| KJ6QB |
Rating:  |
2003-06-26 | |
| Great Antenna for the price! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| The Alpha Delta DX-EE is an outstanding antenna with very little or no compromise. All hardware and wire is including in the packaging at a very low price designed to fit any budget. It performs exceptionally well on 15 meters without the use of a tuner. Also does quite well on 10, 20 and 40 with limited tuner use. It will also tune nicely on 17 meters and performs quite well. I have never tried it on 12 or 30 meters, but I understand it will do quite well with a good tuner. |
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| W4CNG |
Rating: |
2003-06-19 | |
| Very Good Product |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I own 2 of these antennas. The solid wire is not overkill, it works great. No one cares how the antenna looks, just how it works. The solid wire was chosen so the parallel sections of the dipole would not droop on one another, like stranded wire. The solid wire is also very stout for a dipole that when strung between trees that will move when the wind blows, not break apart. Both of mine were resonant on the bottom of the band, just like the instructions say, you gotta tune the antenna. I removed wire from all sections of the antenna to tune to the Phone portion of the band on 20 and 40. WARC is easily tuned with a wide range (not 3:1) tuner and works great. One of mine is in my attic, the other is in my ARES ready bag, and has been to 2 field day's performing with no additional field tuning. I also have an A-D DX-CC outdoors at my 5 land home which has now been up for 3 years with NO problems. If you plan to run more than 200 watts, you do need to remove the center insulator surge protector. |
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| KD5HUS |
Rating: |
2003-06-19 | |
| 5-5 |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I received this antenna for christmas three years ago. We have used it on campouts with the Boy Scouts and two field days. It was kinda of funny at first when I pulled the antenna out to connect to my station. The station also had two Beam antennas for other frequencies (2 & 6 meter), well I got up to help out another station and came back and did not notice that the cable that was connected to the Alpha Delta DX-EE. I got back to the station and stared working the other bands and decided to swing over to my Alpha Delta.
I thought it was pretty quiet on my ICOM 706 but not that quiet. I got up and looked over the case and saw the cable was gone from the tuner. I looked around the area and saw two guys behind me making a ton of contacts, with my antenna! Goes to show you others might not say they like it, but they sure will give it a try.
That happened two years ago and it happened again last year but with a different group. Maybe this year since I will be in the woods, I will get to use it for field day....
Its a great antenna, you guys did a fantastic job. |
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| KF5VM |
Rating: |
2003-06-19 | |
| High Quality Dipole, But Poor on WARC |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Having considerable experience with dipoles and verticals, both commercial and homebrew, curiosity drove me to give this one a try since the price was right. All the parts are first rate. It's easy to see why they used solid #12 wire. Stranded wire would be too droopy in the stretches between spreaders. I built a homebrew dipole once of similar design and used stranded wire - it took many more spreaders. Solid wire is difficult to straighten, so expect some waviness. Mine is at 25 feet high as a flattop, fed with 125 feet of new RG-213. A dipole is a dipole of course and how it performs depends on location and conditions. I made some great contacts, including worldwide DX from Texas on all bands 10-40 meters. I followed A-D advice and didn't bother to tweak for swr, I just use a tuner. My Icom autotuner works fine with this antenna. Don't buy the claims about WARC bands with a tuner. Yes, you will get power out of your transmitter with a tuner, but 17M performance will be lousy. Even though 17 Meters was wide open, I was inaudible to almost everybody I called. So, I built a dedicated 17 meter dipole and use an A/B switch between it and the DX-EE. Same height. The 17 meter dipole hears 3"S" units better than the DX-EE/tuner combo. Now I work everything I hear on 17. Switching to the DX-EE, I do the same on 10,15,20,& 40 meters. Next project is to add a 12 meter dipole. Interesting note was my first QSO on the new 17 meter dipole was with a CA ham using a DX-EE on 17 and having a rough time. Bottom line: good antenna for its design frequencies. |
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| K2TPZ |
Rating: |
2003-01-20 | |
| Great Antenna |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I now live in a townhouse with minimal space for antennas (no yard to speak of and utility wires everywhere). I figured my only options would be a slopper for 15 meters or a short vertical. Then I realized I had an attic and at least 42 feet of linear space.
The DX-EE fit just perfect. It is now an all-weather blessing. I can't say it's as good as an G5RV 40 feet in the air but it's not bad. I work all bands, 40 to 10 and I regularly QSO with Europe. While my reports are not always 599, I'm heard and on the air as opposed to being an SWLer while I'm living in this house.
The antenna was simple to put together and is pretty rugged. Even if I find some way of putting up a satisfactory outdoor antenna, I'll always keep this antenna in the attic as a back-up. If ever I can figure out how to safely put it outside and in the clear, I'm sure it will do an amazing job for me. I highly recommend this antenna.
