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Reviews For: GAP Voyager IV

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : GAP Voyager IV
Reviews: 32MSRP: 399
Description:
Vertical antenna for 160-80-40-20 Meters
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.gapantenna.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00324.1
K4ZIW Rating: 2008-11-03
Best answer for 80 Meters Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Executive Summary: Reasonable assembly with need to go slowly and carefully. A challenge to walk up, but OK with one strong person lifting, one watching for trouble and one guiding capacity hat around an oak tree branch using a selected guy rope. Super telephone support from Richard and Chris, at GAP, during assembly and erection. My objective: 80 Meter CW for WAS and DXCC. Initial result: 40 states worked in 2008 Sweepstakes contest - 24 hours after completing final coax connector assembly. Worked all I could hear. I'm a very happy camper. More Detail: Selected Gap Voyager after researching all alternatives. Not needing a field of radials was a driving factor. My site is a 100 by 170 city lot with super-dense Live Oak tree coverage. I am a boatanchor guy, so far using a complete set of classic Yaesu FT-901 units barefoot at 100 watts. One band at a time to spread out the joy. So far, WAS and DXCC on 40 Meter CW using Alpha-Delta DX-EE dipole at 25 feet. Now, the challenge is 80 Meters, first with the Yaesu set, then with a great set of restored Gold Dust twins (Howard Mills, W3HM). Assembly of Voyager was fun and satisfying. Used saw horses for support. Biggest challenge was getting stand-off insulators lined up (cosmetic). Triple checked all screw connections for tightness. Erection was entertaining. This antenna is very flexible going up. With bottom section at about 50 degrees elevation, the capacity hat was still within reach from the ground. Because of site constraints, I chose to use seven sets of guy ropes anchored to house, convenient strong tree trunks and screw-in mobile home anchors. Estimated lengths ahead of time. If I ever do this again, I will follow Instruction advice to pre-string all guys to their anchor points. Even with them marked, stringing them quickly while two persons held antenna vertical was like a circus act. Windless day. I am a person who avoids PL-259 soldering like the plague. Richard provided step-by-step advice. Also found numerous Internet articles, the best, in my opinion, from Harris Corporation. Now burying feed and counterpoise lines in PVC to protect them from the herd of Moles who live rent-free in my yard (yet another reason for avoiding radials). During assembly, I added cable ties diagonally around tuner rods at their stand-off insulators to curtail noisy vibration when the wind blows. Not too tight, because these rods need to move during erection. Just enough to avoid the slapping-halyard-on-the-flagpole syndrome.

KB3NSW Rating: 2008-04-13
6-7 hours I had it completely assembled : less time to raise. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
6-7 hours of accempling and my voyager was ready to raise. This is not bad for working by myself and being a ham for less than 2 years. It took much less to raise.Everything is included in this kit which makes it easy for someone with little knowledge of tools, radio tech and the such.I use it mostly for 80 meters and 40M and I have had fantaxtic results on both. I have a beam and wires for 20, and 40. I am looking forward to using it next winter for the 160 M. I had to write about it's easy assemble because everything looks terrifiying at my level with no one in the family in radio. ( Thank goodness for the great Elmers out there) My Elmer , KB3HOB has a Voyager and highly suggested it . As usual he was right.....just follow the directions. This is a great antennae and easy as well as fast to get up and operating.
N0JWJ Rating: 2007-07-06
Marginal Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Having had a Gap Challenger for about 10 years I decided to purchase the Voyager to have access to 160mtrs. Everything went together well but I was not impressed with the construction. I agree with the other posts that the mast should be stronger. Once it was guyed however it did very well in the colorado winds 60mph+. As I owned 10 acres of flat land with no obstructions I could do comparisons with the two antennas. Both antennas were set 100yards apart and 100 yards from the house. I found that both antennas were nearly identical on both receive and transmit on 20 mtrs with the voyager having a slight edge on this band. I do not agree with some of the reports others have made as the voyager being lousy on 20mtrs. It may not be as good when compared to some other antennas on 20 but as compared to the challenger I have no complaints here. The same can be said for 40 mtrs which I consider the best band for both antennas.
80mtrs was better with increased bandwidth on the Voyager and 160 was very poor on receive although the swr was 2:1.On transmit only contacts within 1000 miles were made and they were marginal at best. After having the antenna up for one year a spring storm finally took the antenna. The guys never broke. What broke was the bottom of the mast. It twisted and snapped off. I still have the challenger up and it still works fine.
JBD332 Rating: 2007-01-21
good signal owful quality Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
hallo colegs.what can i say,i have one of these and it works great on 40-80 and litle bit on 20-160 but is mechanicle made in usa typicle JUNK!!!im sorry guys but i do not minde to pay dubbel the price if you would make it 4mm thick instead 2mm and the carbon pipe dubbel the size en not so flexsible and the top MUST be lighter en thinner not to cach so much wind!!!guys who say you must guy this on two levels is a lier!!!and big one!!!mine was guy on 3levels with 12nylons 6mm and it broke down just onder the gap! and now i know why,these piece onder the gap carbone pipe is pressd to a bigger diameter and with thise act this piece is weaken and there is your week side.this antenna is weak mechanicle an cant stand much wind load and im shure with 2guys line is shure fast gone,gone with the wind...i will repare this because i put money in this but if you can go for the vertical till 40meter deep and for 80-160 take the simple and chepa dipole and forget the rest...for 20 good yagi of qubicle quad "my favorite" and off you go..and the rest is going oor not..if you by this antenna you will be happy and sad!why becaus it works solid on the bands BUT with the wind bigger then 50km/h put it down...oor buy another the choice is yours..73 everybody

