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Reviews For: RF Systems T2FD

Category: Antennas: VLF/LF/HF Receive only

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Review Summary For : RF Systems T2FD
Reviews: 1MSRP: 300
Description:
45' (15 meters) long folded terminated dipole with 3-35 MHz frequency
coverage. For receive only.
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant/0562.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
KQ4O Rating: 2017-06-18
Great Performance! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought this antenna used on eBay back in 1999. I don't know how old it was at the time, they had been in production for a number of years already. When I finally had a chance to set it up, I couldn't put it at the recommended 30° angle which is supposed to give omnidirectional performance – it ended up being no more than 15° or possibly even 10° angle.
Being that it was a rental house, I was reluctant to really set up an elaborate ground system so basically all I had was a 2 foot pipe banged into the ground with a Transi-Trap attached to the coax, and disconnected the receiver when I wasn 't using it. I was living in a suburb of Philadelphia at the time, quite a high density area actually. The receiver I had back then was a Drake R7 with a Sherwood SE-3 synchronous detector.

I was completely amazed at the reception I was getting with absolutely no RFI. Rather low powered regional HF stations from Africa and Asia were coming in very clearly with the antenna on both the 60 and 90 m bands. Kind of weak but still very listenable due to the signal-to-noise ratio.

Later I had moved to upstate Pennsylvania near the Lake Erie region, and the antenna spent three years in very harsh cold snowy and icy conditions. I was getting the same performance (the angle was the recommended 30°) and the wire antenna held up very well during that time. Eventually I moved to Florida and had a very limited space in my yard, so I sold the T2FD because I couldn't use it anymore. No antenna I used since matched the performance of the T2FD, mainly how noise free it was.

Since I'm planning on buying another house with a much larger yard in a few years, I looked around to see if I could find another. The company's offices in Holland were destroyed by a fire a number of years ago, and production of all of their products has ceased. Luckily, thiecom.de still has a few remaining RF Systems products in supply (as of this writing) and I was able to purchase this antenna again. I've used several of RF Systems products and everyone has been first rate.