| PG00023016 |
Rating:     |
2008-10-05 | |
| My "Old Faithful" |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I have used my Eagle for a few Field Days. Since then I have had it in my yard. It is a tough antenna. I have moved it to six different places over the years. only problem I've had was forgetting the fine print "limit power to 200 watts on 40 meters"!! I melted the coax where the ferrite beads were. I cut the coax off at that point and put the PL259 back on. Once again working as new. Don't run high power through it on 40m. Good quiet antenna ok for DX too. |
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| KB5DRJ |
Rating:      |
2008-02-04 | |
| Excellent antenna! |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Had a problem at first assembling the antenna and could not get the lowest SWR reading anywhere near the ham bands. Turned out that I had installed the inner base section upside down which added about 4 inches to the antenna and I had overlooked the coax loop that must be just right. :) I found the phone support to be excellent. SWR is nearly flat on 20 meters, perfectly flat on 40 meters, under 1.8:1 on 17, 15, 12 and 10. When the weather is nice I sit on the patio with my FT-817ND and get solid signal reports - works even better HRO.
I have the antenna mounted on my covered patio roof so any adjustments are easy with just a short ladder.
The other day we had a windstorm that snapped fence posts and blew down my dipole. The GAP antenna just swayed a bit and withstood the windstorm.
The quality is very good. Antenna uses screws instead of clamps. The base section has an inner and outer tube for double strength.
I highly recommend this antenna. This antenna will work very well if assembled exactly as instructed. |
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| W4YO |
Rating:     |
2008-01-18 | |
| Good antenna for a vertical |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I moved to Harbor Island, SC, in 2001 and have been using the GAP Eagle since then. Since I am plagued by CC&R regs, I cannot erect a tower, so I bought the Eagle, second hand, to give it a try. With it, I have worked over 300 countries from this QTH. I have never had any problems with this antenna. It's not a beam at 85 feet, which I had at my former QTH, but it has performed in excellent fashion. I'm sure one of the reasons for its performance is that Harbor Island is a 2.5 to 3 sq. mi. island surrounded by salt water and a high water table. Someone else who doesn't have the advantage of a salt-water take-off might not have the same results. I even use the Eagle on 30 meters thru a tuner, and have worked some good ones on that band as well. I would rate it between a 4 and a 5 |
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| WN7YJJ |
Rating:     |
2007-08-01 | |
| Very good |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| When I retired to a small Central Florida house/lot in early 2003 from 5 acres in NW Indiana, I found myself (a) extremely limited in space for antennas and (b) in a thunderstorm and hurricane-prone area where the ability to get an antenna up or down fairly quickly was more than just desirable. I purchased a GAP Eagle DX and mounted it on a 15 foot telescoping mast shackled to the house such that pulling the pin to telescope the mast to 10 feet, removing the three radials and the two U-bolts holding the mast to the shackles, allows me to lay the antenna and mast combination on the ground, without removing the antenna from the mast, in about 10 minutes. It goes back up in about the same amount of time. As for performance, I discovered very quickly that SWR on 20 is about as good as it gets, but on the higher bands it left a lot to be desired. When I added an Ameritron AL-811H to the mix, it became a problem. Enter an MFJ-962 Versa Tuner II and happiness in an SWR of 1.0:1 on all frequencies, all bands. I've worked around the world with the Eagle DX, including the St. Peter Island Antarctic DXpedition, China Japan and Fiji! When nature and real estate limit you to a multiband vertical antenna, you can do a whole lot worse than a GAP Eagle DX. |
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| KQ6IG |
Rating:     |
2007-03-05 | |
| Good |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I bought my Gap NOS. It had been sitting in the box for 14 years when I received it. Assembly was straight forward except for a few important details that were left out. For example, the instruction manual, and photos show one piece of coax extending from the top of the center section. There are actually two. The extra piece is meant to sit inside of the top section. Come on guys, why leave that out??!! I had to call Gap to get an explaination.
I mounted the antenna on my 3 story roof about 45 feet up, and far from surrounding objects. SWR is excellent (<1.5) on 20-10 meters.
40m is another story. SWR is 1:1 at 7mc. Then increases rapidly with frequency to 2:1 at 7.165. I suspect that the coax is electrically extending the antenna on 40. The ferrite beads, and coax choke they give you is really not sufficient. Once I'm over that hurdle, the antenna will be as close to perfect as one could want.
