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Reviews For: Diamond W-8010

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Diamond W-8010
Reviews: 20MSRP: 120
Description:
5 Band Dipole 3.5/7/14/21/28 MHz - 19,8 m long
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00204.3
WB5AGF Rating: 2020-12-09
a decent set of HF loaded-dipoles for limited space installation Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The Diamond W-8010 inductively-loaded HF dipoles are well constructed with very detailed instructions.

Having said that .... if you are putting the antenna together by yourself be very careful when you get ready to raise the wires because they, and the inductive loading coils, 'try' to grab any nearby wire/guy lines.

The wires need to be kept with a slight amount of tension on them as you raise the center of the antenna (mine is configured as an inverted-V with a single high point). I have long lengths of non-conductive guy lines holding the ends of the wires and those go to bricks that I have laying out in the yard.

Starting-off I have the bricks situated where there is enough slack in the wires so that I can raise the center of the antenna a few feet. Then I tie-off the hoisting line and go move-in the bricks a bit so that the wires once again have some slack. This is an iterative-process ... raise the center of the antenna few feet ... go move the bricks in a bit ... then hoist the center some more.

Once the center is at full height set the guy positions so that the wires have some tension but not too much.

I initally put the antenna up with any of the tuning 'whiskers' to see where the resonant points were using my RigExpert analyzer (a wonderful tool). In my installation I found that all the resonant points were either too low (for 80M resonance was down about 3.3 MHz and for 20M it was around 13.8 MHz) or high (resonance for the 10M section was up above 32 MHz). Curiously (I thought) the 40M section was resonant right on 7.2 MHz without any adjustments.

With a bit of 'pruning' for 80 and 20 Meters I pulled their resonant points up into the low ends of the bands and adding the tuning 'whiskers' brought resonance for the 10 and 15 Meters wires up to where they should be.

All-in-all the antenna works like it should. It's not as good as full-length dipoles but that's to be expected.

(Within the past week, staying-up to odd hours-of-the-night, I've worked France, Germany and Japan on 40M SSB from the Dallas (Tx) area with about 250 Watts PEP out.)

- Paul, WB5AGF
K9SUL Rating: 2020-03-10
Easy to tune, good construction Time Owned: more than 12 months.
It works as you would expect a multi-band trap dipole to work. It performs almost as good as a full size dipole near the resonant frequencies. Tuning the antenna is very easy, if you have a system to lower and raise the antenna quickly.

The included balun is not the best one, especially if you are using a linear amp. If you have a center pole, replace it with a better one, preferably with a heavier duty current balun.

Overall, it is a very well made antenna kit. I would buy it again and also recommend to others.
G4EVR Rating: 2017-09-14
Excellent in class Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I am really pleased with this antenna. I chose it over the similar Comet CWA-1000: the Diamond product has a big advantage as each band is independently adjustable by means of its own pair of tuning stubs, making set-up really easy. It is manufactured to a very high standard.

I recommend NOT making irreversible physical cuts to these stubs: instead, make “virtual cuts” by “tripling” the end of the stub backward and forward so that there are three parallel wires taped together at the end of the stub: the “seen” length of the stub will thus also be its electrical length. I heavily bandaged the balun with waterproofing tape as the screwed-on closure suggests potential rain ingress. The terminals of the coils should also be water protected. Altogether a full day’s work!

Very short of space, the 3.5/7/21 branches of my W-8010 are erected as a “W” i.e. an inverted vee with dog-legs back up to high points at the house, where I’ve fitted vine eyes through which I can pull long nylon cords to be able to quickly lower and raise the antenna for continual SWR measurement and readjustment when setting up. The apex is only 8m above ground (incidentally 2.5m below my 21/28 MHz Yagi: interaction of the two antennas is acceptably low but I wouldn’t want them any closer).

Tuned for CW, SWR is as follows. On 3.5MHz, 1.1 at my chosen resonant freq of 3520, and 1.5 at 3500 and 3540. On 7.0MHz, 1.05 at 7020, 1.15 at 7000 and 1.5 at 7070. On 14MHz, 1.6 minimum, bandwidth 200KHz between the 2.0 points. On 21MHz, 1.7 minimum, huge bandwidth. On 28MHz, huge bandwidth but couldn’t get SWR below 2.8, it resonates too high for CW, haven’t yet tried soldering extra wire to stubs.

