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Reviews For: Radio Works Carolina Windom 80 Special

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Radio Works Carolina Windom 80 Special
Reviews: 24MSRP: 145
Description:
Same size and specs as Carolina Windom 40 but will also cover 80 meters.
Product is not in production
More Info:
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00244.3
NC2F Rating: 2006-10-15
My Favorite do it all Antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The higher up the better take off angle, but even at 20' when I had to put one up in a pinch, the Off Center Fed desgin of the Carolina Windom with the 4:1 ratio Balun is my favorite antenna. It's so good, I have even worked VK's on 5 watts with it. It's that good!
K6RIM Rating: 2006-10-15
Outstanding! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Compared to my Hy-Gain Hy-Tower vertical on 80 meters, domestic signals are 1 to 4 S-units louder on the Carolina Windom 80. To be fair, radials need some work on the Hy-Tower. Nonetheless, I suspect that even if the radials were FB, the Carolina Windom 80 would still outperform the Hy-Tower on 80 for domestic contacts. SWR on 80 is 1.1:1; on 75, it's 1.5:1.
Bottom line: It works great! (The Carolina Windom is 60' high strung between tall trees).
N7GVV Rating: 2006-10-15
It did not perform Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Installed and worked for few contacts, but difficult to tune. Then it would not tune so sent e-mail asking for help.. Got no response.

Since then have removed antenna and put up a dipole using same tuner, feedline, etc and it works fine on 40 thru 10. I'll have to come up with an alternative for 80 in my limited space.
M1EZF Rating: 2005-09-04
Radioworks CW 80 S Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This antenna is very good for a small back garden at only 66'. My first impresion was it was well made and the instructions were easy to follow.

Im using it 30' AGL and 150' ASL with good results. Comparing it to my endfed dipole at the same hight, the CW out proforms the dipole by at least 2 s points on RX and on TX even better.

I have heard some people try and use it inverted V with poor results, so I would recomend that its used flat top.

As for SWR my Yaesu MK V internal ATU wont tune it. So an external ATU was used and all worked as expected.

Im very please with the CW. I will be keeping an eye on the Balun as I have heard they are prone to filling up with water if not sealed corectly.

Maybe I will do another review after the winter.
N0AN Rating: 2005-06-26
Suprisingly Effective Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is my second CW-80. The first one I had for a couple years up in the trees, and it eventually had the coax fall out of the matching network. It was only up 20' in the center and about 8' at the ends. It worked, but not impressively. At the time at a new qth it got me on the air before I could do things right.

I received my 2nd CW-80 last Friday, just before field day. I hung it off a yard arm 5' away from my tower at a height of about 40'. It was fed with 90' of RG8/X. The long end is about 7' off the ground, the short end is about 10' off the ground. (Inverted V, you can figure the angle).

I bought it strictly to use on 80 and 40m, as I have a Tennadyne T-6 Log Periodic at 52'(13-30 Mhz), which is a very fine antenna.

My first interest was what impedance/vswr it showed from 3.5 to 30 Mhz in the ham bands. I wanted to know how much work the LDG AT-1000 autotuner was going to have to do. I made the measurements at the connection to the radio with an MFJ-269B antenna analyzer and a Kenwood SW-2000 dual meter vswr/watt meter. The results are posted below:

Freq MFJ-269B(SWR) Kenwood TS-2000(SWR)

3500 1.9 1.9
3600 2.0 2.0
3700 2.1 2.2
3800 2.6 2.6
3900 2.8 3.0
4000 3.6 3.5

7000 1.5 1.6
7100 1.8 1.8
7200 2.2 2.3
7300 2.6 2.4

10.130 3.4 2.5

14000 2.1 2.2
14100 2.0 2.0
14200 1.8 1.8
14300 1.7 1.6
14350 1.6 1.5

18130 3.1 2.8

21000 2.5 2.0
21100 2.4 1.9
21200 2.3 1.7
21300 2.2 1.6
21400 2.0 1.5

24960 1.7 1.7

28000 2.4
28500 2.5
29000 2.8
29500 2.8

It should be obvious that most rigs' internal tuners would have no problem with the swr presented by this antenna configuration. My LDG AT-1000, which has a very wide matching range had no problems at all, even running 600 W out with my Ameritron ALS-600 power mosFET amp.

OK, the match is acceptable, how does it work?