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Earlier 5-star review posted by JBD332 on 2006-12-29

hallo colega ham's.im new on the air but i read the arrl antenna bok's till the bottom and first thing i must say is ,gys please do NOT compare this antenna with yagis,quad oor other winn db antennas....this is vertikal dipole omnidirectional without radials and with low loss in radiated power.system is simple,it takes the diference lengts of aluminium tubbing and tune them separetly on each band.i have gap voyager and titan.i even bild on voyager 30meter band tubbing.so i can use it on 15meters too.the people who swares to here better with other type of antennas are right because other antenna fabrics use coils paralel with capacitors so thay create resonant point and this is the reason of better hearing,BUT the same coil+capacitor behaves like good swr DUMMY and the resultat is you must use liniers on such antennas to get out doors to make contact.i do prefer searching for good dx passage and good signal and then to power up 10watts up,yes you see good 10wiskys and get back raports 59+ 59 59+ 58,,,,not bad?! and the gap antenna does not use radials because of big loss of the earth capacity so it have it ons earth caald counterpoise.so it works the sine wawes ageinst coinerpoise reather then earth and even i test signal power of 1WATT and resultat was 46,45,56,ets not bad,??gys i must say "grat american idea and product,BUT tipical american poor quality alu tubbing "light on bottom and heawy on top"wery poor done,i ges the quantity is the name but not the quality.sorry gys.i rather pay more then get the quality,but this is my opinion .all together im hapy with idea and performance of gap antennas and YES i will buy another gap antenna but gys please make it stronger and better it diserv it...and others with antennas with coils and capacitors-please get real the small and short antenna to produce the length of the wawe nesesery for low bands without making antenna 1/2lambda long?!?!get real....this is all fer tonite and be free to answer to this teory good oor bad?thill then 73's and good nite "and size isnt everything it is everything"
AB5GU Rating: 2005-11-10
Great Low Band Antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Gap has made a great antenna with this Voyager IV. I have 4 verticals fron various manufacturers up at the farm and the Gap out performs them all! I don't care about performance on 20 meters, as I have several beams up to work 20, but on 40 and 80 meters The Gap Voyager IV is unbeaten. It has taken hammerings from the hurricanes here on the Gulf Coast and is still up and working like a champ. It remains unaffected by the salt spray from the nearby Gulf waters, and the power from a Henry 3K driving it. It has never needed parts or service, so I can't comment on that, but Rich and the other guys at Gap were very helpfull with any questions that I've had. Texas is in kind of a dead zone for 160 meter DX, but the countries keep piling up sence I bought the Gap. I'd buy another!
Marty
AI2A Rating: 2005-04-16
I like it Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Forget the marketing claims of manufacturers and start with an open mind. Do compare apples and apples when judging performance. Thats where I start this review.

I have owned various Hygain, MFJ, Butternut, Cushcraft and Hustler short multiband verticals. I have used them with and without radials. I have lived in many different location types - city urban, suburban, apartment (yuk) and finally the rural environments.

What I wanted was a reasonable antenna that would compliment my TH11DX 11 element yagi. I suppose that I would gladly trade 20M coverage on the Voyager for 30M coverage - but alas, thats a project I can "tinker" with sometime later. I wanted the following:

160M - just an exposure. I cant afford a 125-140 foot self supporting tower based vertical;

80M - I had some aspirations that 80M would offer somewhat broader 2:1 SWR points than my prior verticals - without acting like a dummy load;

40M - Performance of a full sized vertical;

20M - No real expectations, since I have the TH11DX 11 element yagi @ 90'

ASSEMBLY: Others have commented on this. I agree that the manual is mediocre to poor. I suppose it is ok - but my 12 year old could write a better manual. A few typo's and omissions. All in all - it is barely satisfactory in my view. Mechanically, it could be better - and the price could be higher. It is fair to good in my judgement. I note that if you ever have to take this apart, look out! I read all the reviews before I attempted assembly of mine. After the reviews, I nearly took mine back for a refund - but I waited and planned carefully my assembly and installation.

