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Reviews For: Greyline Performance DXF Flagpole Verticals

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Greyline Performance DXF Flagpole Verticals
Reviews: 23MSRP: 800 - 1,000
Description:
Greyline's DX Flagpole Antenna for 160-6M. No Radials, No guy wires. This HF vertical is HOA and XYL approved. Low angle for Real DX. Low loss and Low noise is high-performance. Sizes: 12-16-20-24-28 foot and taller available. Wind rated up to 155+ MPH without Flag, 95+MPH with Flag. Ham Radio is fun again
Product is in production
More Info: http://Greylineperformance.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
24234.1
KT6I Rating: 2023-02-22
OK antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've owned a Grayline 28' flagpole antenna for over a year, and I can tell you, it works except on a windy day, . I run a Kenwood ts-590s with Ameritron als-600 and MFJ 994-brt 600 watt remote tuner at the antenna.. I mainly talk to friends in California from my ranch in northern Arizona, on 40 and 80 meters, and have no problems whatsoever, except if the wind is blowing, the swr's jump all over the pkace, I've pulled the antenna down and double checked for loose screws, which you will find as they loosen up with movement, that said, after tightening the screws, I still had the same problem during windy days. My main gripe is, I've been trying to get a refund on a extra feedline kit I ordered but did not receive or need, that has been over a year. I would never do business with this company if you expect any kind of customer service.

Update: Finally received my refund, but still having trouble with the antenna. Have to constantly tighten screws, and it will only tune when there is No wind, if it's a windy day, the swr's bounch back and forth with movement from the wind.

2nd update:
John from Greyline contacted me so we can figure out why the antenna keeps detuning, he had a great recommendation that I plan to try once I have a chance. Their customer service seems to be improving, so if the modification works, I will update, for now I have raised my rating for greyline because they are sincerely trying to remedy the situation.
K7NT Rating: 2022-11-28
Decent performance for a compromise HOA-compliant antenna! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I am quite happy with my Greyline 28' Flagpole Antenna!

I have a 4x8 post set in cement for tying off the end of a triangular sunshade, so I decided to use that as my mounting point, rather than burying it in the ground. This also happens to be the highest accessible point on my hillside property.

I put it up without connecting it in the summer of 2021. I put a 5x7 flag on it, which is the "correct" size flag for the pole being about 33' high. I did see some flex when the wind came up, but didn't think it would fail. It did. One of the fiberglass insulator pieces gave up. No other damages, thankfully. I contacted the manufacturer and they sent me a replacement fiberglass piece, which was a much higher quality piece. Due to my wife's concerns, I have guyed it about 3/4 of the way up using 500 lb test monofilament, which is visible but not obnoxious. I also reduced my flag size to 4x6'. I have had no other problems with it staying up.

I started with the LDG RT100 remote auto tuner. It was quite erratic in its ability to tune the antenna. I added the large "choker" to the feed line going into the tuner, which I replaced it with the MFJ 998RT and that has been much better, though the tuner seems to have problems when it is hot outside, and even when it is cool it doesn't tune consistently without turning the tuner off, then transmitting and turning the tuner back on. I really need to do a complete memory reset, but that will wait until the spring.

I still had some problems with some bands, which I assumed were outside the impedance matching range of the tuner.

In order to get it to tune on all bands, 160 - 6 I added a Palomar 4:1 balun. This solved the tuning problem and now I can get less than 1.6:1 on all bands. (This may have helped the LDG RT100 work better too, but I have not tested it).

I also set a ground rod in about 6' deep, about 3 feet from the base of the support and tied that to the tuner and the lower 4' section of the antenna below the feed point insulator.

Performance is what you might expect from a non-resonant vertical. It works pretty well on 40, 30, 20 and 15. It works on 5 MHz and 80, but not great. It's just too short I think. It tunes on 160 but I have yet to work anyone and my WSPR reports (received and transmitted) are pretty poor. 10 seems to be okay, but I have not experienced a good opening yet to really know. On 6, again, openings are the challenge. I'm located in Eastern Washington state at about 46 degrees north, and we don't get a lot of great 6 meter openings. It does tune and I have had a couple WSPR receptions but none of my transmissions have been heard so far. I haven't done much with the WARC bands but it will now tune on all of them as well as 5 MHz.

I tend to use 40 or 30 CW for much of my activity and I am able to have fun with that. I can make a few contacts on 80 and 10. I had a decent time in SS CW and made over 300 QSOs using 100 watts.

