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Reviews For: DX Engineering 160 meter Thunderbolt Monoband Vertical

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : DX Engineering 160 meter Thunderbolt Monoband Vertical
Reviews: 2MSRP: 1,000
Description:
DX Engineering 160 Meter THUNDERBOLT® Vertical Antennas are high-performance antennas specifically designed for use on Top Band. You will achieve the strongest possible presence at your power level and be competitive with a 160 meter vertical monoband antenna that is only 55 feet tall! A custom-designed capacity hat system allows you to get on 160 meters with unparalleled performance.

DX Engineering 160 Meter THUNDERBOLT® Vertical Antennas are tunable with an impressive 40 kHz bandwidth. This means that operation on the CW DX frequencies and DX Phone frequencies are within the range of most internal tuners - no physical changes to the antenna are necessary.

DX Engineering DXE-160VA-1 antennas are a slow-taper 55-foot high Monoband Vertical Antenna system with a massive 3-inch OD base section. Included with this antenna system is a rugged, patented* stainless steel pivot fixture for ease of raising, lowering and tuning adjustments. Engineered with 6061-T8 and 6063-T832 corrosion- resistant aluminum tubing, stainless steel mounting brackets and stainless steel hardware, this antenna is very durable and attractive.

Why Does This Antenna Perform So Well for Its Height?

The top capacity hat is large enough that the current along the radiator is almost constant. Typical shortened verticals for this band, with smaller top-hats, have currents that vary along the length and end up producing much less signal strength. This also works in the receive mode to let you hear weaker signals, although at this frequency range dedicated receiving antennas are almost a must.
Product is in production
More Info: http://https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-160va-1
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0025
K4ZMV Rating: 2019-03-16
Brief Review of Installation, Tuning, and Use Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This antenna has been up at my QTH for about three months now. I assembled and installed the antenna by myself. If you order this antenna, I strongly recommend you include the winch in the purchase. The winch is essential to get the top hat and guying correctly installed. The assembly is pretty straight forward; recommend following the instructions exactly.

Where the guying is concerned you need to have the final guy point at 55' from the base to the ground stake as recommended. Otherwise, getting the proper tension on the top hat and the antenna as a whole is pretty near impossible. Also, horizontal spreader guys need to be 22', not 21'8".

The base assembly is very heavy and you may need someone to assist you in getting it on the pipe base. After the base is installed, the rest of the assembly of the aluminum mast is pretty straight forward. Laying out the top hat and the guying rope is a little difficult, but if you pay attention it will all go together fairly easily.

Tuning the antenna is easy as described in the manual. It took me about a half an hour to get the center frequency of 1.825 MHz to 1.2:1 on my analyzer. The 2:1 bandwidth is 50 KHz. I currently have 30 radials (20-65'; 10-30'); more to come.

I used the antenna in the CQ 160 Meter Contest. I only operated about 9 hours in search and pounce mode and made 270 contacts, 11 of which were DX. Compared to a 57' tuned vertical, a full-sized dipole, and an inverted L, this antenna is quieter and has much more gain. I now hear European DX that I could only hear on my beverage.
N4UP Rating: 2018-11-29
Magnificent Vertical for 160 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is a review of the design, assembly, and installation of the DXE 160 meter Thunderbolt Monoband Vertical. I will update once I have tuned the antenna and have an understanding of its actual performance.

Design. First Rate. High quality components, well-engineering ( all the parts fit together nicely ), and easy-to-follow instructions. A few minor concerns with the instructions, but nothing serious. The antenna is 55 feet tall, weighs 90 lbs., and has a huge 24 foot by 24 foot “wire” cap hat. It comes with a very sturdy tilt-base, but you pay extra for a heavy-duty winch. That is a good deal, because the winch is easily moved from one antenna to another, so you can have multiple DXE vertical antennas and only one winch is needed ( I also have the DXE 8040 Thunderbolt with its own radial field ). You don’t even have to remove the bolts on the winch. Just loosen them and the whole winch assembly slides right out.