RF Setup:

Kenwood TS-2000
Ameritron ALS-600 (600w out)
LDG AT-1000 Auto-tuner

Carolina Windom CW-80, center 42', ends 7 to 10', center tower mounted, distance to tower about 5' (15' is recommended, but I was in a hurry for field day)

The measure of any antenna on FD can be evaluated two ways:

1. Do I get answered quickly if I call (or do I have to wait and wait and wait)?

2. Can I set up on a freq, calling CQ FD and make sustained runs, as well as hold the freq?

Saturday afternoon I sat on 7165 at about 2:00 pm and began calling CQ Field Day.

By 2:15 p.m., I had run off 49 stations that came back to my CQ or QRZ FD. I only called CQ twice in that time period. The slow rate was a function of my hand logging..still one every 15 seconds or so, is doing pretty well on a thunderstorm ridden band at solar zenith.

I'm in central Iowa, and this is 40m in the middle of the day. The following states/sections were worked in this 15 minute period:

South Texas
Illinois
Louisianna
Arkansas
Tennessee
Wyoming
Kansas
Wisconsin
West Texas
Colorado
North Texas
Oklahoma
Iowa
Minnesota
Indiana
Ohio
Michigan
Kentucky
Ontario

Many reports of "big signal" and "you're the only one I'm hearing that far away" (Wyoming/Louisiana)

Guests came for dinner so I did no more until Sunday morning (today, 06/26/05)

The following section contacts were made on 80m SSB, again, calling CQ and holding the freq starting at 6:00 a.m. going to about 7:30 a.m. Sunrise was at about 5:35 a.m.

Ohio
West Virginia
Illinois
Wisconsin
Alabama
Mississippi
Missouri
North Texas
Michigan
Ontario
South Dakota
Los Angeles CA
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Colorado
Iowa
Indiana
Arkansas
San Diego, CA (1.5 hours after sunrise!)

Back to 40 meters:

Alberta
Vermont
Georgia
Saskatchewan
Michigan
Montana
Oklahoma
Colorado
Missouri
Wyoming
West Virginia
British Columbia
North Texas
Maryland/DC
Arkansas
Illinois
Tennessee
Indiana
Manitoba
West Texas
Virginia
West Pennsylvania
Ohio
Ontario
North Florida
West New York
Delaware
Connecticut
Montana
Maryland/DC
Orange County California
Rhode Island
East Pennsylvania
Louisianna
West Texas
Maine
Colorado
North New Jersey

This antenna is working VERY well on 80/40m for Field Day.

Now, just for giggles, I thought I would see what the CW-80 would do compared to my Log Periodic on 20m. First of all the CW-80 was much quieter, which concerned me. Obviously it was not going to do as well as the LP, but the noise level was way down. What the heck, I thought I would try it anyway and see if I could do runs and hold the freq on 20 like I had been able to do on 80 and 40.

I sat on 14.170 and started calling CQ FD at about 9:00 a.m. My hand got so sore from writing as fast as I could for two straight hours, that I had to take a break. Sections worked included:

East Mass
West PA
Georgia
South Texas
Indiana
Ontario
East PA
Ohio
British Columbia
Sacramento Valley CA
California
Michigan
West Washington State
Colorado
Arizona
North Carolina
Vermont
West New York
Quebec
Alberta
Oregon
East Washington State
North Texas
Montana
New Hampshire
North New Jersey
East New York
Santa Clara Valley, CA
Orange County, CA
Kansas
Alberta
Rhode Island
Long Island
Nevada
Utah
Idaho
Long Island, NY
South New Jersey
Quebec

Later that morning I returned to 40 meters for another run of 118 stations until both my hand and my voice gave out. (I must get that DRU-3a installed in my TS-2000, if I'm going to keep using this CW-80 during contests!)

Summary:

This data does not represent dx performance. However, using the criteria I started with (calling and getting answered quickly, and being able to do sustained runs on a frequency), I would rate the performance as OUTSTANDING. I'll write another review when I start chasing dx on 40m early in the morning. It did do a super job on both 80 and 40, with a surprsing effectiveness on 20m (although the LP was vastly superior, as it should be). I was certainly getting decent low antle performance on 80m as I had S9+ signals into California, even after sunrise. Similar low angle results were evident on 40m.

