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Reviews For: RadioWavz Sentinel Hexbeam 20/10 Meters

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

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Review Summary For : RadioWavz Sentinel Hexbeam 20/10 Meters
Reviews: 3MSRP: 650
Description:
RadioWavz Sentinel Hexbeam fopr 20 meters and 10 meters.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.radiowavz.com/sentinel-hex-beams/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0032.3
NA1A Rating: 2020-07-01
BAD Product, Poor Customer Service. Buyer's Beware! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
As much as I hate to write a bad review about a product, especially a manufacturer, but after my experience with the Sentinel Hexbeam by Radiowavz, I feel that a review is necessary to forewarn people from making a purchase.
The antenna I ordered was a 10-40m version with linear loading on the 40M element. The box arrived with no physical damage, however, there were a few broken components inside. The O-ring that held the linear loading coil together for the 40M band broke in places. The wire to element holders were also broken. Upon communicating this to Radiowavz, they immediately blamed it on UPS. The shipping box had no physical damage. So, what would that indicate? A poor packaging with inadequate packaging materials.
Upon assembling the antenna, not only that the materials used were of very low quality, the instructions manual was unclear and didn’t really “lead the way” a whole lot. The hub was made out of pieces of PVC bolted together. The main support structure which they called “the buss” was made out of a PVC tube that wasn’t very rugged. All the bolts coming out on either side of this "buss" to attach the wire elements to were mostly loose. The SO-239 broke upon tightening the coaxial cable to it.
While I’m not an antenna designer nor builder, I have put together many antennas in the past including large yagis such as Sommer, KLM, Hy-Gain, Telrex, cubical quads to very simple antenna like the Traffie HexBeam. This Sentinel antenna, it took me and another ham (who was also very knowledgeable in assembling antennas) almost 6 hours! We literally ran out of daylight and had to continue the work on the following day.
Upon completion and checking the SWR via an antenna analyzer, the resonance was at least 1 or more Mhz low on every single band! 20m would “resonate” down on 13 Mhz, 17m resonated down on 17Mhz, etc… No dips anywhere within the ham bands.
Upon communicating with Radiowavz, it didn’t really go anywhere helpful. They even said that from their “experience”, whenever they ship antenna to California, it always ended up short, so they made mine long… Never heard of such a thing.
I wasted so much time trouble shoots and repaired the broken parts on this antenna but of no prevail. The antenna was returned for a refund and they wouldn’t issue the money back. It took over 60 days for the bank to fight it out and finally settled in my favor. All I can advise you is BUYER BEWARE! Not only for the Sentinel antenna but for the whole Radiowavz as a company.
K7ORV Rating: 2019-11-22
Required a lot of work to get it working properly. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I purchased a Radiowavz (RW) Sentinel 6-20 along with the 40M band option. I spent 2 weeks (almost full 8 hr days as I am retired) trying to get a good SWR on each band without success. Changing one band would adversely affect all bands. RW sent me a new set of wires and gave me all their factory dimensions to check. We discussed the problems many times on the phone and eventually they pretty much gave up. I was going to send it back for a refund when I had the idea to check continuity between the factory installed wire terminals on the center pylon and the coax. I found there was no continuity between the wire terminals on three of the bands and the coax. Another couple of calls with RW and they informed me of a way to fix that without sending the antenna back to them. I used that method to fix them. I then installed the wires, one band at time from the two different sets of wires I then had, keeping the wire with the lowest SWR for that band on the antenna. It took a mix of the factory wires to get the lowest SWR for each band. I should also mention that many of the wire standoffs were factory installed on the spreaders in locations the factory wires would not fit, i.e. the wire was shorter than the diameter formed by the standoffs (and vice versa) with all factory support cords (forming the blown out umbrella shape) within the factory specifications given to me as we attempted to get SWR correct per band. RW instructed me to slide the improperly located standoffs on the spreaders to allow their band wires to fit. Fine tuning the SWR on each band with my antenna analyzer was accomplished