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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
W8OB Rating: 2002-01-18
NOTHING SPECIAL ON THIS ONE Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
first of all I have owned two gap antenna's the eagle and the challenger. I was not impressed with either one of them although I would give the challenger the edge over the two.
my gap eagle would not resonate anywhere on any of the bands without a vswr of less than 2.8-1. I telephoned gap several times about the problems and was told not to worry they would not leave me hanging, well after installing the eagle in 3 different locations all with the same results then having to extend some of the tuning rods on it i was able to get the vswr down to 2.2-1 on a couple of the bands the others i had to use a tuner on. I ended up selling it for a small fraction of what i paid for it to another ham who said the had a little time to play with it and try to get it working. pros and cons of both eagle and challenger listed below
pros
assembly of either is not too bad of a experience
a massive radial system not required
the antenna's did seem to do a ok job for closer contacts.
arrived well packed and all parts were there.

cons
dx performance of both antennas was a shock my ground mtd hf6v and r7000 i used at the time would run circles around these antennas for dx work.


although listed as being self supporting i found on both antennas after the first winds of 25 mph they both developed a lean which required guying them with unsightly guy ropes in the back yard..

antennas are awfully heavy for verticals and a real bear to install in some tight out of the way
places.

not impressed with the sheetmetal screws used to hold this thing together with. they all vibed loose after a short period of time.

I end up going back to homebrew verticals for the bands i work.
SM5CBM Rating: 2002-01-18
Works OK Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Have had this antenna for 6 months. It was easy to put toghether. A bit of a pain to get it up. But now it is installed om my house and the base is about 10m up. Works ok eccept on 15m.
But I had no problem to get help from GAP.
Chris at GAP told me how to correct the SWR on 15. He also sent me a sketch and a table that told me what stub is tuned and used on every band.
Worked lot of DX. Normally on 20 to 10 m band I get the DX in only a few calls. On 40 it take a little longer to catch the DX. But For sutch a short antenna it is OK.
I have seen in the earlier reviews that there are ham's that have prblems to get answers from GAP.
Well I have use e-mail to GAP and GAP has always answered within one or two days. And I have a time difference from Sweden to USA FL of 6 hrs.
AA3VA Rating: 2001-12-04
Good, but.... Time Owned: more than 12 months.
No problem with all the bands except 40 mtrs.
Too wide bandwidth on 40 with too high SWR (2.0- 2.2) !
I prefer to have 100 khz on 40 mtrs (7.0-7.1), but with lowest SWR.
You can tune it, but the capacitor is at the top!
Let me this antenna with SWR 1.0-1.2 on 7.0-7.1 Mhz!!!!!!
KI6CP Rating: 2001-05-11
GAP Eagle Nightmare Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased a GAP EAGLE 6-BAND VERTICAL ANTENNA based upon their advertising hype. I wanted to replace my existing 40 meter vertical with a multiband vertical I received my antenna on May 1 2001. The Installation documentation that came with the antenna was very incomplete. It lacked clarity in explanations and drawing figure 1 of the Antenna assembly structure is an artpiece in confusion. There were no references defining what tuning elements were associated with what bands. Two adjustable stubs were included and no reference to what frequency band these stubs would change. I sent an e-mail outlining my difficulties to GAP expecting a response from their technical support. THEY DO NOT RESPOND TO EMAILS.
I did have two phone conversations with a person from GAP who told me how great the GAP Antennas were and if I had problems in getting any performance from the GAP EAGLE the fault was not any deficiency in their design or manufactured product. I have been a Ham for 57 years and this has been my worst experience ever with any manufacturer and performance problems are not resolved.
KC7WXY Rating: 2000-08-16
poor antenna Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The GAP people will not respond to email but are very helpful on the phone. The antenna is just not that good. A very quiet antenna all right.
4Z4UN Rating: 2000-08-16
very bad antenna and service from gap Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
i had 2 gap the firs 1 is titan working ok
but the 2nd eagle is bad not only this the gap
service is so bad they never answer my email
and fax .any way it took some time till isort this antenna out now it is ok 1:1 on all band . i will never look for any gap antenna .
i have in my station log for titanex this is the best antenna in the word .you need to see the
web www.titanex.de best 73 ilan 4z4un
ELAN.SADEH@btinternt.com
KC8HYI Rating: 2000-07-03
Location is important to performance Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought the GAP Eagle DX thinking that it would solve my problems with my location. I am not in a restrictive area for towers, but I thought that I would go a cheaper route and install the Eagle DX. I must say, the antenna is a solid antenna that went together pretty well. The instructions may be a little better, but all in all, I figured it out.

I installed it in 3 feet of concrete using a schedule 40 PVC pipe as a sleeve for a 10' long, 1" galvanized steel pipe which is what the Eagle DX was mounted to. This was to allow me to easily slip the mast out to work on the antenna if need be (per a suggestion in the instructions.) The Eagle was mounted about 8 feet off the ground.

Hooked up the coax, and everything was fine SWR wise except 15 meters was a little high in the CW portion (about 2.3 to 1).

