TN07 Engineering Ltd. promotes its "MyGo2 Antenna" as a multi-band antenna providing good SWR on all amateur bands from 80m to 6m. But is it worth the hype (and the $500 price tag)?
The antenna consists of two metal rods, a matching unit, a 17-foot telescoping whip and a 25-foot horizontal radiating wire. You sink one rod into the ground to a depth of about 12 to 18 inches, clip the matching unit to the rod and screw the telescoping whip into the matching unit. Then you connect the horizontal radiating wire to the matching unit, extend that wire to a point 25 feet away where you sink the second rod into the ground. An alligator clip then connects the radiating wire to the second rod. Connect one end of your coax to the matching unit and the other end to your radio and you're good to go. That's all you have to do.
Most online "reviews" of this antenna are really paid promotional videos focusing mainly on two things: ease of set-up and stealthiness.
And it is true that in most types of terrain, deploying this antenna is a piece of cake - in most types of terrain, an average person can set up the antenna and be on the air within five to ten minutes. Tear-down is just as quick and easy. The manufacturer provides a canvas carrying case with separate pouches and compartments for all the antenna components (plus a roll of brightly colored nylon ribbon that can be used to mark hard-to-see wires that could present a tripping hazard for unwary passers-by).
As for stealthiness, the antenna is difficult to see from a distance even when fully deployed. And when not in use, you can collapse the telescoping whip, unclip the radiating wire from the far pole and coil it up somewhere. And TN07 supplies circular discs with adhesive on one side so that you can attach a bird feeder or some other decorative object to the top of each metal rod so that nosy neighbors or HOA enforcers don't immediately realize you have an antenna installed. That said, if you have a small lot and the antenna is in your front yard, the MyGo2 Antenna is visible enough to provoke questions from people passing by on the sidewalk. In my neighborhood I don't have HOA restrictions, so I just tell people it's a ham radio antenna. I guess it's stealthy enough if it's in your back yard or hidden by trees.
But the online reviews don't address the real question that serious hams have about this antenna, which is not about its aesthetic appeal but rather its performance. How well does it work on the air? With a $500 price tag, most hams will want to know whether this antenna is going to help them make contacts, especially when compared to other portable antennas.
Having used this antenna since November 2021, I feel I'm well positioned to answer this question.
The short answer: this antenna works. Is it as good as a properly cut dipole or end-fed wire antenna? No, it isn't. But it is as good or better as other compromise antennas.
For about a year, I used this antenna both at my home (which sits on a tiny lot in a densely packed suburb in Pennsylvania) and outdoors in POTA activations in a number of locations. Although I've upgraded my home antenna to an end-fed long wire, I continue to use the MyGo2 for POTA activations. In the nearly 18 months since I put it into service, I logged more than 3,200 QSOs in the United States, plus a couple of hundred more QSOs during portable operations in the Philippines and the United Arab Emirates. I've used it on all HF bands from 80m to 6m. All my operations are 100W SSB. Although the antenna designer does not claim that the MyGo2 will operate on 160m, I tried it anyway. I managed to get it to tune, and made a contact with a local ham who lives about 8 miles from me. I've never seriously tried making 160m contacts with this antenna, though.
I have another portable antenna - the Alpha Antenna FMJ, which is a tripod-mounted off-center fed dipole consisting of a whip, a matching unit and tripod. The FMJ provides pretty good results too, but it is more expensive ($599 for the FMJ vs. $499 for the MyGo2). The MyGo2 kit weighs about 11lbs and with the standard rods, is only 32 inches long. That's compact enough to fit in a large suitcase, making it easy to stow it diagonally in a suitcase if you want to pack it in your checked luggage for domestic or international travel. By contrast, the FMJ is slightly heavier (about 13.5 pounds) and - with the tripod - measures 48 inches, which is too long to fit in a standard suitcase even if placed diagonally. I use both antennas depending on conditions at the operating site.