My first two contacts on 20m after assembling it were La Paz, Mexico, and Chile! So, far, I'm a happy camper.
73
Omar |
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| IK2GNP |
Rating:     |
2006-10-17 | |
| Critical but good |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I bought new from a german dealer; I wanted to try a multiband vertical antenna without traps and not so high (it is about 6.4 metres high), and I choose GAP Eagle DX.
First of all it seems solid and well built with a very good aluminium parts.
However, beginning assembly you discover in few minutes a very bad instruction manual that does not explain anything instead some general information about antenna installation sites and some photos about tubes and screws assembly....... any measure, no infos about tuning!!!
Bad situation, but looking photos we just assembled it in about 2 hours.
We installed this antenna on my roof on a pole about 4 metres high from the roof, about 12 metres high from the ground.
First tests revealed very good SWR and great signals on 20m and 40m. On 40m there is the best SWR of 1.1 around 7,200 MHz (perfectly centered on the american ham band), and at lower frequency of 7,000 MHz we have a good 1.5.
On 20m the best SWR values: a great 1.1 on the entire band!! Problems began testing higher bands: high SWR values on 17m and 10m, on 15m good value in a portion below ham band (between 20 and 21 MHz) and in 12m the antenna was totally unuseful! I can say that all higher bands was unuseful!
The unique way to tune this antenna is moving two little extensions located at the bottom of higher bands tuner rods. We immediately found a very critical tuning, so we decided to stop the job and make a more fine tuning some days later.
Before that day, I searched detailed information about exact work of that little extensions; I phoned to manufacturer in the United States but I had not an useful support. They told me to check insulators, feedline or SO-239 connector...... and they suggested to try a fine tuning...... VERY BAD SUPPORT!!!
I had interesting infos from Germany; all four tuner rods located in central zone of main tube are all parallel connected (you can check them using an ohm meter), to realize a multiband, vertical dipole for 17m, 15m, 12m and 10m; the extension located on shortest rod (92 inches) is for 10m, the other for 12m.
So, having these infos we carefully moved these extension, moving them less than 1 centimetres at a time!! Yes you must move them very carefully and slowly, checking every times the results using a good SWR meter.
After about two hours we reached a good result: 40m and 20m are not involved in this tuning, and SWR is as described above. On 15m the antenna is a little bit "low" because best SWR of 1.1 is in CW band (around 21,050 MHz), but at 21,250 MHz we have a good 1.5 and only at higher band limit of 21,450 MHz SWR is around 3.
On 10m the antenna is perfectly tuned between 28,400 and 28,500 MHz at an SWR value of 1.3; bandwidth is not so large because SWR is at 1.5 at around 28,200 and 28,700, but I wanted best value on SSB portion because I'm not interesting in CW.
On 17m and 12m SWR is higher (between 2 and 2.5 in 17m and around 3 in 12m). Remember that before tuning we had a totally unuseful antenna on 12m! Now SWR is not so low but I have an antenna! And no problem using my antenna tuner.
Obviously you can't obtain the best 1.1 SWR value on all bands with any vertical multiband antennas, and don't believe to old man saying this.
After first "on the road" tests I'm very happy using this GAP antenna; during this low propagation time I just made very interesting QSOs with great signals.
Finally: GAP Eagle DX is a badly undocumented and unsupported, critical to tune, but very good vertical antenna! If you have time for a careful installation you will have great chance to obatin good results.
