Manager


Manager - NA4M
Manager Notes

Reviews For: Hexbeam: by NA4RR

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

eMail Subscription

Registered users are allowed to subscribe to specific review topics and receive eMail notifications when new reviews are posted.
Review Summary For : Hexbeam: by NA4RR
Reviews: 85MSRP: 450
Description:
The hexagonal beam antenna is built around the improved
broadband design by G3TXQ. Features air coaxial center post
made from aluminum and stainless steel hardware. The spreaders
are fiberglass tubes and support cords are made of kevlar
covered with UV resistant Dacron. All wire sets are 14ga 168
strand Flexweave™ and are pre-measured for simple assembly.
This is a plug and play antenna with no tuning or cutting of
elements required.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.hexagonalbeam.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
64854.7
KJ7WRZ Rating: 2021-11-18
Finally installed after 3 months on a storage pole Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this Hex in the spring and assembled it right away in less than 2 hours. I set it on a 5 gallon bucket during assembly and kept it there for a few days. I even made a couple of contacts that way but I needed a better place until I got my push up Rohn mast up so I planted it on a 10 ft piece of conduit and guyed it off. I even made some contacts this way.

Well this week I got it mounted on my mast at about 35 ft with a Yaesu G-450. My first contact was Rhode Island and I have always had trouble reaching the east coast from my QTH in Northern Arizona.

Assembly was the easy part. Mounting on a mast was much more difficult. It would have been easier with two people but I did it alone.

So far I am pleased with it. I will say the propagation seems to be very wide when I thought it would be narrower. I am finding that 45 degrees either side of the target doesn't seem to make much difference.
K7CGA Rating: 2021-11-16
After a 53 MPH wind storm Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Destroyed in a wind storm last night. Peek gust was 53 Mph.
K7ORG Rating: 2021-08-12
K7ORG Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had this hex beam for several years now and am totally satisfied with it. I had it up in NV a few years ago and it worked flawlessly...until someone in my neighborhood complained to the HOA and I was forced to take it down.
Meanwhile...I retired and moved to central IL to a rural location where my closest neighbor is 1/4 mile away...no HOA and up went the hex beam.
I have the antenna mounted to a roof-top Rohn base that is attached to my deck. The hex is on a push-up mast and only 25-30 feet above the ground. I use a Yaesu 450 rotator mounted at the base of the antenna which works perfectly with the hex beam.
I immediately got on the air and was amazed at how many stations I was able contact on any open band. I am able to bust through pile ups quickly (running barefoot) and get great signal reports. SWR's are all manageable without a tuner.
My latest addiction is POTA and I was able to WAS using my hex beam in less than 2 months.
The antenna is built well, easy to assemble (great videos on You Tube) and works beyond my expectations. Great customer service and reviews.
I highly recommend this antenna.
KE6YC Rating: 2021-03-22
Great HEX beam with easy assembly with solid performance Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I needed to put up a beam with turning radius of less than 12 feet because of surrounding trees, so I ended up with a HEX beam from NA4RR. The assembly went smoothly, especially after reviewing the assembly video available on the site. There was no wires to cut and there was nothing to measure. I initially set it up at about 2 feet above the ground and SWR looked pretty good on all bands. I have compared the received signal strength to a dipole on the 20 meter band, and the HEX beam was already beating the dipole hands down.

I have then put it up on a rotator with the overall height only about 15 feet from ground at the base of the HEX beam, and the spreaders were about a few feet from the roof line. I will probably keep it at that height to limit the visibility from the neighbors. Even at that height, I see a big difference in the signal level as compared to the dipole. Over the weekend, I worked several dx stations with good signal reports. I am extremely happy with the HEX beam and I look forward to enjoying the coming solar cycle 25 with the HEX beam.
ND8D Rating: 2021-02-28
A solid kit, easy assembly, and no tuning setup required. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I shopped around for a hexbeam on and off for a year. Here's why the NA4RR stood out to me:

The Design is very well thought out, specifically not requiring holes to be drilled into the fiberglass spreaders, potentially weakening them. The aluminum hub is everything it needs to be without going overboard which saves you money.