I decided to operate 15M single band in the CQ WW CW and the band was open but not fantastic in my QTH. I started with 100 watts and was a bit frustrated, so I dug out my old FL2100B that hadn't been turned on for over 20 years. I brought it up on a variac over about 90 minutes and nothing smoked so I hooked it up. Boy did that help! It is only putting out about 400 watts (original Cetron 572Bs) but I had a great time and could work most stations I could hear. In 7 hours I logged 111 QSOs with 26 zones and 48 countries!

My advice:

1) Get the largest Greyline Flagpole you can! Longer is better!

2) Get the best remote tuner you can afford - it will be worth it and save headaches.

3) Get a 4:1 balun to put between the antenna and the tuner. Otherwise you may find bands that your tuner cannot find a match for.

4) Use a 1:1 "choker" balun on the feed line going into the tuner to isolate your feed line. This just seems like good practice to me.

5) Take care not to short your feed line as that can smoke your DC insertion device. I had a short and got some smoke out, but caught it before it was destroyed. Fixed the short and wondered if I would have problems with grounding the tuner causing too low resistance for the DC insertion device, but it hasn't.

6) Ground everything at the antenna - the tuner and the lower section of the antenna.

My next step will be to add some radials off the ground rod. Are they necessary? No, but I have to imagine they won't hurt and might help. We'll see.

If they made a 33' version I would have that!
W8RJK Rating: 2022-09-11
SOLID ANTENNA PERFORMANCE Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Ordered my Greyline w/LDG RT-100 external tuner bundle in May 2022. Finally received antenna late August 2022 and tuner in early September. Installed the 24' antenna after tuner was received. I did not purchase a flagpole kit for this antenna. The antenna is installed close to our house in the back yard and is needed due to lack of space, lack of space for radials, and some HOA restrictions.

Installation was fairly straightforward, but had to assemble my own installation instructions from their website. None of the sections were labeled and had to figure those out from their on-line photos. Although they include components for the feed line, should probably have purchased their feed line kit for $95 because their adapter kit that requires assembly is not easy. The biggest problems for it are that one has to drill a hole lengthwise in the adaptor to feed the center conductor for solder which would be much easier if I still had my drill press, but do not. Also, the housing they provide for the adaptor fits poorly, had to enlarge the hole so it would clamp around the adaptor and allow the 4 screws to properly tighten, and isn't the easiest to waterproof. Similarly the choke requires 1-1/2 heat shrink tubing to enclose the iron and plastic rings which is not easy to locate and when I did was relatively expensive.

I installed the tuner on 1" PVC, but had to mount it about 30" above the ground to prevent the adaptor, choke, and lightening protection from laying on the ground (it snows in Ohio). Not sure how I would have done this if I had to camouflage for a front yard flagpole installation. Best idea I would have is to install and underground PVC and run coax from the adaptor at the base of the antenna to a location where the tuner, lighting protection and choke could be more easily concealed.

The antenna itself is of very high quality and fitting. The machining is excellent. The completed high end appearance is very good, and has not resulted in any concerns from our neighbors.

Performance is solid, but not perfect. 10M has 1.8SWR; 12M has 1.4; 20M has 1.3; 30M has 1.1; and 40M has 1.3. The 15M, 17M, and 80M bands are unusable with very high SWRs ranging from +4 to +6 ON 80M. I don't know whether to attribute the high SWRs to the tuner or the combination of that tuner with the antenna.

My transceiver is an FT-991A, with a maximum 100watts transmit power. On the usable bands I can make great contacts. On FT8, I have made contacts throughout the USA and in 19 countries some as far as 6K miles away.

I would rate this antenna very favorably. If they can fix their long wait time and lack of communication during that time, and make the on-line purchase experience better, that would go a long way.
ZL2TW Rating: 2022-06-22
Extremely Poor Service Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I take no pleasure posting this review. Purchased a 28' flagpole last June. It went together OK, instructions could be better. We had just built a new house, landscapers drilled the hole and concreted in the PVC ground pipe perfectly.

Good quality and robust, except for the insulator, see below. The pulley (mission critical component for a flagpole!) did not fit the top, way oversize, no reply to an e mail about this, improvised with a good quality stainless steel pulley I had on hand.

It performed well, easily worked eastern Europe on 20 m on first test with 100 watts on phone (from ZL). Low angle radiator on 80 m, locals were poor strength, so should be good for DX on lower bands too.

Two days later in moderate winds the bottom insulator failed, fibreglass delaminated. The pole bent slightly at a joint higher up in the fall. E mailed supplier and agreed to put things right. Then e mail silence until May this year, 8 months. A promise to sort things out. Nothing heard since.

To add insult to injury I have ben receiving promo e mails from Greyline including one with a video of their product standing up to a hurricane!

Now I am a reasonable person, I understand that manufacturing flaws can happen, and is probably the cause of the failure in my case. Shipping is expensive to ZL, I don't mind sharing the cost for the replacement, but there has been zero progress in 9 months.