Specifically, the MyGo2 Antenna is not suited for sites where it is either impossible or impermissible to drive the metal rods into the ground. For example, most national parks do not allow poking stakes into the ground. And in some locations, the activator is forced to set up in an asphalt or gravel parking lot, or on rocky terrain where it's impossible to drive the MyGo2's metal rods into the ground. In the summer of 2022, I set up on a rooftop in Manila; obviously I had to use the tripod-mounted FMJ there. And in a recent POTA activation in New Hampshire, the frozen ground was too hard for me to set up the MyGo2. In all those scenarios, I use the Alpha FMJ instead.
But where the soil is soft enough and there are no legal restrictions on penetrating the ground, the MyGo2 antenna is a great option. I deployed the MyGo2 on the beach at Subic Bay in the Philippines with the metal rods actually lapped by salt water during high tide. That was a fantastic set-up and it enabled me to work Spain and Portugal easily on 20m SSB.
In mid-November 2021, I deployed an end-fed random wire antenna at my home QTH. It's 71 feet of wire deployed in inverted-vee formation with the peak at 40 feet off the ground. This antenna clearly outperforms the MyGo2 antenna - even without an amplifier, I am now able to break pile-ups and get glowing signal reports from DX stations. (I don't mean the fake "59" reports - I mean the reports that say I'm 59+20 or that I have a fantastic signal). Is the MyGo2 antenna going to give you that kind of performance? Of course not. But, to its credit, it's a quieter antenna than the end-fed. I noticed my noise level jumped noticeably higher when I replaced the MyGo2 with the wire antenna.
So, is the MyGo2 going to outperform your hex beam or your tower-mounted Yagis? Absolutely not. But is it going to get you on the air if you have a small lot or live in a garden apartment complex? Is it going to enable you to do meaningful POTA activations, DX'ing or contesting? Yes, it will be great for that. A month ago at Marsh Creek State Park (K-1380) I used the MyGo2 to rack up 225 contacts in an afternoon.
In summary, the MyGo2 antenna is now my preferred antenna for portable operations. It is simple to set up. The only complaint I have on set up is that the horizontal radiating element terminates in a ring connector. This design requires you to remove a screw from the matching unit, place the ring connector over the screw, and then replace the screw in the matching unit when setting up the antenna. You do the reverse on tear down. It's not a difficult step - you untighten and re-tighten by hand and it takes all of 30 seconds. But I'm always worried that I'll drop the screw and the tiny washer and lose them in the grass at my operating site. I would have preferred if the horizontal element terminated in a small alligator clip instead of the ring connector and that instead of a screw, the matching unit had a post to which you could clamp the alligator clip. But that's a small quibble.
I suspect that the Alpha FMJ performs slightly better on 80m, but I haven't done a head-to-head comparison with both antennas set up in the same place at the same time with an antenna switch to toggle between them. Obviously, band conditions do fluctuate from one day to the next, so it's hard to know if it's the antenna or the band conditions affecting performance. I don't use the Alpha FMJ nearly as often as the MyGo2, so I don't have the same feel for its performance.
I do not need to use my external antenna tuner with the MyGo2 Antenna. The internal tuner in my ICOM-7300 is more than sufficient on all bands.
Shipment from TN07 was prompt. Well, when I first wanted to buy the antenna, Bob told me they did not have kits available and that he'd alert me when they had them in stock. Once I placed my order, I had the antenna within a week. Customer service is good, and Bob Petrie is always willing to talk on the phone about different ways to deploy or use this antenna.
Also, the true test of customer service is what happens if something goes wrong. TN07 has passed that test. In my case, about a week after the antenna was first delivered in October 2021, I was in mid QSO and I watched the waterfall on my ICOM-7300 suddenly go dark. I did a bunch of SWR tests and they were awful - results all over the map. I called Bob guessing that the matching unit had failed. While Bob was initially skeptical of this possibility, he carefully reviewed the SWR readings I sent him and immediately emailed me a prepaid return shipping label. I sent the unit back and as soon as he received it, he phoned me apologizing profusely and confirming that my matching unit was indeed defective. He offered me a choice between a full refund or a new unit. I said I'd take the new unit. The new unit arrived within that same week (late October 2021), and I've been using it ever since. |
