| OH2CTG |
Rating:  |
2023-07-02 | |
| Works as expected with low swr for full range |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Have had this antenna for couple of months now up in 14m. Meets all the expectations. Two notes though for those considering this antenna:
- did not work with 1:1 CBL1000 balun at all, dropped 1-2S points in receiving and propably the same for tx. Much better without balun with a coiled cable choke.
- getting it tuned for SSB requires cutting/shortening the aluminium parts. 2cm off from 14m driven element and 5cm off from 15/10m director ends. After that it is easy to tune spot on.
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| NU6N |
Rating: |
2021-04-04 | |
| Very good for the size |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I see some people ratings pretty much say: "it did not meet my expectations". So question in such case will be is it something wrong with the expectations or with the antenna?
So my TL;DR review: it meets the specs.
It is about 3 dBd on 20 m. it meets the specs on bandwidth. I am mostly work on CW so it did not bother that much but I don't need a tuner to work beginning of the phone part of 20 meter band. I did not try 15 meter phone part and 10 meters so far is not really open.
It does meet spec on weight and likely the wind load. The build quality of my antenna is very good. Since I am in CA it is hard to judge how it holds ice and rain. The antenna does exhibit SWR drift of ~0.2-0.5 during rains.
I use it with a TV rotator and it serves me really well. I use TV antenna mast and it is sufficient with 10 foot above the roof. It looks like overgrown TV antenna and not objected by neighbors. It outperforms slightly my G5RV. Though sometimes G5RV is comparable I would assume it is a take off angle as G5RV installed higher and also G5RV has gain over a dipole on higher bands. The receive is usually better due to much lower noise floor. While it has pretty low F/B and F/S ratio it still has noticeable advantage when working weak signals. Since I installed the antenna my contest scores went up. Though it might be also due to the fact that my G5RV is W-E direction and it hard to work Asia. Now I can able to work Asia any day with beam N-W direction. On 15 meter in November 2020 I was able to work ZL and VK with 100 watts from CA. Now with 500 watts ZLs now are regulars in my logbook.
Now something that is not in the spec sheet.
* I have much better performance if I am NOT connecting antenna to the beam but instead using a choke. I think the choke or balun is needed to prevent cable affecting the antenna tuning as well as reducing local noise and common mode.
* This kind of antennas are designed for a certain height. As such anything below that height and you will have trouble tuning 15 or 10. It will be always one or another. As of 2021 I can sacrifice performance on 10 meters in exchange of optimal performance on 15 meters. By the measurements it looks like that my antenna's optimal hight is 35 feet or more
* Expect antenna performance to degrade as it goes close to the ground. The reflector and director will be electrically longer when closer to the ground resulting in weaker directivity and gain. At 6 feet you likely to have a omnidirectional pattern
* as antenna goes up resonant frequency go up quicker on 20, to lesser degree on 15 and and even lesser degree on 10 meters. At 20 foot height my antenna tunes on CW portion of 15 meters but it is well in phone portion of 10 meters
* I tuned antenna to resonance using antenna analyzer. Not SWR but resonance X close to 0. Though in my case min SWR and X ~ 0 points are reasonably close
Generally I am happy with the antenna. Reasonable combination of size and performance. It does not require a fortune to install it. People often forget that towers and their installation often significantly more expensive than beams' costs. I completely stopped using my G5RV on 20, 15 and 10 meters.
Please mind that it does meet the spec in both size and performance in not being a full size 5el single bander.
Please mind that 3 dB is equivalent 2x power and at the same time it is a threshold when humans just begin noticing (and some don't) change in loudness. 3 dB though may make you signal readable. On a receive end you may see better than 3 dB signal to noise ratio increase. |
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| G6YXV |
Rating: |
2021-02-15 | |
| Nice compact yagi |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Had this about 3 years, on the whole a good experience! Struggled to get the SWR on 15m/10m low enough where I needed it (SSB)as only one adjustment however went for midpoint and relied on ATU in the rig. Looks well made and took a "tumble" very well in a storm with some rebending only....... Ran it as a rotateable dipole for a while and had good contacts with that!
So, worked all over, including Australia, good comments from stations about gain when swinging beam around, I just use a small TV type rotator, Small size ideal for my "edge of housing estate" QTH set at 5m height currently but planning a 12m tower.... I'm quite new to HF and can only compare this to a 6 band vertcal or a long wire but it does me OK in my limited QTH (I did look at the MA-5 but that was a bit ugly)! Would buy another.
