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Reviews For: GAP EAGLE

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : GAP EAGLE
Reviews: 59MSRP: 299.00
Description:
40 through 10m vertical
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.gapantenna.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00593.7
W8MMN Rating: 2003-10-20
A good compromise antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I used to live on 40 acres and had an antenna farm to be proud of. I intend to return to the country soon, but for now we live in a small city in NE Ohio while I attend graduate school. I needed something small to keep 'on the air' until I finish my education andwe move back to the country. I do not even have room for my B&W folded all band dipole. So I got a Gap Eagle. (And a isotron 80 for 80M). Now I had read the posts and thought it would be hard to assemble (I am not very handy at building things). I read the instructions twice, went to the workshop and in just under 4 hours had it assembled & tested. It has been over 2 months now, and I feel it works every bit as well as my singleband dipoles did at over 100' between two of my towers at the old qth. It does not work as well on 20/15/10 as my Skyhawk 3X10 did, but at 1/3 the price and 1/10th the size, it does amazingly well. I did not guy it (yet) and it has survived 60 MPH sustained winds already without any damage or bending. I will enjoy getting some towers up again when we move in 2 years, but with my Gap Eagle I am on the air again and working plenty of DX.
KB6IUY Rating: 2003-08-29
great antenna! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I worked 121 countries and 806 contacts to include many islands during the WWCQ contest weekend. I was using an Icom 706 MKIIG radio with 100 watts and the gap antenna. It was great even with the big guns I got 59 across the board. This was on 10, 15, 20and 40 meters. What an antenna.

I LOVE IT!

W4MY Rating: 2003-05-11
OK Antenna, But... Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Bought the Gap Eagle in mid 90's and its been up in two locations mounted on a chimney mount just above the rooftop. This was early in its production so changes I'm sure have been made. I just took it down for the last time. The tubing is going in the scrap rack for future projects.

Agree with all the posts about poor instructions (figures were hand drawn probably by an engineering graphics student). Performance was OK for DX on 10, 12,15, poor on 20, and abismal on 40. RARELY got a call back on 40 in any contest. But did work alot of DX on the upper bands and had good results in that department. Parts did not have the look and feel of being "store bought" Definately looked like the parts were made from stock material and constructed with simple tools. Over the years I made all my own replacement parts and they looked as good/better than the factory provided parts.

I kept it so long because it was easy to install, convienent, and fit into my lifestyle pretty well. Was always wanting something better...

On the occasion where it did fail at the connection of the three horizontal members, my communications experience with Gap in Fla. was less than positive. I had heard that this connection had been improved and wanted to BUY a retrofit. I was willing to pay for it and did not expect that they should be responsible for a (at that time) five year old antenna. The only person I ever spoke to was a very nice but un-antenna knowledgable receptionist who (I assume) left many messages that went unanswered. No-one was ever there or ever returned my calls. After much knashing of teeth to talk to someone knowledgable, I was informed that they would not even SELL me the part I needed. I gave up and made something up that was better than the original, but the OK performance dropped to fair after that. I guess I did something wrong. Oh well.

I don't recommend buying the Eagle. Maybe the other Gap designs are better. For the money (~$300 in the mid 90's) there's allot better stuff out there today
AF4K Rating: 2003-04-27
Difficult to re-assemble Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I bought one of these used for about $100.00 or so. It was all there, and came with an instruction manual. The partially dis-assembled antenna was VERY hard tofigure out. SO many pieces of yellw RG-8X coaxial cables hanging all over the place! Looking at the manual I have NO idea how the original owner ever figured it out to put the thing together. ou have never seen so many rods, wires, tubings of all different lengths going everywhere!
It was only disassembled into three pieces or so, but I could not understand the instructions. After this Eagle sitting in my garage for 6 months, I decided to go with a remote tuner instead. I passed it along to someone else and just sold it for what I had in it. The reviews mostly sounded good, but the effort would just be too much in the case of this particular antenna.

I am sure that there must be other verticals that go together bnetter than this one. I think I would consider a Hy-Gain AV640 instead, but of course it is a larger antenna. I might do that after a while but after seeing this complex little beast, I would probably not consider a Gap again.

Of course, your mileage may vary!

AA1PL Rating: 2003-02-03
Outstanding ! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have a 135 foot dipole center fed with ladder line & a MFJ tuner, which makes it a general purpose all band antenna. It is great on 80, 40 and 30 but not great on 10 thru 20. I wanted a roof mounted vertical for better 10 thru 20 performance and chose the GAP Eagle based on a few things:
1. I wanted 10-12-15-17 and 20 meter coverage. 40 was an added bonus.
2. The price was good.
3. I was impressed with the claims of good RF efficiency, no-tune feature and wide bandwidth.

Assembly was a bit more complicated and lengthy than I anticipated but I managed okay. Just read the directions very carefully. I took some extra precautions against future moisture problems by using good quality electrical tape on the top cap, every joint and every wire-to-tubing connection. I did this as I assembled it. I didn't want anything leaking or corroding in the future.

My Eagle is roof mounted on a short mast/TV tripod combination. I have a single story ranch house. The only think I didn't like about the mounting is that the support pipe MUST BE EXACTLY 1-1/4 inches outside diameter. A larger or smaller pipe will not work.