I will look on the bright side, the PVC ground pipe and lower section of the flagpole will make a great support for the Step IR vertical I am planning on purchasing.

To sum up: some seem to have a good run with Greyline, others have communication 'issues' like me.
Read the earlier reviews carefully and think if you are prepared to be given the run around. The product is sound except for the non fitting upper pulley (others have had this problem) and the freak insulator failure I experienced.

The lack of effort to put things right is inexcusable so take your chances!
KC4ES Rating: 2022-05-01
Great DX with 28' Flagpole Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I bought the 28' Flagpole antenna and I'm very pleased with the performance on 40-10M. I have the MFJ-998RT tuner next to the antenna hidden by a fake rock (pump cover). I had a number of initial problems that took a while to resolve, and it turned out that the coax to ladder line choke (Palomar) between the antenna and tuner was the issue. It would saturate on 80 and 40 making the bands unusable regardless of power. I removed that and built the ladder line to coax adapter, and all has been much better. My tuner will not tune the antenna on 160m, but I really don't use that band, and it could be where I have the antenna installed. I bought the MFJ-998RT because it was the only affordable tuner available at the time. Sure, wish it would tune on 6M, but that's another story. You definitely need a remote tuner at the base of the antenna for good results. While you can get a match to the antenna from the shack, it does not perform as well due to the losses.

I purchased this antenna to replace a GAP Titan that was damaged beyond repair. That was a good antenna also, but flimsy in comparison to the Greyline and certainly more of an eye sore.

Since I put up this antenna, I have worked over 100 countries from my Florida QTH. Some Indonesia, Australia and China on FT8 over 10,000 miles with good reports. The construction of the antenna is solid, but I've had some of the section screws come loose after wind. I put some Loctite on some and haven't had a problem since. I would possibly suggest using a lock washer if I had to do it again. You need two people to place it in the mount because as you get near vertical, it becomes difficult for one person to handle. A tilt-over base would be a VERY useful addition.

Overall, my XYL is happy with the appearance of the flagpole, I'm happy with the performance and my neighbors have no idea that this is a ham radio antenna. 73, Gary (KC4ES)
W6ACU Rating: 2021-12-28
Works well, poor customer support Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I bought the 24ft version over the summer. I had been looking at their solution for some time but they had been having various problems so I held off. Finally they seemed to have their act back together so I ordered. After some delays I received the elements and using my own hardware I mounted it on the side of my shed with the bottom of the antenna about 8ft off the ground. The antenna elements are very well designed/built and fit together perfectly. I am using it with the LDG RC100 mounted at the base. It works as advertised and with the 24ft elements it tunes down to 80 mtrs but not 160. I have many worldwide contacts on FT8. I had to hound them to get various missing parts and pieces shipped. In the end, some parts were never received and I had to make do with what I could scrape-up. Actually I would like to add a couple of sections to make it a 32 ft version but it looks like they may be gone? Too bad. As I said above, the antenna itself is excellent. UPDATE - It appears that GigaParts bought some of the rights to the antennas.
N3LCW Rating: 2021-11-22
Great antenna. excellent quality. Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I admit being hesitant for 6 months whether to pull the trigger on their antenna but after contacting Greyline with some questions they both emailed and called me at home - a very pleasant surprise.

I placed the order for the 24ft version and received two packages in two weeks. The antenna is assembled in sections, and I intended to install it as a 16ft version first, supported by my fence, test it, then mount it permanently in concrete. Performance at the 16ft height was impressive so I completed the full 24ft assembly in concrete.

The quality is excellent, the feed line kit 'is a kit' , you'll need to do cutting and soldering, and the antenna kit already had all the interconnecting tube splices installed - just slide the remaining parts together and tightened all screws and bolts.

While the remote tuner should find a match within reason for most bands, any tuner will have a difficult time loading 16ft or even 24ft to 160M or even 80M. I did find a reasonable solution that is guaranteed to increase my remote tuner life. I installed a utility box at the antenna feed point - the spot between the upper and lower sections of the vertical. It is hidden by the shrubs at the base and I have air wound inductors inside the box for 60M and 80M. This puts most all the loading outside the tuner leaving it to match a lower SWR, generally less than 12:1. I can run QRO with no SWR drift as nothing in the tuner is getting hot.

Signal reports in all modes have been favorable and working through pileups is easy.





KT8X Rating: 2021-07-29
Great Option for HOA restricted Amatuers Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is a great solution for HOA restricted Amateurs. No one in my neighborhood realizes it's an antenna, except for the neighbors I've actually told - otherwise they would never have known. Having a helper insert the assembled flagpole inside the PVC sleeve (that's in the concrete) is a good idea. It's not heavy, just a little awkward alone.

