| AB0UK |
Rating:  |
2004-06-27 | |
| Need more Information before buying |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Antenna performance is about as expected after several calls to customer service. Support from customer service is good by phone but poor by email. For DX it beats a G5RV by about a half "S" unit. For up to 2000-3000 miles it is below a G5RV by the same amount. It handles 600 plus watts of SSB without a problem.
The antenna is very sensitive to the environment that it is installed in. The instruction booklet gives little real world installation help. Only several calls to customer service will get real help. One almost gets the impression that they expect you to have problems and are looking forward to your call. Here are some things I learned from them that are not in the instruction booklet. A standard lightning suppressor will add about a half SWR number to the SWR. Once you talk to GAP they explain how to use braid as a home brew suppressor instead of a commercial product. (Don't have a clue if it will actually work.) Another example is the feedline must come out from the antenna at a 30 degree angle and be laid on the ground for 10-12 feet and must be 90 feet long including the 8' pigtail from the antenna. Don't try to raise it on a metal mast as it grossly detunes 20 meters. Be prepared to add or subtract length from various element parts to get resonance with specific bands. Some advertising mentions it can be installed without guying. The instruction booklet and customer service recommends guying. The booklet has no information as to how to guy it. However, customer service, when asked, gave a detailed explaination.
If you buy this antenna be sure to call Chris in customer service and get on a first name basis with him. You will probably need to talk to him at least 3-4 times during assembly and installation.
Why did I not rate the Titan lower because of the installation problems? Getting it on the air is about a 2-3. Performance is about a 4-5. Yes, giving the Titan a four is a bit generous, but I think it deserves more than a three as an antenna is about performance and not necessarily about the headaches to get it there.
73,
Jim, AB0UK |
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| WB2ORD |
Rating: |
2004-06-27 | |
| Good performance but hard to get repsonse via e-mail |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have been using the Titan for just about a year with QRP and low power (max 10 watts) and have been very pleased with the performance using both a FT-817 and Elecraft K2.
The gap was installed at ~ 8' and guyed. I have been able to work DX easily on 40 and up. 80 meter performance is not as good but it does get out. In the year that I've had the antenna I've been able to work ~ 170 countries.
The antenna has survived 70 + mph winds but this spring we had a storm with 100 mph straight line winds and the middle section got bent in that storm.
From a performance perspective I'd give the Titan a 5 - it performed at and above expectations.
Overall I rated it a 4 because of GAP's e-mail response. Trying to get a replacement for the section that was bent.
Questions to GAP via e-mail have not been answered so if you have a question plan on calling them directly.
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|
| N0AH |
Rating: |
2004-04-28 | |
| deaf- and ugly |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
After reading a number of reviews, I got the Titan. For several months, I have compared it's hearing ability and transmitting punch to a Hustler 6 BTV. Transmitting comparisions are in favor of the Hustler most of the time. I've actually have had the coax checked twice on the Gap as it's reception is way down on most bands but just slightly better on 20 meters. This was just a frustrating experience as this antenna is a piece of work to prepare an installation site and assemble. And I wonder if all of those writing glowing reviews are listening with other antennas. One thing about the Titan that you don't realize until you get it, is just how ugly it is. With it's caged vertical dipoles and the 40 meter counterpoise wire, it takes up a huge amount of room compared to many standard multi band verticals in use today. And in my opinion, due to weight, this is a dangerious antenna for one ham to put up. It is not kid safe with the 40 meter copper wire as they may string themselves on it or something they are playing with around it. I got the antenna for full coverage on 10-80M. But 80M was a joke. As some have stated, a dummy load. It did tune up across the bands without issue. It's just nobody can hear me on 80M except west coast stateside and I am here in Colorado. It made QSO's. It's free of a radial system. But it would be even better if it worked. I know this review is in the minority. And many love this antenna. It might be my location, something I've done wrong etc....but I've troubleshooted everything and now this antenna is in the bone yard. Not even for sale as I don't want the liability of selling it-
Paul
N0AH
3DA0AX
F/N0AH
KH6/N0AH |
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| KB0FHP |
Rating: |
2004-03-14 | |
| Not Bad |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have had the Gap Titan up for approximately 1.5 years - and the performance is not bad considering. Assembly was not too bad - I had several mis-steps but that was my fault. Mounted it in a 10 foot pipe in concrete.