RESULTS: Believe it or not, I like the antenna. It is not the perfect choice for every ham. It is a great value for the money - as installed at my QTH.

20M - I prefer the TH11DX
40M - Quiet and plenty of signals and full band
80M - Quiet and plenty of signals and full band
160M - Quite and some signals (100khz bandwidth)

I would rate this as superior to other vertical experience in the past on 80 and 40 meters - I counted 12 other verticals I have previously owned. I have nothing to compare against with 160 and for 20M - it worked about the same as other 20M verticals. Good low angle activity from my observation - with the edge going to horizontal wire dipoles for medium distance work.

Actual antena assembly took about 3 hours with an additional 2 hours install the guy anchors and tap the base mounting brackets into the heretofore undisturbed soil. I have excluded the time I took to dig a trench by hand about 200' long to bury my coax in 2" Schedule 40 PVC.

To keep my wife happy, I dressed a wood mulch around each of the anchors and the antenna base to make lawn care a bit less burdensome and buried the radials about 1" under the soil surface.

WOULD I BUT THE VOYAGER AGAIN? Yes - unless my wife would let me part with an additiona $1200 or so for a Hygain 18HT with MK160A, concrete and a massive number of radials.
W5SL Rating: 2004-12-06
Poor Service from GAP Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have the voyager IV for a couple of months now. I ordered it mainly for the 160 mtr band as I already have adequate antennas for the other covered bands. The factory asked what center frequency I wanted for the 160 antenna. I ordered 1.850 on their recommendation as it is advertised to have 90 kc bandwidth, which I would have expected would cover the cw and dx portion of the band well enough.
The antenna was easily constructed and installed with some help raising it. It is located on a 7 acre tract, well away from any buildings, other antennas, or large trees. It works well on 80 40 and 20 meters. On 160 the center frequency is at 1.872 and it has almost a 70 kc bandwidth and starts rising well above 2.2/1 swr at about 1.840. The instructions are very clear about operating the antenna at any elevated power above 2.0/1 swr as the antenna will be damaged, and warns against using a tuner to make my solid state rig work properly. My experience from central Texas is that I need to operate some power to work most of the DX encountered. Therefore the antenna does not work as expected or advertised.

In attempting to remedy the problem I have placed 5 phone calls to the factory. After checking and rechecking the items they suggested, there was no improvement. On the second call I was told the capacitor could be changed to change the center frequency and that they would send me one for around $12.00 which could be credited if I sent in the current one.
No capacitor came. After a week between each call I was told it was on the way or on one call they said "oh, it will be in the mail in 2 days"

I have given up getting the new capacitor. I feel I have been ripped off. I have still used the antenna in the lower end of the band but am reluctant to use power which results in almost no contacts on 160.

Caveat emptor.
PIETROEXK3PD Rating: 2004-08-04
AWSOME Time Owned: more than 12 months.
With this antenna I have on 160=18 Countries Worked, 80=127 Countries Worked, 40=153 Countries Worked. I cannot tell you how many Countries I worked with the GAP on 20 because I have a Yagi too but my total Countries on 20 is now 275. I can say that during contesting, I used the GAP a lot for 20 meters since it was omnidirectional. The 20 meter element can be modified for use on 30 meters instead if you wish. When I thought about what antenna I needed for the Low Bands, I kept coming up with the Gap Voyager IV as the most suited for 160-40. Most people understand that the edge bands (160 & 20 for the Voyager) on any antenna are going to be marginal. However for 80 & 40 meters, this antenna cannot be beat.
WB1S Rating: 2004-05-30
Mechanical Junk Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I have had the antenna up for about 6 months now and it performs well on 80 and 40 meters. Performance on 160 is fair and 20 meters is poor. The problems I have with the antenna is that it’s mechanically quite poor in design and manufacture. Design wise the tubing for the main mast sections is too small in diameter. When you try to raise the antenna it’s like a piece of spaghetti. The 45-foot length is unwieldy leading to damage when erecting it. I have raised the antenna about ten times and once you get practice it’s do-able but larger tubing would make it better. Manufacturing is awful – drilled holes are either the wrong size or out of location. The pvc pipe standoffs are junk – the long ones bend because the through holes take away too much material and only a small web of pvc is left which is too weak. The whole scheme with the pipe clamps is a kluge. It’s nearly impossible to get these pieces aligned to the axis of the antenna. I worked as a manufacturing engineer for many years and know faulty design and machining when I encounter it.
WD5JNC Rating: 2004-02-17
Just the thing for small lots Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I purchesed the Voyager from a friend about 18 months ago. My house site is on a 60x150 lot. So I can not put up a tower and beams, or string dipoles. The voyager has preformed much better than expected on 80,40,20 fair on 160. no problems so far with it and I think it is a great antenna. I have used other vertical antennas but this one is the best and quietest so far. I also have a Gap Titan for the Warc bands and 15 and 10 mtrs. I would not hesatate to buy gap products in the future.