Manager


Manager - NA4M
Manager Notes

Reviews For: OptiBeam OB4030 - 40m & 30m high performance duobander

Category: Antennas: HF: Yagi, Quad, Rotary dipole, LPDA

eMail Subscription

Registered users are allowed to subscribe to specific review topics and receive eMail notifications when new reviews are posted.
Review Summary For : OptiBeam OB4030 - 40m & 30m high performance duobander
Reviews: 24MSRP: 2,300
Description:
Extremely efficient trapless Yagi for 40 and 30m.
2el on 40 / 2el on 30.
A specialty in particular for CW fans !!!
Lossfree shortened elements by software designed high Q air coils.
40m elements decoupled from other bands by the "OptiBeam decoupling stub technique".
Broadband single 50 Ohm coax cable feed system by the "OptiBeam direct coupled driver feed system"
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.optibeam.de
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00245
N4ZZK Rating: 2005-08-13
Well made & works fine Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.

Very solid construction, single 50 ohm feed for both bands.

Mine is installed at about 45 feet up, should be at about 60 feet but works pretty well on 40 and very well on 30.

Previous antenna for 40/30 was a trapped dipole. Big difference!

Pix at:

http://www.mindspring.com/~n4zzk/

The assembly manual is for several different antennas and could be better with more pix for the 4030.


LA5HE Rating: 2005-08-13
Very effective shortened beam for 30/40 meters Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I used to have a Force 12 Magnum 20-30-40 at my OZ8RO QTH. I was never really happy with it, as the matching and tuning on 30 and 40 was complicated and took a long time. It never really worked properly.With the advent of low sunspot numbers I became interested in 30 and 40 again. At Hamradio in Friederichshafen I spoke to Thomas DF2BO of Optibeam 2 years ago suggesting he made a yagi for those 2 bands. He believed CW was dead and nobody would be interested. Fortunately, he decided to exhibit in Dayton the year after and the response he received there convinced him that a 30/40 m beam would be a viable product. An email told me that the design was completed and production would commence in May this year.Needles to say, I placed an order and it arrived here in June. The packing was excellent. All parts were properly marked so there never was any confusion about where they were going. A complete parts list was not included , but it turned out that all I needed was there. The element to boom platforms and the impressive loading coils were assembled from the factory. With the screws/nuts came also tools for the assembly. A blessing for anybody outside USA is that everything is in metric values !Room for improvement, as I see it, would be additonal photos showing details of the assembly process. I was slightly confused ( senior moment ? ) about how to interpret the setting for CW/Europe on 40 meters, but a quick email exchange with DF2BO sorted that out very fast.The antenna comes with balun ( WX0B type )First QSO 5X1B on first call !
JF1UVJ Rating: 2005-01-19
Very good! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
OptiBeam OB4030 is high performance duobander for 40 and 30m.
Tokyo where I live is not a too good for do amateur radio overcrowded of the house,environment.
Moreover, because the site is narrow, it is difficult to raise a big antenna.
However, OB4030 is compact for the performance, and recommended in in two bands (40m and 30m).
I had used the dipole antenna up to now. However, the signal in Japan came for the signal of 15db weakening and DX to come to the surface and to come to hear when exchanging it for this OB4030.
The signal of the Caribbean that cannot be done easily with Japan is also good, and I hear, and the gotten report is good.
Moreover, I came to hear Caribbean, Europe, and North America in the long pass well.
I recommend you to be handled once.
DF3VM Rating: 2004-11-16
Big Gun !!! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The OB4030 is a high performance duobander for 30 and 40m consisting of 2 interlaced 2el monobanders. Due to to the high Q air coils the elememts are shortened without using lossy traps. The antenna comes with a high power Balun (WX0B) and the antenna is fed with a single coax line.
It's my third Optibeam now (OB9-5, OB7-2WARC) and I can only repeat what I mentioned in my OB9-5 review.
The mechanical design is second to none! This antenna is build for eternity. Everything is marked and assembling it's mere child's play! I never saw a better mechanical design b4. All metal parts are aluminium or stainless steel.
And whats about the performance?
I can tell you, this is a real big gun on 30 and 40m. I used this antenna during my LX-activity only on a portable mast about 11m up and the signal reports from DX were outstanding. The antenna has a great F/B and F/S ratio, so it was easy to hide out the EU-Stations. And the SWR is equal or better as the manufacturers data, that means no tuning, and always better than 1:1.5, incredibly. I could compare the performance with a quarterwave vertical (no multiband!) and the results were stunning. In some cases the beam was up to 5S-units louder than the vertical. ยด
Summing up I can highly recommend this great piece of craftmanship. This antenna is sure not the cheapest, but worth every penny and you will own it for decades.
The next step is to stack it at home with my OB9-5.

Many thanks to the manufacturer Tom, DF2BO, and his wife Diana for his great support and all the detailed informations!

check www.df3vm.de

Hear you in CW, 73's de Mike, DF3VM