The performance on 10 thru 20 is much much better than my dipole, usually by 4 to 6 S-units better! I must assume that my transmit signal would improve by the same amount and it appears that it does. I have reached every DX station on the first call running only 100 watts, even in some pileups! The Eagle's performance really soars on 10 thru 20.
On 40 the performance not quite as good as the dipole. But I didn't expect it to be either. Any time the antenna is shorter you will lose efficiency and bandwidth, although the 40 meter bandwidth is better than I expected. 40 meters is a bit noisier than the dipole which may be due to the antenna being on the roof, and therefore closer to the house wiring.

My SWR observations are as follows:
40 M: 1.5:1 at 7.150 & under 2.0:1 across the band
20 M: a disappointing 2.0:1 (+/-)across the band
17M: about 1:8:1 across the band
15M: 1.2:1 at 21.150 and a high 2.9:1 at 21.000
12M: the best band with 1:1:1 across the band
10M: 1.1:1 at 28.560 but IT IS VERY NARROW with 5:1 at 28.000 and 2.8:1 at 29.000.

So the SWR wasn't as good as I expected but the performance is just what I hoped for.

Even though they claim it's a vertical dipole, the actual design is very unique (I still haven't quite figured it out).

I highly recommend this antenna for anyone who needs a good vertical for 10 thru 40. I recommend an antenna tuner to "take off the rough edges" of SWR.
K5RDL Rating: 2002-11-24
WOW..Great Antenna :-) Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned my GAP Eagle for 3 years now, I bought it used from another have who had it up for a number of years also. The GAP has performed flawlessly scince its instalation at my home. It performes like advertised and has taken the punishment of 50-60MPH desert winds with no problems. I run 100 watts, SWR 1.8 or less accros all the bands, many contacts worldwide, its a true performer and asset for those of us with limited space for antennas. Have done no maintanance, it just works and keeps on going. I love it and would purchase another one. I might try a chalenger or titan next.
KB0NAZ Rating: 2002-10-07
NO-GO Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
After 7 (YES THAT'S SEVEN!!!) months, I finally recieved the new center from GAP,including a sheet with what is suppose to be the actual VSWR of the new center as checked by them. First thing I noticed is that the coax "tail" is about 3 foot shorter than the original(later confirmed when assembled and barely enough hanging to install connector!) and that the center appeared not to have been ever installed,no marks from the tubing or from screws being installed. After assembly and raising the "thing", the VSWR was not much different than the original center with the only "improvement" being 40m (merely a top capacitor change from them) some usefullness on ten meters about 300kcs and all other bands totally useless. ANYONE NEED SOME ALUMINUM???
N2VHV Rating: 2002-05-23
Excellent addition to my antenna farm Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I am very pleased with this antenna. I am a "casual" SSB DX'er and a "rag-chewer" amd have two antennas. The first is a W9INN multi-band (80-10M) dipole which is GREAT. I wanted an additional antenna to really "reach out" and chose the Gap Eagle.
Gap's materials are high quaility, and everything fits. The instructions could be better, they really should be read at least three times but they are in fact correct. I do wish that they included a "tweaking" or band tuning guide so you could adjust the "sweet spots" to suite your own style. I was able to do this on 20 and 10 metersbut it did take a callto Gap. I spoke to a very sharp technical personwho gave me the correct advice.
The antenna is mounted so that the bottom is 15 feet above the ground. It is guyed, and I did add lightening protection. It exceeds Gap's claims regarding bandwidth and is working out very well.
Performance on 40M is so so. On 20M it gets better, but on 17meters through 10 it screams.
I was tunig on 17M, heard an Israel call and the magic word "QRZED" so I gave a shout. Got him on the first shot and he gave me a 5/7 so I was happy and impressed.
Same thing with Kuwait on 15M.
For my purposes, and I am not a contest person, this antenna is working out very well. I am quite happy.
Thanks Gap and 73's to all.
K1ZYW Rating: 2002-03-20
Great Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Have had the Gap Eagle for about 6 months. Put it together in about a day and mounted it on a 20 foot pole bracketed against the house. The top of the antenna is about 40 feet in the air. Used two Radio Shack 10 foot TVm masts (lousey) and found tech support helpful.

Antenna works great - only 300w on 40m is allowed (this was not the case with the older version and the literature in some places is not up to date) Ernie at AES told me KW on all bands 40-10. Not his fault and not a big deal - just be aware of that fact so you don't burn it out.

This is a great "mini antenna farm" I worked all continents in LESS THAT 10 MINUTES so it works!

For what it is I am very happy.

BTW - I just ordered the HY-TOWER WHICH SHOULD ARRIVE NEXT WEEK. I will do some comparisons

73's
DE Ken K1ZYW
KD5PWO Rating: 2002-03-01
Working DX QRP Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have to say, the instructions to get the antenna together, were not that great. However, I have the antenna in a backyard with large trees, power lines 20 ft away, and almost up against gutters and the only high SWR is on 12 meters. Not only that, the antenna is on a 2 ft mast, so it almost hugs the ground. Not the greatest of locations! After that, on low power, I have worked stations in many states, France, Venezuela, Italy - on 50 watts.
Imagine if I had the antenna in a good location.
I would say a great workhorse..

KD5PWO/AG