The assembly of the antenna was relatively easy, but the documentation is spread out between a couple files and different locations on the website. While Jon was always helpful, it would go a long way to improve the documentation in a single concise file. I would be happy to assist Greyline in making this update or providing feedback.

One item of note, is the modification of the PL259 boss for soldering the ladder line. Ideally, this should be done on a drill press, it wasn't the easiest task with a hand drill and not having a vice. Greyline should consider pre-drilling the boss. The other issue I had was the supplied heat shrink with heat activated glue. It simply wouldn't work. I ended removing the glue, cutting the heat shrink, and taping it on... I'm not convinced this is even required if good precautions with No-Ox are made at the feedpoint with soldered terminals. I may be removing this.

Another update to the antenna would be to include Dacron rope - or perhaps as an upgrade option to alleviate rope replacement in a year or two.

The 3D printing of the stand-off insulators for the 450 ohm ladder line inside the aluminum is a novel idea and worked very well. However, it should be noted that the 3D printed ladder line to PL259 housing should be protected against UV. A short note in the manual would be a good idea, as well as protecting the snap-on chokes for the balun at the tuner input. This should be common sense, but a note would be helpful. I'm also wondering how long the flag hooks will last, they are plastic and appear to be 3D printed as well.

On-Air performance is very good, it compares well to a multi-band trapped dipole I have in my garage attic. Notably, it fills the gap in the dipole nulls off the tips. I am using the MFJ-993BRT tuner, as I already had it on-hand. I am finding that the tuner has some difficulty resolving a match to the antenna, and will not find a solution on 160M. I plan to take impedance measurements before winter. I believe this to be a tuner deficiency. I've made many contacts, domestic and DX (EU, SA, NA) on several bands.

The reason I'm giving the antenna 4 stars and not 5 stars is for the documentation deficiencies, the difficulty drilling the PL259 boss, and the work-around of the heat shrink / glue. I have more work to do regarding the tuner / impedance. I recently noticed that the screws for the bottom insulator were loose. This may have been an assembly issue on my part, but I will continue to monitor them, and apply blue Loctite if they loosen again.

In summary, I do think this is a great solution for HOA restricted Amatuers, and will get many people on the air that would not be otherwise. Some minor updates, in my opinion, would go a long way from making this a really good product to a great product.

Dennis KT8X
K6NXI Rating: 2021-07-23
28fT Flagpole review. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Update: Finally got the bottom section with the correct depth lathed out of the interior surface and prefitted with a new insulator. We will see how it goes. Still missing the 'truck' as it's called that goes on top. The one it came with was for some other model or revision that had different diameter tubing. For now it will not be a flagpole...

Orignally:
The second section from the bottom did not fit the piece above it. The instructions which btw are incomplete and don't match up to what you see in front of you, indicated two pieces sliding together. These two pieces could not possibly go together in the manner indicated because there is a ridge lathed out of the inside surface of the second section that is not deep enough to accommodate the insulator above it. This means the holes do not line up. After repeated emails trying to explain this to one person after another, complete with pictures and a simple drawing I was told I missing a transition piece. The instructions do not indicate a transition piece. I pointed this out. Somebody pointed me to a section of the instructions where it supposedly mentioned this. I looked, it didn't. It also was not the section of assembly I was dealing with nor does that section have a transition piece either! After arguing back and forth over around 50 emails they said they'd send me the parts and I was told they were shipped.

They didn't show up so I emailed again only to hear they don't have any parts. Oh and I was also missing bolts for one of the top sections and the flag truck/pully assembly for the top was the wrong size for the diameter tubing they sent me! One of the holes for the section that wouldn't fit was also drilled twice. An apprentice's mark I guess which makes me think whoever bagged this was an idiot.

The entire experience has left me feeling ripped off and angry. I will never recommend these people to anyone. I am out nearly 1000 bucks for maybe 15 dollars of scrap aluminum. The only reason I have not shipped it back is because I'm just too upset by the whole thing to deal with it because my mother also died during this time.
WA7WVN Rating: 2021-07-07
Looks good, works well Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I put up the 20 foot version just over a year ago. It took some months to get the antenna during COVID. The parts are nicely machined and it goes together well. The antenna is well suited to my QTH. I configured it with the remote tuner grounded and the balun between it and the antenna. I ended up with a balun of my own design which gave me the best performance. Jon was very helpful during the process. Then I started to have intermittent problems which clearly involved the antenna tuner. Final the antenna tuner just quit. It was an LDG RT-600 which LDG has discontinued from their line. It was on warrantee and LDG repaired it. Now I have SWR's of 1.1 to 1.4 across all the bands. 73's John WA7WVN