I have enjoyed 1000km-plus night-time QSOs on 3.5MHz, implying some radiation at low angles: on this band the antenna is amazingly good for limited space. It’s also excellent on 7 and pretty good on 14, OK-ish on 21 but poor (so far) on 28. So I score it 5. Putting the 21/28 MHz issues in context, I’ve never had success on these bands with any multi-band wire antenna, and if I couldn’t have my beam for these two bands, I’d get a 21/28 vertical and keep my W-8010 for 3.5, 7 and 14.
CT1EFT Rating: 2017-05-25
For the price it is good Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The antenna works ok. It needs to be at least 2 meters distant from any wall or roof. If it passes close to a wall the SWR increases too much at least in the lower bands.
Also important is it needs to be supported by good /strong mast. I live in a high wind area and the antenna is on top of a building so I used 2,5 inch
OD masts with 4mm wall thickness.
Want it or not it has some directionality and so it i sbetter in som edirections, although it has a wide angle coverage. basically I can talk to anywhere, of course much better to the directions of stronger radiation. It is ok for radiation 50 to 60 degrees to each side of the maximum, so it covers well 120 degrees (in my humble opinion).
For the price it is a good antenna. I apid more for the masts and for attaching well the masts to the wall. 2 masts are ok if the coax is not very heavy.
The ropes supplied are bad and it is better to use sailing ropes (5 mm is ok).
One important aspect is the tuning in the 80m band. 80m is the worst of the antenna because it has a very narrow bandwidth for an acceptable VSWR. It also comes sized for the lower band part and there is the need to cut more then specified in the manual if there is the need to go anything above 3560KHz.
PA3KVE Rating: 2016-01-27
Good antenne for little space. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Well, I have my antenne over 3 years now.
No, I am not hearing everything as I would with a towered beam. And no I don't put up a very strong signal as some HAMs that use 1,5 kW on a stacked yagi.
It's a mediocre antenna for 5 (or more bands). I make nice QSO's and I can work the world.

The fact that I homebrew it, makes no difference: it's a exact copy of the W8010.
Can I recommend it? Yes, sure.
Always looking for better antennas for my space; didn't find any yet.

73
K6NXI Rating: 2016-01-11
Default length is way off Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
What I discovered is that at around 27 or so feet the default length of most all the 'stubs' are too long. I ended up chopping off the ones for 80 and 40 and 80 was still resonant around 3.630 which was an improvement as it was down around 3.5 Had to start shortening the 80 meter element. Was already resonant on 15 80 meters has about 50 kc of spread which isn't bad as this antenna is quite short.

However I made a giant mess of my mast's ropes and ended up with an infuriating disaster so I tore it all down and bought a comet h 422 and am happier.
K5DKQ Rating: 2015-11-09
Good compromise antenna Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I bought the Diamond W8010 as my first HF antenna, intending to mount it in my attic. I used it for about 6 months sporadicaly with a tuner. I just got a new Yaesu FTDX-1200 and used an analyzer to get it right.

The top 15m, 40m and 80m wire is mounted along the ridgeline of my attic, and i had to bend the ends of the 80m wire 90 degrees to fit. the 10m and 20m portion is run at about a 30 degree angle downwards from the top line. I also added two (app) 4 1/2 ft. wires at 90 degrees to the top wire and 30 deg. down for 6m coverage.

All bands tuned well except 80m, where I have a 900 khz section to use. 20m and 40m seem to do the best.

As I said, it is in my (one-story) attic, so it isn't a DX hunter, but I'm on the air.
VK2XAB Rating: 2015-06-13
Great Antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Test equipment used an Antenna Analyzer.
Setup the Diamond W8010 when I first assembled it and hung it up 4.5m high using three Jay car telescopic masts.
When I started 3.5MHz was at 3.3 MHz I wanted it to be at 3.6MHz
7.00MHz was at 6.87MHz I wanted it to be at 7.1 MHz
14MHz was at 11.6MHz I wanted it to be at 14.2 MHz
21MHz was at 20.15MHz I wanted it to be at 21.3 MHz
28MHz was at 25.8 MHz I wanted it to be at 28.5 MHz
After removing most of the adjustment stubs it became quite close to amateur band I left the 40m &10m adjustment stub as is. 20m need a lot of cutting to get to 14.2 MHz but the SWR is quite high at 1.8 other bands are all ok.
Final result
SWR
3.54 MHz 1.5
7.03 MHz at 1.4
14.155 MHz at 2.4
20.88MHz 1.00
28.5MHz 1.6
I covered all the coils with silicon tape to prevent that material from degrading in the harsh Australian sun. This just fits my backyard which is 19.6m long.
Using a SDR Play SDR I can receive local VK stations and DX stations very well I have tried 80m 40m 20m 15m and 10m with good results.
ZL1PWR Rating: 2014-06-14
Awesome Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Gave this antenna a 5 because it works very well for me at a low height of 15 feet I have changed it slightly by separating it into two dipoles by adding another balun and coax feed as I found 10m to be a little deaf but by liberating the 10m and 20m dipole away from the other its way better anyone who has one should try this it makes a big difference and is simple to tune this way all stations I work are surprised by its performance especially on 80m as its so short its crazy!!!
PE1FCH Rating: 2013-12-04
Small flaw Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is an update to my earlier review, in wich I described the dissatisfaction with the Diamond WD8010. After all it appeared that the balun supplied with the antenna, was defect. So far, things are looking good but a faulty balun out of the box should nevertheless not happen imho. The vendor replaced it with a new one in a jiffy, so good service. Hope to score some DX with this antenna!