You get a lot of value for your money, the spreader arms come with the wire rings already in place at the correct intervals, and the wire/rope elements come precut and terminated, ready to install. This saves a monumental amount of time in assembly. I built mine in an hour and all bands had well centered VSWR on the analyzer.

You can pay NA4RR to prime and paint the spreaders for you, I elected to do that myself with several coats of rust-oleum universal paint+primer. This will protect the spreaders from UV degradation over time.

I will see how the antenna performs over time, but the out of the box satisfaction is outstanding.
WT4W Rating: 2021-02-07
There Are Better Options Out There Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
First off, much of my disappointment with this antenna centers around the 40 meter bent dipole add-on kit, the availability of which was one of the main reasons I chose this antenna vs. some of the other hex-beams on the market.

Once everything was assembled, all the bands showed a good SWR and bandwidth, as expected, EXCEPT for 40 meters which had an SWR above 3.5.

I went about double checking every aspect of the assembled 40 meter kit and found nothing obviously wrong. The wires were the proper length, since the resonant frequency was where it should have been. The center post checked out ok (in the case of the 40 meter kit it's nothing more than a direct connection from an SO-239 to the binding posts, so other than an open or short there really wasn't much that could go wrong).

I was able to get in contact with someone who had been involved with G3TXQ when the broadband hex beam was being developed, and he confirmed my suspicion that the 40 meter bent dipole on the hex beam has an impedance of much less than 50 ohms, so some form of matching is necessary (and in fact the other two vendors I found that have the 40 meter add-on kit DO have matching networks – I didn’t chose those because one is in Europe and the other doesn’t have a great reputation for quality). I can only assume that some people got OK results with the NA4RR offering through a lucky combination of soil conditions and antenna height. As it is, I’m now forced to use a tuner. I’ll give a bit of credit to the folks at NA4RR in that they offered to send a replacement 40 meter kit, but seeing as how the antenna was already installed and based on what I’d already learned I declined the offer.

The other aspect of this antenna which I don’t like is the baseplate. It has a section of pipe welded to the bottom, and this fits into the top of a 1-1/2 inch EMT conduit which is used as the mast. This arrangement, even after using the supplied through bolt, results in the antenna being a bit wobbly on top of the mast. While it doesn’t have much impact on performance it’s just flat out annoying to look up at my antenna and see it tilted off-center.
WF3W Rating: 2021-01-08
PERFORMANCE vs DIPOLE Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
HNY!!!

I trust I have taken enuff time, thinking how to couch this review in terms of disappointment as opposed to disgust or negativity.

ASSUMING correct assembly, while attempting to factor-in the new solar cycle, this is my saga:

These ruminations r born of tragedy and desperation.
The chimney on my upper roof failed, smashed into my 2nd story deck which proceeded to damage my lower roof.

My Hex looks like a dead, crippled dinosaur yet none of my other ant were damaged, tho all rest now on terra firma.

I am forced to use my, only, ant, viz., a 2-trap dipole of Orr & Cowan design.

From First-RF [analogous to 1st Light of an optical telescope] I was shocked at the incredible performance of the Hex. To wit: oriented North-South, my signal seems to have blanketed the entire South American continent PLUS the Carribbean Basin! But wait - - - I also garnered most of Europe [perusing the spotters on PSKReporter, I estimate I was spotted far more than stations with which I had contact]. Admittedly, all this was with FT8, which I felt was the easiest, most robust, way to assess world-wide Hex performance.

I was so astonished, I began a sarcastically-entitled file "HA! NOT GETTING OUT???"

Forced back to my dipole, I experienced QSOs commensurate to the Hex, in number, geographic extent and power level!

Altho I keep copious data on my ant systems, the Hex, et al., came crashing down far too soon for deep, comparative meaning. However, it is my current feeling to NOT repair the Hex and opt for a Yagi or LPDA.

I am NOT "urging" any Ham to forego a Hex Beam. However inaccurate, or incomplete my experience, if u will permit, I will call this an observational study.

Stay healthy and if u must pad ur walls, pse do so...

