| VA3VS |
Rating:  |
2024-12-05 | |
| excellent |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
i bought this antenna at dayton hamfest back in 2001. its never been down for maintenance, the swr plots on 2m and 70cms are still the same!
gives great coverage.
from the get go, i noticed its only resonant in the fm part of 6m, which the manual clearly states. the one long radial rod, can be extended or retracted to lower your swr on 6m.
as a test, i made an extended radial, so the antenna would be resonant at 50.125 and this worked well. i have put it back to normal setting for fm part of the band, as i have a yagi for ssb.
great performance and longevity!
this is an update to my original.
i have experemented with the radials on my vs2000a. firstly, taking off all 3 radials, and replacing with 3,1/4 wave radials for 6m. this wkd very well, but i wanted to make the antenna more compact, so i re installed the two small de coupling radials, and used just the one 1/4 wave radial for 6m, except i bent it close to the mounting point, so now on 6m, its a vertical dipole. does it work? you betcha. great antenna, and again, swr plots are right on the money. nothing has changed in23 years! highly recommended. |
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| W8GTX |
Rating: |
2022-11-25 | |
| Antenna does what it was built for |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
The antenna does what it was built for. No problem tuning the 6m portion to the FM segment of the bend. Great match on 2 and 440.
Edit: from my review on 02-13-2205 above. Still in the same spot, still using the same 9913 coax. I haven't touched a thing. Still shows a great SWR across 2m/440, and is still 1.1 on 52.5. Just amazing, it is the most trouble-free antenna I have ever owned. Though, I noticed the coax is really showing its age considering it has been up since the later 90s |
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| G4VVQ |
Rating: |
2022-01-08 | |
| Good Performer on some bands |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Great antenna, works on 6 mts, 2 mts and 70cms, works as 1/2 wave on 6 mts, 2 x 5/8 wave on 2 mts, 4 x 5/8 wave on 70cms, I have used it quite a lot on 6 mts under sporadic E condition and have good reports back from the European Continent, Sweden, Portugal and Spain etc, it's quite costly but being Diamond well made, has 3 ground planes, adjustable one for 6 mts, which I left alone, power rating is 150 watts, I have tried 100 on ssb and no problems, vswr on all bands is good, can't think of anything bad to say about it, the joint in the middle is a bit loose, but not really a problem, works good on ground wave as well, it's performance is as good or better than other makes I have used. A few years later it still woks ok on 2 and 6 meters but the vswr on 70 cms is terrible, and i'm not the only one to say that. i would never buy another one, that must be the only Diamond antenna that is rubbish...73 Fred g4vvq UK. |
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| W4DXL |
Rating: |
2021-08-11 | |
| 17+ Years in all kinds of Weather! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Now at 22 years of trouble free service. The antenna still works great and I haven't touched it. If they still make them this good, buy one, you won't be sorry!
This is probably the most neglected part of my station simply because I'm not that fond of climbing up on the roof. Most of the time I forget it's there, it has been just that trouble free. in 1999 I installed it on a tripod mount on the roof and it's been there ever since. Not a great performer on 6 meters, just okay, really shines on 2 meters and 70cm. We get all kinds of weather here from 10 to 100 degrees, and some windy days too. Never a problem. If it broke tomorrow I'd still say that I got more than my money's worth from it. When it comes time to replace it, I'll buy another one just like it. I hope Diamond makes them as well now as they did back in 1999!
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| KK2DOG |
Rating: |
2020-03-05 | |
| Great ! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| My antenna has been up for 20 years now, even enduring the brutal northern New York winters and has worked flawlessly without any maintenance at all. My former review was on 12/29/07 under my old call of KC2FTN. |
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| KJ6GEU |
Rating: |
2020-03-04 | |
| Excellent antenna (with mods) |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Just put this antenna up this week, replacing a dual-band Diamond antenna which had been up for ten years. It's up about 10 meters above ground at the base. The SWR across both the 70cm and 2-meter bands is excellent (1.1-1.3 all the way across). For 6 meters, I did not use the supplied radials but switched all three to 145-cm-long ones as described on a couple of web sites. With these, I'm getting 1.1-1.4 SWR on all frequencies from 50.6-54.0 MHz; between 50 and 50.6 it's about 1.8-2.2, but still tunable. With this modification, I'm very happy with it! |
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| KF4ULD |
Rating: |
2018-09-11 | |
| SWR too high where I operate |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I would have given this a poor had it not been for the great build quality. The SWR in the upper 70cm band was 1.9 and the upper 2M band was 1.8. I can't fault the install or feed line as it's on a pole above my chimney and fed with Andrews Heliax 5/8 hard line with low loss N connectors. It's been up for 2 days now and I've adjusted the 6M tuning radial thinking that would have a difference one way or another but it did not. 6M tunes as advertised and the SWR is around 1.3 in the lower portions of the aforementioned bands but 1.9 is entirely too high and is almost twice as high as their advertised highest stated SWR. I have an email into ham radio outlet and I'll give them some more time to even respond before I call them and ask for a return for credit or just swap me for the Comet GP-15. To be continued and/or updated based on HRO customer service and/or tuning suggestion. |
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| M0MCX |
Rating: |
2016-12-19 | |
| 10 years perfect high gain vertical |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Lightning finally blew my V2000 a couple of months ago and I'm replacing with another Diamond, the X510N.