SWR when hooked just to the yellow pigtail is perfect. However, the antenna is sensitive to coax length. I played around with it a bit, and got it so it was reasonable. I need to lengthen a few rods to make the bandwidth a bit wider because of the coax length - but overall I am pleased. |
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| W7KKK |
Rating: |
2004-02-20 | |
| Pricey, but sturdy and no radials |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I have had this antenna up since last summer when we moved. I cemented a PVC pipe in the ground as they recommended. I put in on a 10 foot mast and dropped it into the PVC. You can walk under the counterpoise without banging your head. I guyed it at 120 degrees with 1/8” UV resistant rope at 45 degrees. By the way, this sure makes a nice way to go maintenance if you need to. Just drop the guy ropes and lift it out and lay it on a sawhorse or similar.
Construction was pretty easy, make sure you understand what you are doing as you are doing it. I only had trouble with one band being over 2>1 after assembly. Just pay attention to the measurements they give you in the instructions. I made the one phone call and they told me the fix. Why they don’t put this information in the manual is beyond me but who cares when they answer the phone so quick and the advice works. I made one phone call for assistance and got a live person right away. The assistance was great. Of note, it’s easier if you have two people involved putting this thing up and down, and use one of the guys ropes to assist in the process. It’s not all that heavy, but when you get it on a mast and such it’s bulky to handle for one person. It has survived the AZ monsoons of last year and sustained winds of 25-30 for hours and gusts of well over 60 MPH so far without a hitch.
Performance is good. I have measured this antenna against a G5RV and I think it’s much better. It seems to work as well as my 80 meter inverted “V” mounted at almost 40 feet.
If you don’t have much space, I think this could be the way to go for you. Yes, it’s a little pricey, but it does give you 10-80 in a pretty small package. And it’s the only vertical that I am aware of that really needs no radials.
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|
| N9PUZ |
Rating: |
2004-01-18 | |
| Very Pleased |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
My Titan DX was assembled and installed in the Fall of 2003.
The antenna materials are of good quality. All pieces fit together well. I read through the assembly instructions once before begginning and then again as the antenna went together. I found the instructions to be clear. If there is one little nit to pick it would be that I would prefer a plain 8.5 by 11.0 format for the manual instead of the small booklet.
My GAP is mounted on a five foot pipe (no cement base) with about 2.5 feet in the ground. I used the GAP guying bracket and Dacron rope along with 4 auger type guy anchors. I live in an area with very little windbreak and the installation has easily survived several wind storms already. Very rugged.
The antenna location is about 75 feet from any structures or obstacles other than some small trees. We swept all the covered bands with an MFJ analyzer once it was in place and the SWR was well within GAP's published specifications.
All these things are fine but how does it work on the air? I don't have a fancy station. Most of my operating is done with a Kenwood TS-50 and an external Timewave DSP. The GAP and this modest system has made SSB contacts from my QTH in the Midwestern US all over North America, Western Europe, South America, the Canary Islands, Canada, etc. I have also had many QRP level contacts using the GAP Titan and my Yaesu FT-817 at 5 Watts.
Overall I'm very pleased. The antenna performs as advertised. At this point if something happened to it I would not hesitate to replace it with another one. |
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| TF8GX |
Rating: |
2004-01-01 | |
| Good ! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Got mine for a IOTA trip, since then i have it up all winters in my garden and it works very fine.
Use it mostly on WARC bands , but it works super also on the other bands, only problem is the 80m :(
And the tuning instruchion is BAD ! ( the "BIG" book you get with it :) |
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| N6TGK |
Rating: |
2003-12-19 | |
| I liked it |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Dave, hope you see this. I sold you the Titan and I'm pleased to hear you were able to get it together and working correctly. I tried to send you an e-mail at the address listed on QRZ.com but it got kicked back to me. I miss that antenna and I REALLY miss being on HF, but this will all be temporary. We may be moving back west to AZ within the year. Good DX to you and hope you enjoy the antenna. I sure did.
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Earlier 5-star review posted by N6TGK on 2001-01-14
I started out with an Alpha Delta EE 80-10m dipole I had put up in an inverted vee configuration. I wasn't overly pleased with the performance of the antenna. I'm sure it had more to do with how I had it installed than it did with the actual dipole. However, before I could really work on the performance issues, the neighbor complained to the landlord about the dipole. Having only secured permission for the 2 meter antenna I had on the side of the house, the landlord told me to remove the dipole. My fault I admit. So I asked the landlord if I could then install a ground mounted vertical in the backyard. The backyard of the house we rent (it's nearly impossible to buy a house in San Diego) overlooks the Poway valley 200' below so I felt that a ground mounted vertical would work very well and keep the neighborhood from looking like a communications center. The landlord agreed and I started researching the different vertical antennas on the market. I had owned a Butternut HF6V when I was first licensed which worked well but I didn't really like the idea of having to bury radials all over the yard. The Cushcraft R6000 didn't cover all the bands I was interested in and the R8 came close to filling the bill but I was mostly concerned with the reliability of the antennas based on all the poor reviews of the R7000. After reading all the reviews here on eHAM I saw that the GAP Titan consistently received good reviews so I went to GAP's web-site and checked out their antennas. It was a tough choice but ultimately their Titan DX seemed like it fit my needs better than their other antennas.