73

Phil, WF3W

JUST BECAUSE YOUR VOICE REACHES HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD
DOESN'T MEAN YOU ARE WISER THAN WHEN IT REACHED, ONLY
TO THE END OF THE BAR - - - - Edward R Murrow
KE8DAX Rating: 2020-12-15
NA4RR did it right and supplied a great antenna value! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After much research, I decided to order the NA4RR hex. I really wanted the opportunity to explore the higher HF bands, i.e., 17 through 10m and this beam represented the best value. I bit the bullet and placed the order. Everything arrived in a timely manner and all parts were well identified, neatly packed, and of high quality. It took a couple of hours to assemble with no issues. It was installed at 45' on a Universal Tower and then the fun began. The first call broke a big pileup to a Lithuanian station and I'm only running 100 watts. I've been using this antenna for about six weeks and it exceeds my expectations. Basically, if I can hear them I can work them. You are going to have to spend three to four times as much to get equivalent performance. Time will tell the durability of the basic hexbeam design. I now have no plans to upgrade to a "higher performance" antenna and am absolutely loving 17M! And by the way, I don't even use the tuner in my TS-590SG.......haven't needed it with this antenna.
N2YN Rating: 2020-11-08
Great antenna, good price easy to set up Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Hey guys you have to get one of this. Is very easy to set up. Very light and strong. Plug in and play no tuner need it. All bands on good SWR range 1.1 to 1.3. I had made many contacts only using 100 watts including, Australia, Japan, Serbia, Tokyo etc.. Receive nice and quite. My is the one from 6m to 20m. i used the ham 4 rotor and the antenna is about 50 feet high.
Roger was very nice and answered all my questions the antenna arrived complete and ready to set up. The quality is good and color coded for easy assembly. The price is right. I am very please with the antenna. I give a rating of 5+
WU7X Rating: 2020-09-23
Simple, elegant Time Owned: more than 12 months.
After having the hexbeam in the air and making lots of contacts with it, I had the opportunity to repurchase my 52' crankup tower and pickup a NOS Mosley TA63N. Sold the aluminum tower and hexbeam. Now after two years I can honestly say that I love both the tower and beam, but can't say the Mosley was worth it. We get severe occasional wind storms with gusts over 60 mph. Also an occasional ice storm. I thought the Mosley would be a better antenna for the local conditions. Now I'm not so sure. Um...think I should have saved my money and kept the hexbeam. SWR is much better with the hex over the yagi for each band covered. By that I mean lower SWR across the whole band. Well, maybe the Mosley is a bit better on 6 M. F/B is better with the hex. Can't say I make more and better contacts with the yagi. the hex is by far better of an antenna on a cost and functionality basis. I'd recommend the hex to just about any ham with an average home lot. Now that you can get the 40M add-on kit for it, it becomes an even better deal. It was good at 32'. I can't imagine how better it would be at 57'. The ham that purchased my NA4RR hex has it up about 30' and is experiencing all the fun I had with it. Still works as new too!

----Original Evaluation----2017-08
In typical fashion I'm getting back into ham radio after a near decade long slump. Long gone are the 52' crank up tower and SteppIR antenna. I wanted something a bit simpler this time.

This Hexbeam has to be the easiest antenna I have ever put together. I took my time and did it right. I started with three coats of flat black rattle can paint on the spreaders, waited a couple days and followed the instructions from there. Although pretty big, the finished antenna is very light and my daughter and I were able to mount it to a Yaesu 450a rotator on the top of a Heights 32' tower. I used the winch on my truck to lift the hinged tower upright, connected all the cables and checked out the VSWRs. One spot at 21.4 mHz was at 1.4:1. Everything else on the HF bands is 1.1-1.3:1. That's almost scary! 50 mHz was a bit higher.

The Yaesu spins this antenna effortlessly. At this point in the solar cycle and time of year, I've only used 17 and 20 meters, but have been very happy with the results. I have not tested F/B yet, but S/S seems to be pretty good; signals drop off as the beam is rotated away from them.

I'll update this review next spring after I've had the chance to give it a good workout.