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Reviews For: Optibeam OB9-5

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

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Review Summary For : Optibeam OB9-5
Reviews: 97MSRP: 1441. USD
Description:
Performant yagi designed as stacked monobander for 20/17/15/12/10 with patented feed system. Optimized computer designed German yagi without traps and with full size elements. The OB9-5 has 2 el on 20, 2 el on 17, 2 el on 15, 2 el on 12 and 3 el on 10 meters.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.optibeam.de
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
15975
CT1DOF Rating: 2020-06-14
5 Band Excelent Antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After an accident that teared down all my antennas I had to choose a new antenna and the space available is not very large so I choosed OB 9-5 because it not only fitted but work on WARC as well as 10, 15 and 20 meter.
After almost 3 month of use I can say that:
1 - Easy to assemble
2 - Very good hardware. Typical German project.
3 - Preassembled and no tuning necessary. Excelent SWR on all bands along all the band.
4 - More than 4 dBd on all 5 bands. Very good for a 5 meter boom.
5- WARC bands open as a new world.
6 - After 16 years with Trap antennas no doubt I took the right decision.
7 - If in future I move to a larger place I think I will ask Tom for a add-on with directors to improve the gain instead of changing for a new antenna. This one is really good.
CT1DOF - Jorge
KA9TOX Rating: 2019-11-10
A very well designed Yagi Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Since I retired in June of 2018, I’ve been working towards erecting my Hy-Gain tilt over/crank up tower and getting it ready for service with a good HF antenna.
As I got closer to having the project completed, we (my wife-KA9TPQ & I) discussed what antenna would be best for us (wind load, weight etc). After a lot of debating, my wife surprised me with (the one I really wanted) the purchase of our OptiBeam OB9-5HD (20, 17, 15, 12 & 10M) in September 2019.
The OptiBeam arrived in great condition (from DX Engineering) very well packed and partially assembled. All the parts were clearly labeled and ample hardware supplied. I was very impressed with the material used in construction. Mechanically, it’s built very stout. I had a few questions during the assembly and the guys at DX Engineering (Bob & Mike) were quick to answer my questions. I had a couple of questions about the pictures in the manual and DX Engineering offered that I contact Tom (DF2BO) at OptiBeam. I did and he was extremely polite and very helpful. We e-mailed several times and Tom was always quick to respond (time difference) with detailed info to my questions...
The SWR is very good across the given bands as stated and the unit is performing great. I’ve had a lot of fun rag chewing and DXing. CQ World Wide SSB was a blast. I’m very happy with our selection and look forward to many years of service from our OB9-5.

DeWight/KA9TOX
VE1JS Rating: 2019-04-18
Still going STRONG!! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This antenna has now survived six (6) windy, cold Nova Scotia winters.

It continues to perform just as it did six years ago.

If I can hear it, I can worked it.

A word to the wise: Get a tough rotor! This antenna has chewed up gears in two examples of a so called "Heavy Duty" rotor; made in North America, one recently and one some time ago!

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Earlier 5-star review posted by VE1JS on 2015-03-24

This antenna has now been inservice for two years, less a few days. It replaced a Force 12 C-19XR which worked very well, but was worn out by Nova Scotia's winter winds.

The OB9-5 is ,without a doubt THE best yagi I have ever owned. It is at only 12m above ground,but if I can hear I can work it....EVERY TIME.

Support from Tom is almost never needed, but when it is, Tom is there.
VE3TCV Rating: 2019-04-18
A masterpiece of engineering! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
For a few years now I have been fascinated with Optibeams and would love to compare stations that ran Optibeams vs other antennas and compare scores, signals etc. I was extremely impressed with the build quality and design of all of their antennas, they also do not manufacture any lower end or lower cost antenna just to appease to the masses and get their products out there in numbers. Their focus is on top level performance and durability and not to appease market share.

I purchased an Optibeam OB9-5HD a few weeks ago from DXEnginnering in USA, the antenna was ordered on a Thursday and arrived at my door on Monday, delivery was from Fedex and the box was in perfect condition.

I built the antenna in two evenings, everything was labelled perfectly, every single element piece had a label on it making things very simple. The hardware quality of this antenna is instantly apparent, everything is high quality, the boom and brackets are square making alignment of the elements virtually perfect. With square booms and brackets you no longer need to worry about the elements not being aligned up/down or side to side, everything is absolutely perfect. Optibeam provided heavy duty locknuts for all of the boom and elements, I hope to never have to worry about loosening bolts ever again, all of the nuts and bolts are heavy duty, very impressive compared to some other model antennas I have used in the past. The elements also use nuts and bolts that go through the entire element sections, I have seen many other makes use cheap 1/2in screws to hole elements together which is very cheap. Even the smaller element sections use locking nuts!!! No rattling and nothing should ever come loose even in the strongest winds. The aluminum used in the elements is the thickest I’ve ever seen, the center section of the 20M elements could act as a boom for some smaller Yagis.

Once the antenna was installed we could immediately notice the additional length of the elements without the use of traps, pictures do not do justice to width and beauty of this antenna when it’s on the tower. Since there are no traps the elements have much less movement with the wind, the third day after installation we had wind gusts of up to 70Km/r and there was very little movement from the elements. I think my Yaesu G-800 rotor will give out before anything on the Optibeam does.