Construction of the antenna was fairly easy, carefully reading each instruction, and I had the antenna built in about three hours by myself, minus the counterpoise and rods that GAP recommends you install after the antenna is installed. For 80 meters you need to install a capacitor, that GAP provides, inside the antenna. This capacitor determines the portion of the band that you want to use and comes standard with a "green cap" that covers 3900KHz to 4000KHz. If you want to use a different segment of the band then you need to contact GAP the day you order the antenna so you can get the appropriate "cap" in time for construction and installation. GAP provides the nut driver you need to install the screws on the antenna and they also provide you with a few extra screws. The antenna is 25' tall (which looks a lot longer once it's vertical) and has a series of tuned stubs that run parallel to the main 25' radiator. These stubs are held in place with pieces of PVC standoffs that are held in place with hose clamps. While I think this could be designed better, the design works well and it probably keeps the cost down a little. Just make sure you tighten the hose clamps down as tight as possible to insure that the standoffs don't slide down. The stubs require you to install "jumper" wires from the main radiator to the stubs. These are simple lengths of wire with crimp on connectors. A word of advise on these jumper wires... I recommend cutting the plastic insulators off the crimp connectors and add some solder to the connections and then cover it with shrink tubing. It makes the construction go a little slower but it will be worth it as this step will help insure that no moisture gets into these jumper wires and eventually corrode the connections.
For installation, GAP recommends that the mast you intend to use as a support be mounted in concrete. With that in mind I decided to dig a hole on the hill behind the house, about 40 feet away, and I installed a 2" diameter steel pipe and filled the hole with concrete. I then took a 1 1/2" diameter steel pipe cut just a bit longer than the 2" pipe and slid it inside. Now, GAP advises that the antenna must be mounted on a pipe no greater than 1 1/4" diameter. The entire 25' length of the antenna radiates so they give you six PVC rings to isolate the antenna from your support. You install three of the rings on the antenna and three on your support pipe. Without all six of these rings installed the antenna can couple to the support pipe and thereby make it appear longer than it really is and affect your SWR. I didn't think so and originally I had the antenna mounted on a 1 1/2" steel pipe using only three of the PVC rings on the antenna itself. The SWR was good on most of the bands but it was much improved when I mounted the antenna on a 1 1/4" pipe. This pipe is 10' long and was slid into the 1 1/2" pipe. This left quite a bit of play between the two pieces of pipe since they didn't fit snuggly. My friend, KC6KWV, brought over his drill and bolt threader from work and we installed two half inch bolts and tightened them down... pushing the 1 1/4" pipe against the opposite wall of the 1 1/2" pipe. This allowed for a very sturdy mount. While not required, GAP recommends guying the antenna about half way up. I would also recommend this, although I didn't do it with my installation because the landlord didn't want to see a bunch of wires or ropes running all over the place and the lack of guying isn't a concern here since we rarely see any wind in excess of 35 mph. We've already had one day of good strong wind and the antenna had no problems. Now, to get the coax to the shack 95' away I ran 100' of coax through PVC pipe that I buried. This makes a real nice installation and if I ever want to upgrade the coax, which I intend to do, I just have to cut an end off the coax, tape the new coax to the old and pull it through.
I've rambled on about various stages of construction and installation that really have nothing to do with the performance. With this being my first review of a product I wanted to cover all facets of the project since antenna projects can be fun. With that said, let's get to the whole point of the matter: the performance.
For me, someone who has never owned a beam due to restrictions, performance is great... as far as verticals go. I hope to move to another state soon and install a Hexbeam and I'm sure that once I've tried a beam I'll find out what I've been missing. Until then, I'm very pleased with the antenna. GAP states that the usable bandwidth on 80 meters to be 100KHz, based on the type of cap you install. My actual bandwidth (2:1) goes from 3.820KHz to 3.980KHz. On 40 meters and up to 10 meters I have full band coverage, although the matches on most of the band is kind of high at the lower edge of the bands and really good at the top of the band. To rectify this I obviously need to do some tuning and in this case I need to add some length. It is in tuning that the GAP Titan has one of it's biggest disadvantages and it's more of an issue with the manufaturer than the antenna itself. The instruction manual provides no details of how to tune the antenna. However, if you contact GAP they will provide you with the information needed. Also, while not specified, some owners have reported that the antenna works on 6 and 2 meters. In my installation though, I've found that the SWR on 6 meters never goes below 2.5 but on 2 meters the highest match is 1.7 so it can be used there. I'm hoping that as I tune 10 meters, which has an SWR of 2.2 at 28.000MHz and flat at 29.500MHz, that perhaps 6 meters will get better.