UPDATE 2021 - due to wind issues at my location! running this tribander as a"Tri-Pole" by using the driven element only, fixed direction, at 4-5m. Using ft8 and this thing works the WORLD with 100w. Saves all that rotator weight and boom weight. So ZX (WIMO), get this out as a TRI-POLE it's brilliant! |
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| IW2DUG |
Rating: |
2014-09-10 | |
| Small but powerful |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I bought this antenna 6 months ago and before installation I make a pre tune at 3 mt. to the ground of my garden. After the installation on the top of the roof the center band on each band and SWR moves a little bit, much more on 15mt that on the Others 2 bands. I started QSO activity and I found good satisfaction making Worldwide QSO. Report received is alwayes much higher than I'm giving. I found the F/R ratio almost the same, and F/S ratio acceptable for a Yagi with 2mt boom and 5mt elements lengh. After 1 months use I had problem with center trap of radiator. The alluminium wire of center trap are connected to the inox nuts of line feed only by pressing the wire into the nylon trap core where brass expansion anchor are fitted inside. Probably some humidity does into making oxide. I replaced completelly the center trap wire with copper wire and I place screw to fix wire to the element. The brass anchor and trap copper wire have been soldered for 100% connection. After that the antenna come back to work as the beginning. I make 103 country in 5 months Worldwide. Just for the information, the antenna is placed on 3 mt tower on the top of my house roof at more or less 16mt from the ground.
I have not experience with such compact antenna but considering the results I think it should be used instead of more bigger antenna that I have seen. Mechanically well done (boom have 50mm diameter) but electrically improved just changing the wire fix methods on the traps.
All country that i worked ln 10-15-20mt on ny loobook have be done with this antenna.
Regards
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| M6JBM |
Rating: |
2012-06-28 | |
| top antenna for the money |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
THIS ANTENNA IS GREAT I AM IN AN AREA THAT IS A PAIN IN THE BACKSIDE AS LOCAL'S IN MY STREET LIKE TO COMMENT ABOUT MY GOING'S ON AND AS THIS ANTENNA IS SMALL COMPAIRED TO SOME IT WORKS VERY WELL.
THERE IS GOOD GAIN ON 20M AND 15M 10M I HAD NO PROBLEMS WITH WATER IN THE TRAPPS CONTACTS IN 75 COUNTRIES AND ALL WITH 50W INPUT AS I AM NOW A 2E0.
THIS ANTEANNA IS NOT A MA5B NOR LOOKS LIKE THE UGLY THING ETHER BUT IS A GREAT COMPROMISE TO ROTARY DIPOLE AND THE FULL SIZE YAGI YOU CAN BUY.
I HAVE MINE UP AT 17M ABOVE GROUND STRAPED ON A ALLOY POLE WITH A G600 ROTATOR ON MY CHIMNEY STACK WORKS GREAT 1.2.1 ON 10M 15M 20M AND UPTO 1.7.1 TOWARDS THE ENDS OF EACH BAND.
WELL WORTH BUYING |
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| G0KOM |
Rating: |
2007-10-28 | |
| Rubbish |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
This antenna fitted all my requirements, small footprint, decent specs, looks good, unfortunately that was the end of it, poor swr on 15 and 20m, have tried everything, is 1:1 on 28.000mhz dead, (at least thats something) what I cannot work out is the directivity, I get stronger signals with this antenna when its pointed everywhere but the intended location, I simply dont know whats going on, mine is the version with the plastic boom plates, Ive grounded the coax outer to the boom and it makes no difference whatsoever, also it seems to go haywire on 20m every so often, the only way I can describe it is like a trap is failing or shorting, I will be talking when all of a sudden the SWR will go haywire, I stripped the antenna and checked everything, stripped the trap, (there were quite a few alliminum bits/shavings inside the traps, I had hoped this would be the cause but it made no difference
Anyway im glad others have had good experience with this, for me it simply does not work, Ive got it up for sale, but Ive probably screwed up any chance of a sale now with my review :-)
Adrian
EA5/G0KOM |
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| OZ1GCT |
Rating: |
2007-07-11 | |
| Good so far |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have owned this antenna for a couple of weeks, and I must say I have struggled with it to get it in resonnance on all three bands. I have had it up and down from the mast a lot of times. The biggest problem has been water. It have rained a lot in same period and the resonnance freq dropped
far far out of the desired bands. I took it down again and emptied for about 25 cl. water. Reassembled the antenna, sealed all the connections, screwholes etc. with self-fusing rubber tape and I hope it will be waterresistant now. It has not rained since I put up again. But I have a directional antenna again and I have already worked a few Dx-stations I never have heard before.