Ok now for performance, SWR on all bands was superb, the entire band on 20M is under 1.4:1 with most the of the band being under 1.2:1, most trapped antennas I’ve had in the past have never had SWR so low throughout the 20M band. 17M is under 1.2:1, most of the 15M band is under 1.5:1, 12M is perfect at 1.1:1 and 10M is great between 28-29Mhz however SWR rises to 1.8:1 by 29.7MHz. I now tend to leave my antenna tuner in bypass mode most of the time. I will gladly provide my SWR charts via email for anyone interested.

I could not compare the OB9-5 with my previous antenna so I decided to compare some live FT8 decodes and transmit data with a friend that has a Hygain Explorer 14, he lives about 30km away and resides at a 100M higher altitude. We connected our computers using Teamviewer to record the live results of decodes on 20M at 9PM EST during poor to fair band conditions, the Optibeam was continually decoding more signals and at a stronger signal strength. The OB9-5 was also decoding a Chinese, an Asiatic Russia station and two Japanese stations while the Explorer 14 could only decode one of the Japanese stations. We then went to SSB on 20M and beamed our antennas towards South America, we ran our stations at 100W and asked stations in Brazil, Argentina and Chile for detailed and accurate signal reports, the OB9-5 was almost always 1-2S units stronger than the Explorer 14 even at a 100M lower altitude. The Explorer 14 is also a 3 element beam.

Before my purchase I emailed Optibeam with some questions regarding everything from ordering, shipping, performance and model recommendations based on my requirements, tower, rotor and maximum antenna size allowance. My emails were answered quickly, almost too quickly, by Thomas Schmenger DF2BO, his replies were very detailed and answered all of me questions and concerns. The SWR charts and performance improvements he mentioned to me were all spot on.

I just wanted to touch on the accuracy on antenna gain figures stated by many manufacturers, Optibeam uses detailed modern computer modelling for their figures, these gain numbers may seem to be low for some folks but they are accurate. If you believe that a short boom Cushcraft A3S has a gain figure of 8dB on 20M and a Mosley TA-33 has gain of 6.5dB on 20M you are dreaming, all you need to do is plug those measurements into EZNEC and see for yourself. Most of those gain figures were high best guesses during the “gain-game” battles of decades ago.

I am very impressed with this antenna and hope to have provided as much detail as possible in this review to help others that may be on the fence regarding this antenna or any other Optibeam models.
EI8JR Rating: 2019-04-13
an excellent antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have my OB9-5 since 2012 and it opened a whole other world of signals when it replaced an A3S,the difference was like night and day,with this antenna as the saying goes if I can hear it I can work it.I had considered other antennas but reviews here on eham had me convinced this was the antenna for me.
The antenna arrived extremely well packed with all parts numbered and no parts missing, some pre assembly which was a big help when constructing the antenna according to the very good manual,I assembled and erected the antenna over a weekend,I could have quicker but I wanted to enjoy the whole experience of this antenna from the start.the materials used are second to none,excellent engineering and precision.my OB9-5 has been up a long time now with many storms and it has never failed, it will serve me well into the future,I am very happy with this antenna and with that in mind I am now looking at the OB1-40.
support from Tom is second to none, your questions and queries will be answered in no time.In my opinion five star antennas,five star service from a five star company.
3A2NL Rating: 2018-12-18
Great ! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The OB9-5 is a great antenna. i have my station 1 km outside Monaco. Before the OB9 i used home made delta loop and dipole.
With the OB9 i have done 12 new country in 2 months. 202 now. Last 3 are Antartica , Botwana and Ciad. Easy to build with clear manual with lot of pictures. All the parts and elements have a numbers and letters . Impossible do mistake following the instruction. My OB9 is 15 meters over there ground and the Ros is ok in all bands. very easy to set with 3 possible position par active element. Thomas is a great person and gave my all the support i needed. Next step will be the OB1 80 rotary dipole. 73 from 3A2NL or F/3A2NL - Paolo
KB8O Rating: 2018-12-09
Best antenna yet ! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
First off I have the privilege of living close enough to DX Engineering to drive up one day and pick the antenna up. I can't say enough about their store and service they provide. I brought the antenna home and assembled half of it in my garage do to cold weather outside. I waited for a good weather weekend and finished the assembly outside in the back yard. The material used and how the antenna is packed for shipping is top notch. There is not much reading needed as every single piece of the antenna is marked out, and a large amount of it is already put together. I had no issue building the antenna which took me about 6-7 hours to do. I tested the antenna on the ground to make sure there was no outrageous SWR readings, and everything looked good. I did have a question about proper coax loop routing and I emailed Tom and he responded within minutes of my request. The antenna went up without any issues and with the truss support I don't see this antenna ever coming down.
Now on to performance. I replaced a SteppIR DB-11 which is the smallest 3 element trombone style antenna they make. The antenna was about 10 years old and seemed to work fine until a relay stopped working in one of the motors located in the antenna. In order to fix the antenna I would have to bring it to the ground and repair. With the repair prices costing almost as much as what the antenna was brand new, I opted to replace it with an antenna I will never have to repair again. For the last 3 years at my new QTH I have compared the SteppIR to another antenna I have in place here which is my 2 wavelength 160M loop antenna at on average 80 feet high. The loop is fed with 300 ohm open line and performs really well on all bands. The steppIR has always 99% of the time, be just the same as the loop on all bands.Once and a great while the SteppIR will beat the loop but only by a few db. I have had the Optibeam up now for about a week and doing the same testing for a week, and there is not a single station I have listened to that is not 5-15db sometimes 20db stronger on the beam then the loop antenna. The rejection off the sides and back are far greater then the past antenna. I was worried that I was spoiled with the SteppIR being that I had it programmed for low SWR on all bands and that I would not be able to obtain this with a non mechanical antenna. I was wrong as the OB9-5 is below a 1.2:1 on all bands 20-10m. The Beam is actually a lot easier for me to jump around the bands on as I don't have to wait for the controller to tune, or double check settings, just change bands and go ... I can't say enough about the build quality and the service from both DX Engineering, and Tom from Optibeam. You will not be disappointed with this one !
XE2AD Rating: 2018-10-29
Amazing antenna Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I purchased this antenna one year ago. The attention from Tom is incredible, he answered all the question I sent to him immediately and with patient.