How does it work? Not much better than my G5RV that is up 45' as a slanted dipole. The Eagle seemed to recieve better, but on transmit, it did not do as good as compared to the dipole. The Eagle was quieter than my G5RV though. It also did not cause as much RFI like the dipole did. I think this had to do with location as the Eagle is 30' away from the house.

To be fair, I must admit my location is not ideal: an older suburban neighborhood with aluminium siding on most houses! The ground conductivety was about average in my region of Ohio.

If I was out in the open, say in the country with a larger lot, I would install a nice ground radial system for better gain.

The bottom line is this, a DX pile-up buster it isn't in my location. If you are around salt water, or you can install a good radial system, then I think this is a solid, well built commercial vertical that would do well. However, if you are in a neighborhood like mine, and you cannot install ground radials, then I would save your cash and put up a dipole.

With some antennas, you never know how it will work at your QTH until you try it. In my case, the Eagle DX did not perform like I expected it to perform.

If you cannot put up a dipole, the Eagle will give you just as good performance with a smaller footprint and get you on the air.
KI5WW Rating: 2000-02-26
After reading I Realized I needed to add more. Time Owned: unknown months.
After I wrote my review of the Gap Eagle DX I read through the reviews of the R 7000...wow I am glad I decided on the Eagle. No wonder verticles get hammered so bad on the bands. The R7000 and the Eagle have simular claims in their adds in respect to bands covered power handling etc... Well I feel I need to add the following to my review. The Gap went together rather easy and the instructions were adequate. I found the construction of the ant to be very good with quality materials. As for tunning?? heck I didn't tune anything..just put it together as per the instructions..fired up the rig and wala...worked lousy...called Gap and got a tech person very quick and he was very nice and after further review of the situation arrived at the conclussion I had done something wrong...he was able to guess what I had done wrong by the swr numbers I gave him and after reconnecting one wire to where it should have been in the first place the thing has ran flawlessly. If I had followed the instructions more closely in the first place I would have never needed customer service at all. And I haven't needed them since...Man it scares me to think I almost bought the R7000...I was torn between the two when I bought the Eagle. I decided on the Eagle due to the advertised band width of the two and the Eagle's claimed band width was conservative to say the least. Ok I feel better now....73's
Johnny (again)


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Earlier 4-star review posted by KI5WW on 2000-02-26

After I wrote my review of the Gap Eagle DX I read through the reviews of the R 7000...wow I am glad I decided on the Eagle. No wonder verticles get hammered so bad on the bands. The R7000 and the Eagle have simular claims in their adds in respect to bands covered power handling etc... Well I feel I need to add the following to my review. The Gap went together rather easy and the instructions were adequate. I found the construction of the ant to be very good with quality materials. As for tunning?? heck I didn't tune anything..just put it together as per the instructions..fired up the rig and wala...worked lousy...called Gap and got a tech person very quick and he was very nice and after further review of the situation arrived at the conclussion I had done something wrong...he was able to guess what I had done wrong by the swr numbers I gave him and after reconnecting one wire to where it should have been in the first place the thing has ran flawlessly. If I had followed the instructions more closely in the first place I would have never needed customer service at all. And I haven't needed them since...Man it scares me to think I almost bought the R7000...I was torn between the two when I bought the Eagle. I decided on the Eagle due to the advertised band width of the two and the Eagle's claimed band width was conservative to say the least. Ok I feel better now....73's
Johnny (again)

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Earlier 4-star review posted by KI5WW on 2000-02-26

I've been running the Eagle now for two and a half years...how do I like it?? I love it! Took
about a day to install and that's including cement work and all. I mounted it about two and a half feet above the ground for a low profile effect..I found all the claimed specs to be accurate. Sure it's marginal on 40 meters, but I expected that. I work a lot of RTTY and PSK and the DX stations have a hard time believing I am not running some sort of dirrectional ant. As all Gap ant's it is a bit top heavy..but I have not found it necessary to guy the thing at all. I live in SW Okla and it has survived SEVERAL very severe weather events...including winds up to 70 MPH for short durations. I wish I would have put in a larger suport mast for it...I used 1.5 inch ant mast from Radio Shack...I reccomend something stronger, although it still is doing just fine with what I used. It will also tune just fine using the auto-tuner on my FT-920 on 30 meters. All in all I really do like the Eagle...
for a good DX ant w/o the fuss I highly reccomend it.
PS Added bonus....I enjoy radio's of all kinds and yes I am sorry but that includes the often
"bashed CB" band..but I found the 27 mhz band to be 1.5 or below on all 40 channels...and yes the
CB ers are amazed at the signal comming out of the thing so close to the ground.
73's
Johnny KI5WW
WA8SHC Rating: 2000-02-03
Eagle = Great Vertical Time Owned: unknown months.
I've had an Eagle mounted in the back yard for 5 Ohio winters now. It's survived everything mother nature can throw at it from ice, to wind and rain. It's mounted about 7' above ground (so I can cut the grass) and about 5' from 2 sides of the chain link fence that goes around the back yard.
How does it play? In a word GREAT. I've worked every station I've heard from stateside to DX, (DX,usually within 4 calls) using only 100W. I also have a HF-5B mounted at 26' and someday I will get around to taking that antenna down, since I dont use it. The GAP has worked everything.