I infer from the directions that the usual installation is in the clear. In my case, in the woods, which poses a few extra considerations. I had to remove seven large healthy trees to make room for the cap hat. There are two sets of four guy ropes. One set connects the top of the cat hat to the four corners of the cap hat. The other four connect those four corners to the four anchors. I used large healthy trees for anchors, but only at shoulder-height to prevent sway. The instructions say you only need loosen one set of guys to lower the antenna, but in my case I need to loosen three sets, because I have trees in the way. In my case, when the antenna is fully raised, the guy ropes are in the clear, when horizontal not so.

Assembly and Installation. My site is some 500 feet from my garage. I opted to do the assembly in the garage, in stages, and then move each stage to the site for installation. This means that the 13 hours it took for me to do the assembly and installation includes a lot of 1000 foot trips. I took my time, reading and re-reading the instructions before each stage, and proceeded slowly. No doubt the folks at DXE can do this faster than I can. It helps that the various components are packaged with their own hardware so what you need for each assembly stage is right there.

That 13 hours does not include site preparation, planting radials, or burying the feed-line. In my case the radial plate and 76 radials were already in place. I just had to remove the radial plate, prepare the foundation, set the mounting pipe in concrete, wait for it to cure, then re-attach the radial plate and radials. My radials are 75-135 feet long, average 110 feet, with most being 120 feet long. Burying radials in the woods, with rocks and roots, was not an enjoyable experience. But the assembly and installation of the DXE antenna itself was mostly enjoyable and satisfying.

There were a few tricky bits. The cap hat consists of eight wires. Four are 39 feet long, four are 24 feet long. That’s over 250 feet of wire in a relatively small space. Have to be very careful to avoid tangles. Have to be very careful to lay things out correctly. It is easy enough to configure all the wire, if you color-code the four directions of the ( patented ) insulators ( in my case N S E W ). The tricky part is adding and connecting the guy ropes. The instructions have great diagrams, so you know how the wires and ropes are supposed to be. And clear instructions on how to attach them.

But there are no explicit instructions of how to get there, and I understand why. If the antenna is vertical and you have a 60 foot man-lift, no problem attaching the wires and ropes. But if the antenna is near horizontal, so you can reach both the top and where the guy ring is, not so easy. You have to be very careful to dress the ropes in such a way that when the antenna is raised they end up in all the right places. Easier said than done, and very hard to explain. But if you are smart, and think it through, it works.

Another tricky bit is that the 24 foot wire on the side opposite the pivoting direction can snag on the hose clamps as you raise or lower the antenna ( and of course when raised you cannot reach them ). Just have to be careful. Or arrange the hose clamps in such a way as to minimize the snag ( they could have said so in the instructions but didn’t ). The only other issue with the instructions has to do with alignment of holes in one section of the antenna. They say the hole alignment is different on one end compared to the other, that it will only fit one way and not the other. This was perplexing to me as the holes and alignments were identical on both ends. And it worked either way.

The only other tricky bit was the upper ropes, between the guy ring and the four corners of the cap hat. They say each needs to be 20’ 8” long and should be cut to 23’ to give room for tying the no-slip knots. Okay. I cut them to 23’ and tied my knots. And when I raised the antenna those four ropes were too long. Had to lower the antenna and remove a foot from each rope. Those four ropes are “for stability” so they don’t help much if they are really loose. The end result needs to be not loose and not too tight. They need to be just right. No problem with the anchor ropes, as they are easy to adjust at the anchor ends.

At no point in the process of assembly and installation was there a need for help. I was able to do all this by myself. The antenna raises and lowers easily without the cap hat. With the cap hat you need to raise and lower more slowly to minimize the top wobble and dress the anchor ropes periodically.

Bottom line so far --- This is a substantial and high quality antenna, well-designed, well-engineered, and relatively easy to assemble and install. No missing parts, nothing that does not fit properly. Five-star quality.