The swr presented to the radio/tuner was VERY reasonable, and should insure low losses, and very minimal coax heating. Also, because the antenna shows such a reasonable impedance to the tuner, it should make life much easier on the tuner at high power levels.

Even at a sustained output power level of 600 watts, I had NO RFI problems in the shack whatsoever! (80/40/20 only bands tested).

Uncoiling, weather-proofing and erecting the antenna was quite easy, and the instructions were VERY good. Be sure to pay special attention to the water-proofing instructions and make rigorous use of the supplied coax-seal.

Am I a happy camper? You bet. Now let's see how it does for chasing low band dx, and how it holds up mechanically.

If this antenna would perform for you, like it has for me, I would not hesitate to order one. The service was excellent. I ordered the antenna on Monday, told them I wanted it by Friday for Field Day setup, and I received it on Thursday.

Highly Recommended.

73,

hasan, N0AN





K7CRM Rating: 2005-04-05
Better Than Expected Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
So far I have experienced every thing that I had hoped would occur with this antenna. Being located in Southwestern Illinois, running 200 watts, and having the antenna apex only at 30 feet I was expecting to hear very little dx. What a surprise..... Russia, Slovenia, Italy, England, Ireland, etc., most all of Central and South America. As long as you follow the suggestions supplied by Radio Works regarding the installaion, and also use some common sense this 66 foot antenna will more than outperform a dipole of comparable length.
W5JAW Rating: 2004-06-28
Impressive wire antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I got back on the air last summer after 30 years off. My qth is not suitable for big antennas, so I decided to try this one. I mounted it on 3 masts across the back of my house, keeping it flat as possible at about 30 feet high. The results beat my expectations by a huge margin. I consistently cracked big pile-ups on all bands.

Running 100 watts, in the first 12 months of operation I worked the following band-countries:

80m 65
40m 165
30m 143
20m 193
17m 136
15m 151
12m 105
10m 130

for a total of 1089. My total country count was 236. WAZ was completed in 5 months, and in 6 months on 20m and 7 months on 40m.

I use the folded configuration, with the ends dropped vertically at the attached extra insulators. This makes the antenna only 42 feet across. The earlier post complaining about poor performance mentioned using the antenna in a inverted vee configuration. Radio Works does not recommend this arrangement. I had a 40m inv-vee up temporarily while constructing this antenna. I compared them on 40 and 15 before removing the inv-vee. No contest-- the windom was always better by at least an s-unit, except for very short skip paths.
KE5ABD Rating: 2004-06-23
Incredible Antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
First DX contact out of the box once it was up in the trees was a Russian contact over the pole. Before that my homebrew 40meter dipole couldn't touch that kind of performance. Tunes easily to other bands, I've been very impressed with it. Other local hams with beams and towers are impressed with the contacts I make right along side them. Use it regularly on 20 meters, 40meters, 17meters. Get one!
KM5JH Rating: 2004-03-30
Good Performance, easy setup Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned the Carolina Windom 80 Special since around 1996. It was my main HF antenna for many years. It is basically a 40 meter windom with a modified matching unit and line isolator. For the majority of use, it's apex was only about 22 feet and was set up as an inverted V. I have been able to work almost every DX station heard. Plenty of state side too. Construction has lasted all these years. Even used it at Field Day a couple of years ago and it worked like a champ. It was money well spent in my book...
AB0UK Rating: 2002-10-18
So..so at best Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This beast was purchased at the May 2002 Hamvention in Dayton. It's in an inverted vee with the apex at 35 feet. I was careful to install it to manufactures' specs, considering my lot size, including the recommeded 86 feet of RG-8X. My previous antenna was a 40 meter dipole that gave good performance on 40 and 17 meters. While this antenna can be tuned over more bands it's receive and transmit ability is less than the 40 meter dipole. It simply will not do DX with any degree of success. It does fairly well to each coast from Colorado, but beyond it is of little value.

I modeled it with EZNAC and found that the modeling matched my experience. So it appears the installation and use are not at fault. It's interesting to note the modeling showed the vertical radiator only brings down the radiation takeoff angle 2-3 degrees.

So now I have spent retirement money on an expensive wire antenna that does not do DX well and cannot afford another antenna. Maybe I'll put the 40 meter dipole back up and ignore 20 meters which I like.

73,

Jim, AB0UK