Manager


Manager - NA4M
Manager Notes
Reviews Home

Reviews For: Amateur Radio Supplies ZS6BKW

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

eMail Subscription

Registered users are allowed to subscribe to specific review topics and receive eMail notifications when new reviews are posted.
Review Summary For : Amateur Radio Supplies ZS6BKW
Reviews: 6MSRP: 120
Description:
Optimised G5RV for 80, 40, 20, 17, 10, 15 etc.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.amateurradiosupplies.com/zs6bkw-g5rv-antenna-s/65.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0064.7
AB9PM Rating: 2021-07-22
Works well Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I used this antenna for field day, about 50 feet in the air, and 15 feet off the grounds on the ends. 40, 20, 15, 10 the antenna seems a hair long to me with 1:1.1 match at bottom of each of these bands, and the swr rises from there as you go up in frequency. A tuner easily matches it. Bottom of 80 meters is 3:7.1 and rises from there. I do not know how well it would would tune on 80/75 meters. Yes I know about the door knob capacitor issue a person can use, but I do not have one, and can't seem to get one through customs due to coronavirus. Ridiculous. I made lots of contacts on 40, 20 meters. I like the antenna and it will be my backup antenna if my other one comes down.
W6UXB Rating: 2020-09-08
Excellent wire antenna Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I replaced a home made ZS6BKW after high winds stretched mine out of tune, I have put this one up and loosen it of when I get those high winds, one end is up about 65 feet the other about 20 so pretty much a sloper, works great 40 -10 I did have to cut down the feed line from 41 feet to 40 to get a good match in the phone bands I feed it through a DX engineering 1:1 balun and then to an LDG remote tuner. If I want to get on 80 I use a 250 pf capacitor (2 x 500 pf door knob capacitors in series) with the out of the balun the LDG tuner then tunes perfectly. This is a well constructed version of this antenna highly recommended.
KB6HRT Rating: 2020-09-07
ZS6BKW Great antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is the 2nd one of these antennas I have used at this QTH about 3 years ago I installed a new ZS6BKW in the same location where the old ZS6BKW was installed but at 42' to the apex which was around 5' higher than my old one also added some small drackron secured to the 450 ohm LL. for extra strength on the LL. Have had between the 2 antennas about 10 years of service from them. SWR is very low 10-40m on 80m its low around 3565 but very high around 3900, I use Plaster HF Auto for 75m & 160m where i just listen on 160m. this antenna has a great signal to noise ratio on all bands it works on and hears very well. and stays up in the air in high winds. The price was right and its very well made, a winner in my book.......kb6hrt
K4VBB Rating: 2019-07-14
Transmit power reduced, OK VSWR Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
First let me describe my setup so we have a basis for comparison:

Rig: ICOM IC-7410
Tuner: LDG Z-100 PLUS
Coax to Ant: 100 feet of LMR400
BALUN: 1:1 choke balun, ferrite beads
Antenna: ZS6BKW G5RV ZS80, 37ft, inverted V
Location: DM79ni

Now, on to the review:

Build Quality:
The build quality on this antenna is nothing short of excellent. Wire is quite flexible (read high copper content) and the terminations are made into PVC caps with are potted with epoxy. This antenna appears to be built to last.

Performance:

I'm going to break this down into two parts--Matching and TX.

Matching:
This antenna appears to match better than my standard (Varney design) G5RV on 40m, 20m, 17m, and 10m, on paper at least. On the lower bands, it is not a high-bandwidth match. As read by my analyzer, and at the "shack" end of my coax, on the low end of 10m it matches at 1.64:1. On the high end of that band it matches at 5.3:1.
On 20 meters, the VSWR matches between 2.9:1 and 3.6:1. It is very difficult to tune on 80m, as the VSWR reads between 12:1 and 14:1. Compared to my plain-Jane G5RV, and taking ALL bands into consideration, this antenna is a better VSWR match on most bands. This antenna picks up about 2db more noise than my Varney-design G5RV.

TX:
This antenna exhibits some strange behavior on TX. On 20m, a band I use most frequently, I find that my radio will dial back the power to about 40W (set to 100W) when transmitting. This is after having been tuned with the tuner. Crawling up the band helps, but the radio will never achieve full power on transmit with this antenna. 40m is a bit better, but same issue. 80m is sketchy, and the radio requires re-tuning as I move across the band.

It may be interesting to note that the internal tuners on neither my ICOM IC-7410 nor my Yaesu FT-450D will tune this antenna on any band other than 40m when tuned to the center of the band.

Unfortunately for me, I have not had the same experience as others have had with this antenna. I'm glad it works for others, but it does not work very well in my setup. As of the time of this review I have not measured to see if the antenna I received was built to specification.
WB4TJH Rating: 2017-12-27
Vast improvement over G5RV Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've had this antenna up only a few weeks and so far, I am very pleased and impressed with its construction and performance. I had a regular style G5RV up for a couple of years, and it worked OK, but required an external transmatch for use. This ZS6BKW version has low SWR on several bands and the limited built-in tuner in my radios handles it perfectly. I usually build my antennas, but after looking this one over, it is so heavy-duty constructed, I opted for the factory built model. I have the delux one with the 1:1 balun at the end of the balanced feed line. All connections are sealed n epoxy and totally weatherproofed and super strong. I have never seen a wire antenna built to such high standards of durability as this one. I would not hesitate to recommend this model to anyone looking for a multi-band HF antenna. Mine also works very well on 60 meters with an external tuner. 75 meter SWR is a bit high, but this antenna is not really designed for 75 and I use a 135 foot dipole fed with balanced feed line for 75. I have the ZS6BKW antenna at a right angle to my longer dipole and it gives me very usable options for finding the strongest signals. I doubt you will find a more heavy duty factory made wire antenna than this one. We have a lot of wind and chance of heavy ice storms here in the Ozarks, and this antenna should have NO problem in weathering most anything mother nature can throw at it. I doubt you can build this one at home any better than the factory made model. This is one Grade A, heavy duty antenna and should give good service for many years in extreme weather conditons.
VK3ZT Rating: 2015-12-28
Great Multi-Bander Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have been using this antenna for over a year and I find that it works very well on 40 and 20 metres. You will require a good tuner on 80 metres as I believe that it is an 8:1 match down there. Thankfully for me my radio has a 10:1 matching tuner.

On 40 metres in the afternoon I can work operators around 2,000 kilometers away and once into the USA. On 20 I can work the world depending on conditions. A beam this is not. Though I have worked Wales in the UK on 100 watts. Which is the greatest distance to date. Though I was very weak and so were they. Marginal at best.

I have not used it on the higher bands as the conditions have not been there when I was available.

On 40, 20 metres and others it is a good match of less than 2:1.

If you are in the market for a multi-band antenna. Have a look at this one. It arrived well packaged and has put up with a number of storms of high winds and rain. Very well built and packaged.

The antenna was purchased with the 1:1 balun though have been told that I did not require one. The antenna has been running successfully for the past 12 months without a balun.

Give it ago. I think you will be very happy with this antenna.

Warm regards,

Paul VK3ZT