It arrived pre-assambled and I only needed one weekend to assemble completely. Although the instructions are not so detailed, it is very easy to assemble all the antenna together. The quality of the aluminum tubes is one of the highest I ever seen before.

The behavior of the antenna is as I expected, if you hear it you can work it !!!! It breaks pile-ups without any problem and I only turn on the amplifier when it is really needed. As an example, in 17m I have increased from 30 to 55 contacted entities since I have this antenna (I'm only at the radio when my job allows me, mostly on weekends). Doing DX or being in a contest is a pleasure with this antenna.

I'm very happy with this antenna and with pre & post selling attention from Tom.

The only issue against was the bureaucratic paper work to introduce the antenna from Germany to Mexico, but that is something out of my hands.

If you plan to have a really good DX & Contest antenna, put Optibeam at the top of your list, you won't be disappointed.

Greetings from David, XE2AD.
DK2NG Rating: 2018-08-31
Peak level of antenna construction Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I am now for 40 years a HAM and have used a number of devices and antennas comercial ones as well as self build ones.

10 years ago I bought my first Yagi antenna from Optibeam, an OB9-5, which replaced several of my predecessor Yagis. From the beginning I was impressed by the mechanical quality of this antenna. All parts used are excellently manufactured, fit well together and are so stable that they can withstand the weather for decades. The element connections alone are ingenious and avoid any rattling noise. Much is already prefabricated ex works, so that the assembly is a child's play. The easy-to-understand and illustrated installation instructions also contribute to this.
Possibly a note on the clamping of screw connections made of V4A and the prevention with grease or assembly paste could be included.

These antennas are also unsurpassed in their electrical data. In contrast to many competing products, the parameters given are absolutely realistic. I have experienced that everything I can hear, I can work.

The quality of the antenna is so convincing that in the course of time an OB 5-6 for 6m and an OB1-4030 as rotor dipole for 40m and 30m were also purchased as a replacement for previously existing antennas.

The service by Tom, DF2BO is excellent. Inquiries and requests are processed immediately and the supply of spare parts is handled quickly.

In my opinion Optibeam antennas currently represent the electrical and mechanical peak level of antenna construction and are worth every cent.
G3WZD Rating: 2017-07-28
Top quality product and great performer Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently completed installing the OB9-5 having spent some time researching a replacement for the broken SpiderBeam 5 band HD, which sadly shook itself to pieces thanks to strong prevailing on-shore winds off the Atlantic.

Following some back and forth emails with Tom, OptiBeam's owner, who proved both extremely passionate about his product and super-responsive in answering my questions (even over the weekend), I purchased the 9-5.

I have nothing but praise for the antenna. It is a fine example of really good engineering, being extremely well constructed of heavy duty material. All the guesswork is taken out of the construction with clear instructions and the way the elements are bundled by band.

Several parts are partially factory assembled (such as the element mounting plates) and this is extremely helpful. The boom and element mounting plates are all marked so it is near on impossible to get it wrong.

I was very pleased to note that no pipe clamps are used in the construction; all element tubes are secured using good quality stainless steel hex-head screws and locking nuts.

From starting to unpack the antenna to the finished assembly sitting on the saw-horses was a total of 5 1/2 hours, which I thought was very good for a solo effort. Tom kindly sent me a copy of the assembly instructions before shipping the antenna so I had some time to study it in advance, though in retrospect this was probably not necessary.

Measured SWR was as claimed and the antenna performs very well on all bands. It's driven by an ICOM 7300/2KL/AT500 combo and the AT500 easily handles what little SWR needs to be tuned out.

The package included hex drivers and a double ended box-spanner, plus some spare screws, nuts and washers, which I thought was a nice touch.

This is a very well designed and built antenna which "does exactly what it says on the tin". Well done OptiBeam!