The background-noise is almost nothing compared to my vertical antenna.
I wish to say thank you to M0RNR - Brian for his help and suggestions.
vy 73 de OZ1GCT
Niels
P.S. It must be a good antenna, because yesterday,when I put up in the mast again, a guy in the neighborhood complained over TVI I had made friday and saturday evening. When I stopped laughing- he became quite angry - untill I told him that I haven´t used my radio those days
because of the water in the antenna. |
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| GM0ONX |
Rating: |
2005-08-10 | |
| Good but MA5B's better |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I purchased a ZX2000 second hand quite cheaply as it needed a little work done on it. Wimo provided the required parts quite cheaply and it was the main HF antenna here for about 9 months. Performance was about 2 S points up on my inverted L but f/b gain was a little disappointing. I replaced it with Cushcraft MA5B which too be honest is a much better aerial.
If you’ve got a choice go for the MA5B but the ZX2000 is still a fair second choice and earns its keep.
Len GM0ONX
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| M0RNR |
Rating: |
2005-04-25 | |
| Exceeded Expectations |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I knew when I entered the market for a mini beam that I was accepting a compromise on all bands in terms of bandwidth and performance. However, this little antenna has exceeded all my expectations.
I’ve had my fingers burned before with multiband antennas, and have always had problems with tuning, poor bandwidth and lack lustre performance, and to be honest approached this project with some trepidation. That said, the choice was, a mini beam, or no directional antenna at all, my XYL’s beautiful new house didn’t really lend itself to a full size yagi so a mini beam it was.
I chose the ZX 2000 over the MA5B for a number of reasons, but the main one was looks. No disrespect to Cushcraft but is an ugly antenna and when you are trying to woo the XYL and your neighbours, the MA5B is not the antenna that’s going to do it. I’ve used ZX monobanders before and find their construction very robust so thought the ZX 2000 should be no different……..I wasn’t disappointed.
Construction is excellent, a 50mm boom with very robust elements and traps, nicely made and they provide extra nuts, washers, screws and end plugs…..all the sorts of things you drop and loose in the grass when you are building and antenna !
I live in a 3 storey house so the antenna was going up 11m, an 8.2m access tower was hired to do the job so I had to ensure that the thing worked by the Sunday or my tower was going back to the hire company! The antenna went together in about 90 minutes and the instructions are easy to follow. It was assembled as per the instructions and I grounded the coax braid side of the driven element to the boom as per the instructions.
With the antenna in place in about 5 hours, and the tower only 3 m below it we tried the antenna for the first time. Worried about the tuning, given my past experiences, and the affect all that aluminium might have, I keyed up on 20m. You can’t imagine my delight to see an SWR of 1:1.5! The 1.5 SWR bandwidth on 20m is about 120khz but is less than 2.0 across the entire SSB portion of the band and with the auto tuner obviously across the whole band. 15M and 10M are even better with an acceptable SWR across the whole of the SSB portion if each band and no further adjustments were required.
Performance is good, at least 2 S points up on my ground mounted vertical and it has good directivity. Front to Back is not fantastic but hey, I’ve got directivity again! First contacts into Brazil on 15m with 100w first call! And many stations in the USA on 20m again first call.
Sales Support from WiMO Antennas in Germany (the Supplier) is second to none, a very friendly team more than willing to help out. If you are looking for a good price, nice performing, well made antenna then for me, look no further than www.wimo.com
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| EC2AHB |
Rating: |
2003-08-21 | |
| Nice size, nice result |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
When one of use decides to buy a minibeam is always to improve the signals of our dipole or vertical.
(and have not enough place/possibilities to put a normal sized beam).
My first impression when I saw the mounting scheme is that the shape was quite strange (2x5 meters. The elements seem to be too near one to each other (only 89cms of separation betwen them).
The antenna mounting is very easy with all elements/traps funnily coloured. And the antenna seems to be strong, the boom is a 50 size tube.
Once the antenna is built it is like a toy (size and colour).
My antena is in the roof of a 7 floors building on a 8 meters tower.
The antenna gains 2 S-meter signals to my V-inverted dipole and has a nice directionability.
The only problem I see is its too narrow bandwith. I found a 1.5:1 swr point in all the 3 bands but moving about 10 kHz up/down the swr increases but not more than 3:1 in the rest of frecuencies. So my automatic tuner can easily tune.
I am happy with my new toy. |
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