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Reviews For: TGM B-246

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

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Review Summary For : TGM B-246
Reviews: 2MSRP: 787
Description:
Small two element end loaded yagi for 10,15,17,20 and 40M
Product is in production
More Info: http:///tgmcommunications.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=160&Itemid=644
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0025
VA2CST Rating: 2022-08-23
awesome compact antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have been looking for a compact antenna that cover 40m for a long time and after contacting other B-246 owner, every one told me they were really satisfied with their product.

I finally got one too based on the comment I have received from others and I am really satisfied at this moment.

It outperform hands down my previous Comet CHA250b multi-band vertical, way less noise than the vertical.

I receive excellent signal reports from others and many are surprised that I only run 100W at this moment.

As soon the antenna has been installed, I made phone contacts with Russia, Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Sweden, Germany, Australia, Romania and many other countries mainly on 20 and 40m (july 2021).

The 40m band has a really sharp narrow bandwidth, it will require an external tuner to go out of the resonance. I have not found that performance degraded that much curiously. You can see the background noise on a spectrum scope getting darker on the outer edges of the resonant part of the antenna but it receives quite well and I've been able to establish contact anyway.

20m band has much larger bandwidth, internal radio tuner can handle band limit with no problem.

17 and 15m is almost flat across the whole band works really well no tuner required.

I have over 100 contacts on the 10m dipole on a opening (july 2021), I heard everybody really well even though being horizontal polarization, many of those stations were on vertical. I had better receive on the B-246 than the CHA250b that is vertical and higher height than the B-246. With a tuner you can access the whole 10m bandwidth, mine resonate around 28.6.

I will try to install a 10m director, MMANA report good match and resonance with dipole/director setup and will give a little bit more forward gain. Not sure what the overall effect will have on other bands, that is to be tested.

Speaking of dipole and director, both are isolated from ground. They are NOT in contact with the boom mast.

The 40m band has been difficult to tune for me, it is extremely sensitive to the environment, buildings, trees and such which makes the resonance and SWR change. I have not been able to tune it at 6' over the ground as per the manual as I was too close to the environment objects around my small lot. I had to install it in a small test tower with access to a roof. There I have been able to get better results.


The most difficult part has been installing it. The capacitive hats on 40m are 20" long and are quite fragile in the fact that they will bend and stay bent so don't even think to put the antenna on the ground for final assembly. Difficult to manipulate the antenna with the loading coils and capacitive hats installed without bending anything.

Besides the difficult manipulation of the antenna and touchy 40m tuning band because I had not enough space, I am really satisfied with the results I have got up to now even though the antenna is about 30' high right now.

I also think that the use of a remote tuner would be an excellent idea specially for 40m, I think it would reduce a lot of loss on the transmission line when out of the resonant frequency.

The antenna has a little bit more gain to the front of the antenna, front to back radio is quite low but I don't mind to much about that at the moment, just the gain improvement and the overall performance compared to what I had before makes me a happy B246 owner. Like other have said, the B-246 has similar or more gain than a inverted V at the same hight, perfect for my tight space and needs.

I can't wait to be higher above ground and away from obstacles.

I have been using my own balun made with a dual 12 turn winding on a single FT240-43 core (good for about 800W).

If you are looking for a compact 2el beam that covers 40m, you will not be disapointed, I have got a lot of fun using it and it seems to have the same results to what other B-246 owner have told me.



EDIT 2022-08-23: Forgot to mentionned that Tom at TGM always gave me excellent support and quick reply. It did well during harsh winter season 2021-2022 here in Quebec. Antenna is sensitive to rain and snow/ice though (goes out of usual tuning) but still usable with tuner, it return to normal operation when melt/dry conditions are met. Still enjoying the B-246, works great and use it almost every day.
N5GGG Rating: 2014-07-29
Super performance for space limited Hams Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I live on a small city lot. A full size 40 meter yagi would overhang the neighbors property. The B-246 with its 10' boom and narrow turning radius fit the bill size wise, if it worked.

This review is with the B-246 at 25' on a rooftop, awaiting construction of a tower. Since this location is low, and "in the trees", I did not expect much.

My main bands of interest are 17 and 40, but I often get on 10,15,20 to chase DX. Previous antenna was a Cushcraft A3, which worked well, a 40M inverted V at 26' which I used to WAS in 29 days on 40 meters in summertime, and some assorted dipoles.

The B-246 uses a Driver/director type arrangement rather than the more usual Driven/Reflector. I understand this trades gain for front to back.

Since I mainly operate OMISS net on 40 meters, I did not need front to back, but did need to be able to "poke" the signal out in a given direction and receive that direction well. The B-246 does that. I worked a Californian 5 watt QRP station I could not ever hear using the V or vertical, yet he was a copyable 5/1 on the B-246. On a 10' boom, I would not expect any gain, but somehow the B-246 lives up to its claimed 2db gain on 40, without the deep nulls off the side and rear, making it perfect for me.
I can only assume they do it by concentrating the signal at the horizon.

The SWR graph on the B-246 website is narrower than my experience. I can get 100kc on 40, almost the entire phone band on 20, and all of 17, 15, and 28.0 up to 29.0 with under 2:1 using 125' of LMR400. I have not used it on 6 meters yet.

The great thing about the B-246 other than the size, was the ease of assembly (3 hours for two of us in a driveway), ease of tuning (all bands were untouched from default settings except 40, which required about 3 trips to the roof to trim two spokes of the capacity hat).

The biggest plus is the fact that unlike other multiband beams, the B-246 has actual gain on 17 meters. Its not just a dipole thrown on for good measure. A 17M pileup busting contact with Bahrain using 500 watts to the B-246, while he was using 1500 watts to a phased two element dipole beam resulted in the same exact signal readings on both ends (they were NOT the obligatory 5/9, I requested a real report).

In direct A/B comparisons of transmitted signal on 40 with stateside stations, I am told there is either no S unit difference, or a slight improvement using the B-246 against the inverted V. In almost all cases, the receive is the same or about 1 S unit better on the B-246, and the background noise level (excluding static crashes)
is usually > 3 S units lower on the B-246.

While this beam is small, it packs a lot of punch in the forward direction on all bands. Its not as powerful as an A3 on 10/15 and 20, nor does it have a sharp front to back, or front to side, but the tradeoff is good honest gain in the forward direction, and the addition of 6, 17 and 40 meters.

40 will become more the band of choice once the sunspots die down, and the B-246 can easily pull in those European and Australian DX stations on 40. It holds its own on 20M as well, as evidenced by my contact with E51AND in the Cook Islands during the last CQ contest while he was working a pileup of JA's at 0412Z my local time.

The manufacturer claims the antenna will work on 12M with a tuner. I verified this, it tunes up quickly, although the band has rarely been open since I installed the B-246, so I have not had enough experience using it on 12M to render an opinion on that band yet.

The B-246 is a simple rotatable dipole on 10M, and I made several 10 meter contacts to prove it works just fine on 10 when the band is open.

I can only imagine the improvement when I get the antenna 60' up in the air, and clear of the trees...but if I had to leave it on the roof, it would still be a performer.

The manufacturer answered all my pre-purchase Emails promptly. I did not require any further help once assembled. The included instructions were easy to understand, all parts were well packaged, and nothing was missing. Elements were color coded, capacity hats were labeled and in separate bags with regard to band and install location.

I would highly recommend the B-256 to other hams who are challenged by space and want an antenna that covers all the popular ham bands, sans 80 meters, using one antenna.