able to get it to tune on 160 - 6 meters and made contacts on 75 meters for one of our local nets and worked Croatia, Macedonia and Crete (all 5/9) on 20 meters when there were good band conditions.
I like the fact that it fits in the trunk of my Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce, sets up very quickly and it works. I haven't done a comparison using it at the home QTH with my other base antennas, but as that is not what I purchased it for it doesn't matter. I now have an antenna that I can use at my summer QTH, take camping, use for portable demonstrations.
Would I buy another or recommend to someone else? Most definitely.
73
Gordon |
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| N2CRT |
Rating:      |
2013-08-06 | |
| HOA and Semi-Stealth Wonder |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| I have antenna restrictions. After researching low profile verticals, I ended up with the Alpha Sr. My installation is basically permanent, and Steve supplies a waterproof Alpha Match for this situation. The tripod is held down by swingset anchors, so even high winds do not bother it. Being 17' of extendable whip gives it a low wind profile anyway. Given that it is installed only 5' away from 2 stories of brick, the side of my duplex and a brick chimney alcove, the performance is excellent. My "Plan B" antenna is an MFJ mag loop. The Alpha Sr runs some 30% less noise and some 20-25% better reception than the mag loop. My last contact was on 10 meters to a station outside of Sao Paolo, Brazil. That was about 4,700 miles on the stock 100 watts SSB from my Yaesu FT-897D. All non-radial, non-counterpoise antennas are compromises, for sure, but this one really shines. Add to that great service and advice from Steve, and I don't think that it can be beat. The best part is that the price is very reasonable--in some cases 1/2--compared to the competing verticals. |
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| AA8TK |
Rating:      |
2013-07-04 | |
| Reviewed the Alpha Vertical |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I had only used the antenna when I was on holiday. I think a combination of bad conditions and bad location limited my success. Today, I set it up in my yard and worked the world on 15, 17 and 20 meters. From Hawaii to Italy, Brazil, Croatia, Slovakia and Slovenia, I had no problem making CW contacts from MI.
In fact, I performed a shoot-out with my other antennas (dipole, vertical loop and GAP Titan DX). The Alpha Vertical held its own. Dialed the power down to 20 watts. No problem making contacts. Plus, the lowest signal report I got was 559.
So, thanks for manufacturing a FB product. |
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| KD0MMF |
Rating:      |
2013-01-05 | |
| Making contacts |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I just got my Alpha vertical up and running and already making contacts on 6m and 10m. Easy quick setup as advertised. The company was quick to resolve a shipping issue. I am pleased with the sturdiness and build quality of the antenna tripod, whip and match unit, should last for many years. |
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| AB2EW |
Rating:      |
2012-12-04 | |
| Performance is very good for an antenna of this type |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
The Alpha Jr. Vertical Antenna is a tripod-mounted 12-foot whip that uses an “Alpha Match” at the base of the whip to achieve broadband matching from 40m to 6m. Setup of the Alpha vertical is virtually effortless, involving opening up the tripod, screwing on and extending the whip, and connecting the Alpha Match. I measured the frequency response of the antenna with my MFJ analyzer and confirmed the published data of an SWR of 2:1 or less over the stated band. I used a coax feedline of about 20 feet, the minimum length recommended by Alpha, inasmuch as the coax shield and tripod work together to form a counterpoise.
Peeking inside the Alpha Match, one finds a ferrite transformer configuration that transforms the antenna impedance and, also, introduces loss to achieve low SWR over 7 – 54 MHz. It is worthwhile to note that with the “difficult” impedance presented by the 12-foot whip over this frequency range, the only way to achieve a good broadband match is to introduce loss into the matching network. This is a consequence of the “gain-bandwidth theorem” which states the fundamental laws of nature relating load impedance, matching networks, and SWR bandwidth. Having consulted extensively for industry on matching network design, I can say that trading-off loss for extended antenna bandwidth is a standard technique that has been used extensively, particularly in military applications with “electrically-small” antennas.
The Alpha website recommends that a minimum of 20 Watts be used to drive the antenna, in recognition of the loss through the Alpha Match. Steve D., the owner of Alpha, told me in e-mail correspondence that the ratio of effective radiated power to the power applied to the antenna (ERP/Pin) is 50% for Pin of 20 Watts, rising to 90% for a Pin of 100 Watts. At a Pin of 10 Watts, the ratio was only 25%, hence the recommendation to avoid QRP power levels with the Alpha Match. However, it should be noted that Alpha also manufactures their “Alpha DX Antenna”, which, employing a high-Q tuning system, does indeed allow efficient operation from QRP power levels up to 1 kW.
I performed the following experiment at 7 MHz. I compared the performance of the Alpha Jr. antenna to a base-loaded 12-foot vertical placed on the Alpha tripod. With the base-loaded antenna, I connected a single 33-foot counterpoise elevated about 5 feet off the ground. I adjusted the loading coil and counterpoise length to give a very good match at 7 MHz. The Alpha performed two S-units below the base-loaded vertical in on-air (CW) comparisons in both transmit and receive. This is typical of the compromise one must accept with a broadband match of a shortened vertical antenna versus a single-frequency match. Although I did not perform any further experiments, one may expect the relative performance of the Alpha to improve as you move up in frequency.
Other vertical antennas that appear to offer the same kind of broadband capability cost close to twice the price of the Alpha Vertical Jr.
The Alpha Jr. is a great choice for those applications where broadband operation is required with absolutely no tuning adjustments being necessary. The construction is first rate, the setup is elegant simplicity, the price is reasonable, and the performance is very good for an antenna of this type.
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