73 de IK2GNP, Marco. |
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| W5MIL |
Rating:     |
2006-09-29 | |
| Great Signal |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Bought the Eagle new in May '06 because, from what I've read and heard, it's supposed to have a great signal on 20m, 17m and 15m. I use a W5GI also and I thought it would be interesting to be able to compare the two. Mounted the Eagle on the roof on a Radio Shack tripod, guyed in 3 places. The W5GI was the same height on a fiberglass pole only 20 feet away from the Eagle after everything was up. The Eagle performed about the same as the W5GI on 20m but was much better on 17m and 15m as I thought might happen. 40m on the Eagle was horrible until a thunderstorm caused the fiberglass mast to collapse down to where the top is only about 18 ft. from the ground now. But then I tried 40m on the Eagle again and BOOM!-fantastic, much to my surprise considering what I've read about the Eagle's 40m performance on these reviews. The Eagle I have has a GREAT 40m signal. All the other bands the Eagle is designed for are working perfectly as well. I'm getting great signal reports even when I can barely hear them...worked a ham in the Azores on 20m today and he gave me a 5x5 "great signal" when I could hear him at about 3x3. The fiberglass mast and the Eagle were coupling before the storm...which I kind of suspected but was too lazy to move one or the other. I must say that the W5GI is still getting a great signal out on 80m even though it's only about 18' up so my needs are met with my current antenna situation. I have yet to try 10m on the Eagle but will get more into it once the solar cycle improves.
The reason for the 4 rating is because GAP expects the customer to solder the PL-259 onto the cable himself. This I did not like after paying almost $300 for this thing. The tubing of the antenna is plenty big to be able to thread the PL-259 through it while connected to the cable, so for GAP to say that they leave it off because it won't fit through the inside of the antenna is absurd. Also, GAP left out one of the pieces to the PL-259. I called GAP and described the part to them and they said they would send one out...never did. Thank God for Radio Shack. I went to the local Shack and got a screw-on connector and followed the instructions closely. It's had a perfect connection for 5 months now, no thanks to GAP.
In summary, it took me about 3 hours to assemble the entire antenna myself...did it one night in the house in the hallway. I recommend getting the Eagle guy kit, very useful and necessary, I think, if roof mounted. Using the guys, the antenna has already withstood 50 mph gusts with ease on the Radio Shack tripod. As GAP says, the Eagle is pre-tuned and it is good-to-go across all prescribed bands but I have used my LDG tuner to iron out a rough spot or two on a couple of band edges...no big deal. This is the 4th commercial vertical I've used and it's the best so far. It is very quiet and my signal gets out very well. I'm satisfied with my purchase and the price I paid but GAP could be a little more customer friendly by attaching the PL-259 at the factory and be more responsive when they leave a part out from the packaging. Very good antenna overall. |
|
| KE7BIO |
Rating:     |
2006-05-15 | |
| Very good vertical |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| Bought from original owner, who purchased it 8 yrs. ago. I didn't have it guyed correctly when first bought, 75+ m.p.h. wind gusts bent it, straightened out fine this spring with a 1/2 " galvi pipe. Is guyed now at 3 points, 120 degrees apart. Can hear and work SSB signals fairly well on 15, 20, and 40 meters. The Eagle has very good construction and parts quality. |
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| K4JET |
Rating:      |
2005-12-15 | |
| Better than anyone expected |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| New to HF & DX. Bought the Gap Eagle and put it on the roof. In 8 months I have almost 1,000 QSO's , all the states, all continents except Antarctica and 147 different countries. Nobody in the DX club could believe the success, but it is true. I am adding a SteppIR, but keeping the Eagle for 40M. Super performance for a vertical with true 6 band coverage! (but still a vertical.) |
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| AB7Q |
Rating:     |
2005-11-04 | |
| Nice product |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I picked this antenna up at an estate sale. It was assembled, and I took it apart enough to stuff it into my truck. It has seen some years and shows some wear, but nothing that keeps it from doing its job. I put it up at 10 feet above ground, about 20 feet from my crank up tower. It replaced a Solarcon A-99. It does not perform as well as the Solarcon on 10 meters. It is not up to my center fed longwire (125' long at 35 ft.) on 40. It is not quite up to my G5RV JR. at 35 ft. on 20, but is close. On 17 and 15 it works better than any of my other antennas. Upon casual operation in the CQ WW SSB DX contest, I used the antenna with my 775dsp at 200 watts out. Worked 27 countries on 15 meters in 21 zones. Including Africa, Europe, South America, Australia and Asia. Not too shabby for near the bottom of the solar cycle. 10 and 12 meters seem pretty good as well, but I have not done any serious comparisons against the wires. This antenna does not take up much space and will get you on the air with a good signal. Obviously, it does not have to be way up in the air either. It serves its purpose well, which is a small footprint and multiband capability. No additional radials needed.I am very happy with what it has given me on 15 and 17 meters. |
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