| KE5DPI |
Rating:      |
2005-10-18 | |
| Better Than Advertised |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Just today I finally got around to assembling the Eagle. I purchased it pryor to reading the reviews and was not too sure I wanted to assemble it. The only problem I had was stuffing the cable into the top section and wondered about the cable end with a black cap on it that went nowhere. I went along with the program and after reading the instructions several times managed to assemble the rest of it with no problems. I mounted it on a tripod in the backyard about 5ft off the ground. On 40 meters the SWR ranged from 1.5:1 on the low end to 1.8:1 on the high end. On 20 meters it was just about 1.2:1 all across the band. On 15 meters I got a 1.2:1 on the low end and a wopping 2.5:1 on the high end. 10 meters was about the same as 15. I don't have 12 or 17 meters on this old Kenwood TS520s. After running all the test I made 3 contacts on 40 and 4 contacts on 20. The signal reports were all good even though conditions were marginal. I'm going to roof mount the Eagle on a tripod and expect it to perform just as well or perhaps even better. |
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| K7VBY |
Rating:  |
2005-03-16 | |
| Save your money |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| I have used the GAP Eagle for about a year now. I have it ground mounted on a 7 foot steel pole and the lowest SWR is on 40 meters at 1.5 to 1. The SWR on all of the other bands is 2 to 1 or higher except for 10 meters. On 15 meters the SWR goes to infinity in the middle of the band. I called GAP about the 15 meter problem and the suggestion was to clip a wire on the 15 meter tuning stub to move the resonant frequency. I did that and the SWR was higher than 2 to 1 across the entire 15 meter band. I did have the antenna mounted closer to the ground but did not want anyone coming in contact with the three radial tubes. The SWR on all bands changed after moving it up only 6 feet. The closest object is a cedar tree about 15 feet away and the end of a chain link fence 5 feet away. I mounted the antenna on my roof recently and the SWR readings were higher on 17, 12 and 10 meters and no improvement on the other bands. Using an MFJ 209 Antenna Analyzer I have found the lowest SWR from 20 to 17 meters is centered in the 19 meter shortwave band! |
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| K7JIM |
Rating:     |
2005-02-05 | |
| Good Antenna. |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
My Gap Eagle preforms very good for what it is. It's a vertical antenna that requires no radials and takes up very little space. If you have the space to run 60 radials then I would choose another brand vertical. I also have a C3SS beam and the Gap Eagle out preforms the beam on 12 and 17 meters. All antennas are a compromise. If you are looking for a good antenna that takes up a very small space then I would recommend the Gap Eagle. By the way, my Gap Eagle is mounted one foot off the ground. I just drove a fence post into the ground and attached the Gap Vertical to it. It has been up for over 3 years.
Jim K7Jim |
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| N0XE |
Rating:     |
2005-02-05 | |
| Good Antenna |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
There are way too many reviews based on emotion, unrealistic expectations and a bunch more based on not understanding a little more about antenna theory and what variables affect your over all performance. The Gap Eagle is about as good as just about any other shorten commercial antenna on the block if judged properly in it's class. Many if not all shortened commercial verticals that are sold today are a compromise of some sort and unless you can put up a full quarter wave or 5/8 wave radiators with a perfect ground (counterpoise system) don't expect it to necessarily blow any other unity gain antenna you are using out of the water as it probably not going to happen. I have owned several GAPS over the years this one included as well as Hustler, several Butternuts, and nearly all the Hy-Gains and they all can play pretty well for what they are designed to do. I would rather see a more comprehensive review more on the guality or the construction, parts and factory support and meeting bandwidth claims with good efficiency on many of these antennas and also how well they hold up over the long run. I think it would be more productive as the antenna theory books and the Antenna experts can lay out the pro's and con's of different types of antennas, (ex- dipoles verse verticals and full wave loops.) All installations (site locations) may vary, ground conditions may vary from qth to qth and that affects the losses in the system. Whom ever said that any Vertical should be better then a dipole or even a G5RV must be thinking the vertical is suppose to be a wonder stick and it is not. The G5RV is actually a 20 meter designed antenna that has proven it can do a pretty good job on the other bands as a multi-band radiator, but it will still have both major and minor lobes on bands other then 20 meters depending on the frequency you are on and like all dipole type antennas how high you get it also affects the radiation pattern as well. If one of your minor lobes is radiating in a desired direction and you get a poor signal report then it would be very easy to slam the antenna and think it is garbage and in reality it is just how it is installed (Apex too low, possible coupling to a metal object etch) band it is being used on or maybe that paticuliar day radio conditions were poor or we had a magnetic storm brewing and signals were just poor all over, I hope I am getting a point across here, hi, The Vertical gives you advantages at times on certain paths and under other conditions the dipole will of course blow the vertical away, especially if the antenna is not very high at the apex, low mounted dipoles tend to be a very good high angle radiators and the signals from close in states will usually always be much stronger, not always though as sometimes theory does not always play out like we are taught, Radio conditions play a very important role in all communications along with man made noise and other Qrm factors as well, If you can not hear them you can not work them, period. A full wave loop can be a super performing antenna, but that does not mean I am ready to junk all my dipoles and verticals. It is unfair to pick on any one type of antenna over another unless you can back it up with full data and in the case of the Gap Eagle antenna it should be judged against the same type of similiar type verticals, under the same type ground conditions and during the same radio conditions. A dipole is great and one of the standards that most antennas are judged on , a vertical can also be great and especially on longer paths, mostly for DX is where they can really shine, All top DX and contest stations have a multitude of antennas to use based on what is happening at that moment. To slam an antenna with out considering all these variables is not doing a service to any ham or especially a new ham coming in to the hobby. Gets them very confused. Reading is the key, learn, play , experiment with antennas and enjoy the hobby. The Gap Eagles I found to be a pretty good antenna, there could be things done to it that I might like better but it always did what I expected a short multi-band vertical on the bands it covers and for me I have no issues with it, it is not perfect by no means. Prices on all these antennas is way out of line in my opinion for what you get but that is a topic for another day.