Mike |
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| K5ABF |
Rating: |
2002-03-26 | |
| Excellent multiband for limited space |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have a postage stamp sized back yard and was barely able to get this antenna strung between two corners. No trees (in Dallas) so using poles I was able to get it up about 17 feet. Works great on 10, 15 and 20 without a tuner. Loaded on 40 using a tuner - great performance.
Certainly not the prettiest of sights, but no more obtrusive than most verticals.
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| KC9BAV |
Rating: |
2002-03-10 | |
| Worth every penny! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Great antenna! Here is my story.... I initially had planned to use a G5RV as an attic antenna routed in a "zig-zaged" pattern on the attic joists. I came to learn of this antenna when I expained my plan to the nice HRO salesman I spoke with on the telephone. He recommended this antenna over the G5RV for my specific application. I choose this antenna over the G5RV, but, was skeptical about the advice as the antenna is significantly more expensive than the G5RV. I have now used the DX-EE as an attic mounted antenna fed by Belden 9913 coax for several weeks. I am glad I bought this antenna and I can reaffirm all that has been said of this product in prior reviews. Remember, the antenna is only 40ft and this made setup in the attic a breeze and I did not have to do too much fancy laying out to get it to fit. I have been working 10M, 12M, 15M and 20M DX with 100W and QRP and consistently get no less than 5/7 reports all over the world. I have even been called a "Big Station" by a G0 Ham from my QTH in Chicago! This is a great product and works exactly as billed. For my money, it was worth the additional cost over the G5RV as it performed as advertised and made setup easy. In summary, if you have limited space and are looking for a multiband dipole antenna, look no further than the DX-EE, it should meet or exceed all your expectation. |
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| AC7NA |
Rating: |
2001-11-15 | |
| I Love Mine! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
This antenna has been my main HF antenna at my last two QTH's. It is rugged, lightweight compared to trap diploles, and has a low impact visual profile. My current DX-EE is composed of black insulated wire, which stands out a little more than my previous one which had grey insulation.
I agree with previous posters about the difficulty in securing the spreaders with the included antenna wire. Using cable ties is much simpler and provides a neater assembly.
My installation is as an inverted vee with the apex up 35 ft at the peak of my roof. Performance is a little narrowbanded on 40M, but that is to be expected with a shortened antenna. Performance on 20-10M is great!
I am using an old Kenwood TS-520 with failing finals and I only put out 50W Max. I have a spare set of tubes ready to go in, but my experience with this antenna has been "If I can hear 'em, I can work 'em," so why bother at this point.
IMHO, this is the best value for a pre-assembled dipole. I know others have also had good success using this antenna indoors as well. |
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| W0FM |
Rating: |
2001-11-15 | |
| Mental QSB |
Time Owned: N.A. |
| I must have had a brief moment of mental QSB yesterday when adding my last post. My DX-EE is fed with 9913 coax, not 9213 and the device used to shorten the 40M element is called an "ISO-RES" RF choke, not a "Resonactor" (which, I believe, is a component of the W9INN dipoles. Sorry Bill!) Terry, WØFM |
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| W0VC |
Rating: |
2001-10-27 | |
| Ugly, Wrong Materials |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
My rating of this antenna has more to do with its construction than how well it works. It does work, about equivalent to a triband trap dipole. Because of the #12 hard drawn copper wire, the DX-EE looks very crude in the air, and certainly uncommercial. Lots of ripples and kinks in the big wire, even after carefully smoothing out the #12, which, by the way, is electric house wire, not antenna wire. Very ugly looking in the air. It's appearance and ease of installation would improve considerably with a good quality stranded antenna wire, such as Quietflex, #14.
The dipole wire lengths as supplied were too short for 20, 15 and 10 Meters. Unable to lower the resonant frequencies. The resonant frequency for both 20 and 40 Meters were not within the band. I installed it as an inverted vee with apex at 35ft and ends at 25ft. Difficult to adjust as supplied because there was not enough wire.
The method of holding the spacers in place was very ineffective, especially in this cool climate. Trying to bend 6 inch long #12 wire around another #12 wire with cold fingers was painful. I had to resort to an alternative method using cable ties to keep the spacers from moving up and down the wires. The wire supplied for the purpose of securing the spacers was clutzy and too big. My method worked much better. Assembly time is significant due to the 24 places where the spacers need to secured.
In A/B S meter comparisons between the DX-EE and a triband trap dipole with 10 and 15 Meter traps at a right angle to the DX-EE, there was no difference in CQ WW DX signal strengths, even on 20 Meters, so I opted to use the trap antenna, which took less space, less labor to assemble, and looked better.
This antenna is too heavy duty and rigid. The center insulator and end insulators are very good guality, but the wire is way overkill and difficult to work with. This product needs some refinement. |
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