after the factory wires with the lowest SWR were all on the structure. Some minor trimming of wire length was required to get lowest SWR at the best frequency for the widest possible SWR < 2.0 range in the various bands. Unfortunately, the 20M standoffs were actually located on spreader segments where the spreader joint prevented sliding the standoffs inboard to the proper segment. I had to take them apart again, strip all hardware from them to get the standoffs off those segments and install them on the correct segments. I finally tackled and completed that work (I had been procrastinating) 11/20/2019. I now have an antenna assembly that has at least a majority of each band available with a SWR significantly less than 2.0. Testing has shown 10M – 20M signals on Xmit and Rec (with the antenna 7 ft up on a pole in the backyard) both exceed what my G5RV antenna at 55 ft up does on those bands with the hex beam properly aimed in the correspondent’s QTH direction. The 40M section of the antenna is approximately the same Xmit and Rec strength (sometimes a little less) than my G5RV antenna does at 55 feet up. The 40M option is a relatively new addition to the RW Sentinel product line. The standoffs are also a very nice design in that you can remove and install wires by snapping them in and not have to thread the wire through them. This feature was very useful as I had the wires on and off the structure many times while troubleshooting the problem that was actually being caused by the inoperable pylon wire connection terminals. I am impressed by the basic structural integrity of the Sentinel, i.e. solid fiberglass spreaders with swaged on metal fitting at the joints. It looks like the structure will withstand significant snow and ice loads and was a major reason for keeping this antenna instead of returning it for a refund. The wire assemblies also appear to be well made with swaged metal connections. I have now learned more about hex beams than I ever imagined I would as I thought I was purchasing an antenna that could just be assembled and final tuned. I have furnished all of the information to RW as I worked with them to correct the problems and I hope RW has corrected all of these problems on their subsequent production units. I have two other ham buddies who also purchased hex beams from two other different companies. Two of us were disappointed in that we had to perform a lot of trial and error work to get them working to our satisfaction. The guy who purchased from company number three received an antenna that only required assembly and very minor adjustment before going up on his tower. I hope RW’s hex beam antenna’s will become like company number three for their current production units as they are good people and I wish them well. I intend to update this review after I get the antenna properly installed up around 40 feet above the ground now that it tests well at 7 feet above the ground.
KC7RUN Rating: 2015-06-01
Outstanding & Amazing Time Owned: more than 12 months.
After being off the air for over six years I found myself back in the business of amateur radio. Of course the antenna was my first consideration. At the time I was a member of the Maritime Mobile Service Net as a NCS so my biggest concern was the 20 meter band. I needed a antenna that was directional, but would still have the ability to receive off the sides of the antenna in case a maritime mobile station was in trouble, or simply attempting to check into the network. I had heard other NCS stations that were always razor sharp and very loud. I inquired as to what they were using as an antenna. Each one of them said they were using a Hex-Beam. Being out of the game for as long as I was I was simply not familiar with the antenna. So, I did some more research and learned about the Hex-Beam and its design and functionality. After a short decision making process I decided to go with the RadioWavz 20/10 meter Sentinel Hex-Beam. I called Emmett on the phone and ask him if it was possible to build a two band antenna for me and he said yes. One week later I had it in the air. It took less than thirty minutes to build and get it up 32 feet. I used the antenna in Maritime Mobile of about a month before I decided to leave the organization (for my own personal reasons) but during that time I was told repeatedly that my signal was one of the loudest stations on 20 meters. That doesn’t surprise me due to the fact that the antenna is rugged, solid and performs every time. I ran my Henry 3K at full legal limit when working as a NCS for Maritime Mobile, just in case. The antenna handled all the power I could through to it. If you’re looking for a rock solid, inexpensive, lightweight performance machine in your antenna system then the RadioWavz Sentinel Series Hex-Beam is exactly what you want. There simply isn’t a substitute for perfection.