While I haven't done a lot of transmitting since installing the Titan DX, some of the DX contacts here in San Diego include Antartica, Cuba, Belgium and Portugal on 10 and 12 meters. That's probably not saying much since with the right conditions you could almost work the world with the proverbial "wet noodle." However, for me this antenna works great and I'm sure the fact that I'm 200' above the valley floor doesn't hurt matters any. I generally hear all sides of a conversation and while this antenna isn't a DX pile-up breaker, I can usually get through once all the big guns have made their contacts. I've even used this antenna as a receiving antenna only on 160 meters and it's worked fairly well considering I haven't had anything before. RFI hasn't been a problem yet, but then I haven't had a chance to do a lot of daytime operating, but here in my house I have minor problems with the phones and a couple of K-Com filters took care of that, and I get into the computer speakers when using 80 and 40 meters but I just shut the speakers off.
While this antenna is surely a compromise for someone who may have had beams in the past, for someone who's just getting into the hobby and can't put up the big beams because of money or restrictions, this antenna is for you. As I stated earlier, I hope to move out of California soon and into a location where I can do more so I intend to install a beam of some kind but I know that my Titan DX will still be used and once I move I plan on getting GAP's Voyager DX for 160, 80, 40 and 20 meters so I can get on the low bands. |
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| W7IS |
Rating: |
2003-09-30 | |
| broadbanded |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
If you make an ohmmeter continuity test from the CENTER CONDUCTOR of the input coax, you wont find DC continuity to either the upper or lower section of the Titan. That’s because the input coax center conductor goes all the way to the top of the antenna where it connects to a 1650pf coupling capacitor that then connects to the very top of the antenna. The coax braid of this upper 11 ft top section then connects to the bottom of the 11 section. So the top 11 ft of the Titan is parallel fed both at the top through the 1650pf and at its bottom through an approximate 300pf of coax capacity. So most of the transmit power is being coupled to very top 11 ft section that has tuning rods run
down to the bottom of the lower section to provide the necessary length to resonate on
80 to 10 meters. The input coax braid connects directly to the top of the lower 15 ft section. Its difficult to say what the radiation pattern of a top fed vertical would be but I have worked many hams across the US who are using the Titan and they have very respectable signals.
A number of the reviews of the Titan indicate it has much less noise than a dipole. And this is because of the unconventional top fed. A normal bottom fed vertical would have much more noise than dipole due verticals are prone to pick up man made noise.
Because of all the tuning rods, the Titan does have a considerable amount of wind loading and would be best guyed. The optional guy ring provided by Gap is very heavy duty and is set up for 4 guy lines. The 4 guy lines would help keep the strain off the
sheet metal screws that hold all the sections together. Radioworks sells small diameter Kevlar guy line in 200 ft spools and its small diameter would keep down the extra wind load of the guys themselves and they are almost invisible.
I do have several suggestions that would be helpful in keeping the maintenance low on the Titan. The tuning rods are held in place by stainless steel clamps. And these long tuning rods can slide on the mast over time and put strain on the connection wires. To help prevent this simply put an additional stainless clamp under each existing clamp. Also, before you assemble the antenna solder all the crimp on wire connections. This would only take a few minutes as they can be soldered without having to take the connections apart.
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|
| VK4DD |
Rating: |
2003-07-29 | |
| wow!!! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
Got one used at a hamfest in NSW (long story) was missing the 40 meter counter poise but was easy to recreate. I do a lot of SWL and during this winter, its been fantastic- Ugly according to XYL but her rabbit hutch is worse and stinks-
Wish it was a better antenna on 80M...as some have said, makes a good dummy load on this band- but since we only have a smigion of space in the DX window, no one ever hears us anyway with VK3DZ you know who on- Still not sure if I have all the right parts...many pieces seem to have been recreated- but it works on all bands except 30 meters where it is a bit wabbly on SWR........like many already posting, why or how anyone bought a Cushcraft R7 or 7000 series with this antenna out there is a point of marketing dollars- I am really pleased out here with this antenna- and nothing against Cushcraft, but their quality control is too sad to trust anything to be shipped out here- |
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