73 Jim N0XE |
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| KD9MF |
Rating:  |
2005-02-05 | |
| save your money |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
mine was a POS. it perfomed the same all over, lousy! big, bulky, cost way too much. i took it down after 2 years and gave it away. replaced it with a butternut hf9v and never looked back.
couldnt get it to tune aywhere, performance? what performance. my dipole absolutely murdered it on all bands, fed with ladder line. good luck with yours. |
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| NH6KE |
Rating:    |
2005-02-05 | |
| Disappointed! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I installed My Gap Eagle 14 months ago. My initial enthusiasm has waned. While it has a low SWR, and switches bands without any tuning, it does not perform any better than my G5RV dipole. I was puzzled by the mediocre prformance until I read in the January 2005 issue of QST, page 55, QST Workbench: "the ground still has a significant effect on the DX performance of any antenna that is mounted close to the ground...the presence of a nearby lossy ground will have a detrimental effect on the amount of radiated RF energy...." So, if you have the space for a dipole, the Eagle is not worth the extra cost.
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Earlier 5-star review posted by NH6KE on 2003-12-16
I bought the Gap Eagle on qth.com, slightly used. The instructions were a bit difficult to follow, and there is no explantion of the why and what the many rods and sections are for, but It was all assembled in an afternoon. Then there was a trip to the hardware store for two sacks of Quickcrete for the base. I erected the antenna in my backyard on the rocky slope of a half acre lot, about 50 feet from the house, in the middle of some tall trees. I painted it camoflage style so as to make it hard to see, as there are CC&Rs here that prohibit antennas. I also got a 5 foot tv mast from Radio Shack. I was able to erect the antenna myself, though I doubt I could erect a longer mast without help. So the base of the antenna is only about 3 feet above the ground.
The antenna works as advertised, SWR mostly about 1.2 or less on 10, 20 and 40 meters, the middle of 15 was 1.7. On the first night I was able to check in on the ANZA net (Australia, New Zealand, Africa) on 20 meters, that's about 1/4 of the distance around the globe from my QTH on the Big Island of Hawaii. I am able to switch frequencies and even bands on my new Icom 746 PRO without any tuning. |
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| KA5DFO |
Rating:     |
2004-08-23 | |
| Not Too Shabby |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
After reading the reviews I decided there was enough positive evidence that I should purchase the antenna. It arrived from Texas Towers quickly, but I had to wait over a week for an extension that GAP left out of the parts bag. Assembly was fairly painless except for some of my mistakes. The SWR readings were reasonable across the bands, but not flat. The pleasant surprise was 40 meters where the GAP performs well. 17 meters is also good as well as the "Big Three" 10,15,20. All in all, the antenna is durable, works well in limited space at 20 feet. I use an LDG AT-11MP tuner to "smooth things out." There's nothing like a beam, but this antenna is a good one free from the old joke about verticles doing poorly in all directions.
73! |
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| KD7PKP |
Rating:     |
2004-07-22 | |
| So Far So Good |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I bought a Gap eagle from a local ham. He had bought it used and had never assembled it. I posted a want on e-ham for a manual. Within a couple of days I had a manual and a bunch of spare parts in hand for the cost of postage. The antenna went together rather easily. I had read some reviews and thought that it would be a nightmare, but with the manual and the fine information from the reviews it was together in about an hour. I checked continuity with a meter while the thing was on its side in the garage and found no continuity from the center conductor of the pl259 to any part of the antenna. The person who sent me the manual had also sent the coax assembly that resides inside the antenna. I changed coax the coax assembly and found that it fixed the continuity problem. I dug a hole and put a schedule 40 sleeve in with a couple of sacks of redi mix. I put the antenna up last night and found that the SWR on 20 and 40 was almost flat (1.1 to one on the high side). On 17 it goes up and has an average of 2:1 across the band, gets worse on 15, 12 and 10 respectively. but I didn't spend much time on these bands. It needs a bit more work. I was able to make several contacts on 20 and 40 and it seems to have great reception on both of these bands. It seems like a good set up. I have it down so that I can paint it camo flat green to keep the neighbors happy. All in all a good antenna for my money. |
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| WA1ZLV |
Rating:     |
2004-06-19 | |
| Better than I thought! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I purchased my Eagle over a year ago, and up until now, it was a wind sail. I finally figured out what the problem with it was. Gap uses a smaller diamater RG58x or something similar, and I found that the connector to the PL259 was not soldered well at all. Both the center connector and shields were cold solder jointed. In fact, the connector spun!
Resoldered, bam...works great on all bands!!
Love it!!
73, Dan - WA1ZLV |
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| KA3NXN |
Rating:  |
2004-03-15 | |
| Will not tune |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Had the thing for over a year. The lowest SWR I can get on any band is 2.8:1 on 12 Meters. Everything else is way above 3:1. I have taken the thing down & put it back up over 10 times to see if I can figure it out. I have spent hours on the phone with GAP with no results. From reading the reviews on this thing it's hit or miss. I guess I missed! I gave it away and put up a Carolina Windom 40. |
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