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Reviews For: Cobra Ultralite Senior by K1JEK

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Cobra Ultralite Senior by K1JEK
Reviews: 18MSRP: $125
Description:
140 Ft (70 ft a side) Wire antenna fed with Twin-Lead
Product is in production
More Info: http://k1jek.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
15184.3
AD4PF Rating: 2023-01-22
Overall great ant try one.. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This Ant Is the Best Wire I have ever had. Had A zs6bkw The Cobra Have Made A lot of Contact On 160M And 80M And 40M Works Great the Ones That Rate This Ant a One Don't Know What They Are Talking About. Try One and See Ps Keep the Lander Line Off the Ground My pw 1 tunes the ant fine.
W6EMR Rating: 2022-11-07
Balanced line-fed doublet 160-10M Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Purchased new last year (2021) from HRO. Now, only available direct from k1jek.
I have this antenna up @ 28' and the ends @ 8' , so a 'lazy' inverted "v". Hears quite well, gets me out to 7000 miles, or so. Works great on 10 meters and WARC bands. 20 meters ,40 and 75-80 very good. It tunes 160, but I haven't used tye antenna on that band yet.
I need to get the center point up to the reccomended 55' for the low bands to work correctly, though 40m and up don't suffer much at the current mounted height. This would be an excellent POTA or SOTA antenna. Very light, easy to install. Balanced line has very little loss.
Holds up to strong gusts and some ice.
The only downside is 450 ohm ladder line (window line) detunes in the rain.
Otherwise, this is an awesome multiband doublet.
W2BLC Rating: 2021-06-03
Not very good for 160 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Bought it as an answer to get up a quick and easy 160 antenna. It is built well and I followed the instructions. It is at 30 feet. Hears well on 160 - but is not heard. I run 500 Watts and can barely get out of the county. Have no need for other bands on it - so no knowledge what it does above 160. For 160 it was an expensive disappointment.
KB3NWU Rating: 2020-10-26
Very good versatile antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned several Cobra Sr. antennas over the past 10 years. Several because the giant Tulip-Poplar trees keep dropping huge limbs and destroying whatever is underneath. Why do I keep buying the Cobra Sr? Because I can use one antenna for 160M through 6M. The internal tuner of my FTDX-3000 can tune every frequency of every band to at least 1.3 but I use an Elecraft KAT500 tuner because of my amp. I use a Balun Designs 4:1 balun between the ladder line and the coax. The ladder line is deliberately 81' because that is the point where impedances along the line are lowest for all bands making tuning easier. It is a well thought-out design. It is mounted horizontally at 50' and I can work any station I hear. There is no compromise on 80-6M though you do loose a few dB on 160M, but that is the price of any shortened (140 ft.) antenna on 160M. It is still more than enough for contacting anyone on the fairly local range of 160M dipoles. The up-side of that is that the higher bands radiate fairly broadside instead of off the ends like they would in a full sized 160M dipole. If you do not want an antenna farm but want ONE antenna to enjoy all of HF and 6M I recommend you give the Cobra Sr. a try.
KG7AV Rating: 2020-01-30
Does the Job Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Downsized two years ago to a midtown lot, had to give up the acreage and my beloved 80m skywire loop. Given the geometry of the new property, agonized over what to install. Went with the Cobra Sr. Loads up well on all bands and has survived a couple of tough winters with no problem.

Update - Took some time to fine tune the feedline length and upgraded to a good quality current balun. Boom. Getting signal reports on 160m from the Eastern US, and working all over the Pacific Rim on 20m.
KF6E Rating: 2019-06-07
Works well on small lot Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was having trouble finding a reasonably efficient antenna for 160 - 30 that would present a low-enough SWR (< 8:1) so my Palstar HF-AUTO would handle it. I have some tall trees at the back of my lot, but have limited space overall. I tried longwires, G5RV, verticals, etc., but wasn't happy with the result.

The Cobra loads up easily on the bands of interest to me. (I have a TH-11 on the tower, so 20 - 10 are covered.) It isn't a four-element Yagi, but it works fine in the inverted-V configuration. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait until next winter to see how well it does on 160.
K1SEC Rating: 2019-04-12
Excellent all band antenna Time Owned: N.A.
Have been using the cobra ultralite junior and senior for many years. Initially I purchased a junior several years ago for a backup dipole. After comparing the junior with my resonant 40 and 80 meter dipoles I was shocked to find the Cobra junior was consistently out performing my resonant wires. I did not expect those results! To make a long story short, I took down my other dipoles, purchased the cobra senior and have two ultralites hanging off my 70 ft tower. Have been operating with these two antennas for many years and am more than satisfied with their consistent performance and can work all bands. My QRZ home page has a picture of the wires hanging off my tower. Feel free to contact me if you should have any questions or need further information about my experiences with these antennas.
73,
Paul
EI8KF Rating: 2018-10-19
Great antenna! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought an UltraLite Senior during a trip to the US last year and put it up shortly after returning home. I bought this antenna mainly to get me on top band and my DXCC totals quickly started to rise from 1 or 2 confirmed to currently (19-Oct-2018) 46 worked with 38 confirmed.
I've now mounted the centre a little higher and I'm looking forward to working a few new ones on top band with this antenna this winter.
For anyone with limited space or difficulty in putting up a full size dipole for 160m this antenna is a great solution. For the first time since I became licensed I'm able to work top band with relative ease.
Buy one, you won't regret it..!
K2DVA Rating: 2018-08-10
Got on 160M Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Purchased from Granite State Antenna, great company. I got this to get on 160M in my city lot and thats exactly what it did. Within 20 minutes of stringing this up in trees in my yard i was working 160m, 80m also impressive. I have this about 50ft up in center etending over three trees in parallel with my fence so its pretty stealth for such a long antenna. Bought with 4:1 balun. Ordering was very fast as well, had it in a few days.
KM1G Rating: 2018-06-25
Strong, simple, effective Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've used K1JEK Cobras for 20 years, after building my own approximation many times. Mine never worked 160-six, like Joe's does. I've read critical reviews and thought, "What did the critic do wrong?" My Cobras have been up five, six and seven years in nasty New England wind, ice and snow, and I can only recall one halyard failure—and never a component failure. Never.

Performance is good. Will it whip six element yagis? No. Will one yagi work DC to light frequencies? No. My Cobra is like my Apple computers: set it and forget it. Case closed.