However, before I forget, I'd just like to say that this was an exceptional vertical antenna. It was bolted to the side of the house on a 20 foot aluminum scaffold tube, clearing the roof by around 10 feet.
Never missed a beat and I regularly ran 100W FM into it.
Even on SSB, when most other stations were horizontal, I still had a lot of fun.
Genuine Diamond antennas seem to be very fine aerials. Follow the instructions, help out the manufacturer by sealing the joints and you should be fine.
73. Callum, M0MCX
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Earlier 5-star review posted by M0MCX on 2011-12-22
Many of my club members "make do" with various random white stick co-linears for VHF, not realising the V2000 is a real beefy antenna which blows most others away. I have not had any of the issues or bad experiences that a small number of other people have spotted. I have low SWR across all of my 6, 2 and 70cms bands and fabulous gain. The feedpont of the antenna itself is about 10m (30+ feet) above ground, well away from anything other than the 20 foot aluminium pole that it's bolted to on the gable end of my house. I'm feeding with 25m of Westflex (UK low loss coax) and regularly open repeaters 100 miles away.
I rarely work 6m band but I have used it on both FM and SSB and even scored some DX however it's not a yagi so I only use it with similarly polarised, locally based hams.
I am considering upgrading to an X-510N not because I'm dissapointed in the V-2000, on the contrary. I'm upgrading to the higher gain BECAUSE I've been so impressed with the V2000.
I will absolutely keep my V2000 and may even re-install it alongside my X-510N. I'll be interested in observing any side-by-side differences in the long term.
73, Callum. |
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| M1OOO |
Rating: |
2015-02-25 | |
| BEST OF THE BUNCH |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have owned a DIAMOND V-2000 for around 10 years and I am impressed by the antenna's performance on all three bands. Yes - the 50MHz performance can be improved by replacing all 3 radials with extended-length radials - see mod here: http://ea4eoz.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/modifications-to-diamond-v2000-and.html
In my opinion, the genuine DIAMOND V-2000 is the way to go if an omnidirectional tri-bander is reqired. There are less expensive (or should I say cheaper) copies on the market - but you get what you pay for! DIAMOND IS QUALITY. Why pay good money for a transceiver and then ruin its potential performance by using an inferior product that under-delivers?!
The ONLY beef I have is a weakness in the mounting structure which DIAMOND HAS NEVER ADDRESSED (shame on them) - the mounting architecture is reliant solely on ONE grub-screw at the base of the antenna. This grub-screw secures the WHOLE antenna to the short-length supplied tube which is, in turn, secured to the pole on which the whole antenna system is mounted. This is a weak point that will need rectifying by the user at some stage, so better to do so before first erecting. (Make some hacksaw cuts in the supplied, short-length tube and secure to the main antenna WITH A GOOD QUALITY STAINLESS STEEL JUBILEE CLIP. You won't regret it, and the whole installation becomes pretty well maintenance-free. SHAME ON DIAMOND FOR NOT RECTIFYING THIS EASILY-RECTIFIED PROBLEM.
It's great that DIAMOND refers to their gain figures in dBi - 2.15 dBi gain on 50 / 6.2 dBi on 144 / 8.4 dBi on 430. This equates to REAL-LIFE GAINS of 0 dBd gain on 50 / 4.05 dBd on 144 / 6.25 dBd on 430. dBd (real-world dipole) is 2.15 dB LESS than dBi (isotropic theoretical). Too many suppliers KNOWINGLY & FLAGRANTLY misrepresent these figures by quoting the HIGHER gain figures and just adding "dB" (without the "i" or "d") in order to mislead (con) purchasers into believing they are purchasing a higher gain antenna. So - come on suppliers, less of the con, and publish gain figures as dBd!!!
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| KI4WVZ |
Rating: |
2014-02-13 | |
| I like it |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have had this antenna for a few days, and I thought it was going to be a bear to set up 6 meters... so easy a monkey could do it...
flat to 1.3 swr's on 2m and 70cm
center freq of 52.500 is flat swr's
1.3 at 50.000 and 1.2 at 54.000
can't ask for any better than that ...
I haven't made any contacts yet, but then there are very few in the area ... |
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