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Reviews For: Rippletech TZ-RD-3

Category: Antennas: HF: Yagi, Quad, Rotary dipole, LPDA

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Review Summary For : Rippletech TZ-RD-3
Reviews: 1MSRP: AUD 299
Description:
Rotatable dipole antenna for 10/15/20m bands
Product is in production
More Info: https://www.rippletech.com.au/html/tz-rd-3.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
VK4CJM Rating: 2023-01-11
Great improvement over wire fan dipole Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Purchased this antenna 6 months ago but only recently erected a mast (9.5m tall, unguyed) for it. After a few weeks of operation I am very happy.

My QTH does not allow a tower nor a guyed mast, so this type of antenna is the limit for me. It provides the hoped for ability to rotate and thereby eliminate the directional nulls I had with my fan dipole. The RD3 is also visually less "untidy" than the fan dipole despite being higher.

I find for local (up to 1000km) contacts on 20m my lower-height wire dipole is better, but for DX the RD-3 is better. The RD-3 has given me 10m ability I did not previously have, and has improved my ability on 15m also.

The RD-3 arrived quickly and was easy to assemble. I tried to optimise the tuning beyond the factory markings but this is quite tricky due to the interactions between the band sections. In the end the factory tuning markings would have certainly been good enough for initial use.