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Reviews For: Force 12 Delta 6BA

Category: Antennas: HF: Yagi, Quad, Rotary dipole, LPDA

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Review Summary For : Force 12 Delta 6BA
Reviews: 2MSRP: 2,599.00
Description:
6-band Yagi, 24' boom, 40-20-17-15-12-10 meters
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.texasantennas.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=105
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0025
K2CBI Rating: 2012-09-06
I like it! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This is a follow up report, two months later. I’ve had time to play with this antenna and I still like it a lot. It’s not a stack or multi-element mono-bander but it does work really well.

I have it at 72 feet and can work pretty much every station that I hear. Not that it’s always one call in a pile-up (but sometimes it is).

Confession: I have limited prior experience with aluminum beams. My previous antennas were wires, verticals and a 5 band Spiderbeam. For sure this is a very big improvement on the wires and verticals.

I think it works a bit better than the Spiderbeam too, though that antenna worked super well for me. I can’t compare them directly, since the Spider is no more - I lost it in an ice storm once too often. I can say that the 6BA works better from my QTH into southeast Asia and Oceania than any of my previous antennas did.

One slight negative: As cut, the 40 meter elements are resonant slightly below the bottom of the CW band. The manual states that it should be resonant at 7.040 – not the case with my copy. This is really not a practical problem as I do use an auto-tuner and the coax loss on 40 meters is very low with good cable. Taking down the antenna to adjust would involve more effort than the expected improvement would be worth. SWR is fine on all the higher bands.

Also, if you work RTTY, be sure to order heavy duty baluns for it.

The next test for this antenna will be to see how well it survives New York State winters.
To be continued next spring …


Mike, K2CBI
W1WN Rating: 2012-08-04
Force 12 Quality Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I have owned many Force 12 beams over the years. This beam compares with its larger brother the 5-BA that I owned for several years. Slightly smaller footprint (24' boom compared to 33'; 12 elements compared to 15) but the plus is 40 meters and 2 feedlines for 6 bands compared to 3 separate feedlines on the 5 BA for 5 bands. I don't notice any difference in the performance of the 6 BA compared to the 5 BA. Having 40 meters is a real plus. Front to back is good and front to side excellent on the beam. Slightly less so on 40 meters as you might expect with just a 24' beam. Great package and as always terrific customer service from Mark, Tomi and all the gang at Force 12. The quality of the construction as with all Force 12 products is excellent. Solid feel with the rivets, compared to other manufacturer's hose clamps. All full size elements (except for 40 meters). Good technical detail in the manual and straightforward instructions. Everything in the package as usual.