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Reviews For: OptiBeam OB4-40 high performance 4 element 40m Yagi

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

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Review Summary For : OptiBeam OB4-40 high performance 4 element 40m Yagi
Reviews: 10MSRP: 2,850
Description:
4 element 40m duodriven monoband-Yagi 11.9 meter boom, complete coverage of the 300 kHz with best SWR.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.optibeam.info/index.php?article_id=87&clang=1
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00105
DL1IAO Rating: 2023-05-14
Classic dual-driven 4el Yagi design brought to the next level Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I had the chance to operate this type of antenna at one of the DA0HQ operations during the IARU HF championship contest. I cannot comment on the mechanical aspects of the antenna. However, I have some experience with a competitors shortened 3el Yagi which is mechanically more complex and a much more error-prone design overall. The Optibeam looks cleaner and should be easier to fix if required.

Performance-wise this dual-driven 4el is head and shoulders above a classic 2el shorty forty and it maintains its numbers over a wide range - very important on 40m. With this antenna you are getting as close to a 3el fullsize Yagi as you can get but with much less mechanical headaches.

A unique detail of this antenna are the decoupling stubs which allow to stack it much closer to a 10/15/20m Yagi than it would be possible without them.

There is no doubt Optibeam has succeeded in perfecting a time-proven 40m Yagi design!

73, Stefan DL1IAO
VE6AMI Rating: 2020-09-19
Quality Contesting Yagi Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Another great design and build from Optibeam. After 3 years in operation, I thought it would be time to give this antenna its dues. The antenna has handled 3 extreme winters here in Northern Alberta (with icing conditions) easily, with no evident damage. SWR across the 40 meter band is flat and hardly varies during weather extremes. If you have the tower to handle the Yagi, you won’t go wrong with this 4 element beauty!
Can be seen on my tower mounted below the Optibeam 2 element 80 meter Yagi at VE6TK site.
K4XS Rating: 2017-11-21
GREAT ANTENNA Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I purchased this antenna and three 16-3 tribander to put on my rotating tower out in KH6. It is at 84 feet and is only 10 feet from one of the tribanders. Usually a tribander this close to a 40 meter Yagi will present issues on the 15 meter band. With Tom's "magical wire stub" it is not an issue.

It is built like a battleship and weighs in around 175 pounds, so it is not for the faint-hearted. Easy to assemble and customer support is great. Performance? Outstanding!
EA2KC Rating: 2012-05-02
Excellent antenna! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Beautiful antenna, close to full size yagi perfomance, with big wide band, you can move in all 40m band 7.000-7.300 with very low SWR, the rigs and lineal amplifiers will be happy with it.
Well designed and with a very good F/B

The best antenna not full size you can have!





VE7KET Rating: 2010-12-08
Awesome! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Building this antenna was pure satisfaction from opening the boxes to setting the 4-40 atop my 110ft mast.
I have assembled antennas from all the other major players and there is nothing like the Optibeam design. Sure it is expensive but it is worth every buck; from the packing and shipping, to the preassembly, to the SWR <1.5:1 across the entire band. And Tom's outstanding and unequaled support is the icing on the cake. Thanks
K0KT Rating: 2009-12-22
Outstanding performance Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had my OptiBeam 4-40 up now for more than four years and I could not be happier with it. 40 meters has always been one of my favorite bands and this antenna has made operating 40 meters even more enjoyable. Indeed, I can say that the only downside to having something like this antenna is that 40 meters is no longer much of a challenge! And I have it only 80 feet above the ground here. I have worked all zones and 287 countries and the only Dxpedition that I have missed on 40 meters was BS7H (mostly because I was out of town the days they were operating on 40 meters working NA).

One of the really nice features is that I get acceptable SWR and excellent performance over the entire band. This, I am sure, is due to the outstanding electrical design of the antenna.

The antenna is also mechanically superior; something that is important for the high winds and destructive ice that we see here is Iowa. We have all see pictures of what ice storms can do to ordinary Yagis. The OptiBeam 4-40 is not ordinary. In the spring of 2007 we had a really bad ice storm, with inches of ice and strong winds. Looking at my OptiBeam 4-40 and OptiBeam 16-3 in the middle of the storm, and seeing the elements bent down, I was sure that they both would have to be replaced.

After the thaw, however, my OptiBeam 16-3 went back to its original shape. The OptiBeam 4-40 suffered only some small bending on one of the driven elements (but it was still fully functional). I contacted Tom (DF2BO) for advice on how to do repairs. His response was the kind of damage that I experienced had never been seen before. He asked me to look careful at the antenna with binoculars to make sure nothing else was amiss (nothing was) and then sent me (without charge) a replacement part (with special reinforcement---probably now a part of the current design) via express delivery. I have had no problems since then.

This is an outstanding antenna.
PA3DUV Rating: 2007-07-31
Well engineered antenna. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
In order to improve the antenna farm at the contestgroup I purchased a OB 4-40 from Tom earlier this year.

I knew Optibeam since I already own 3 other Optibeam antennas.

Engineering, design and performance of this beautiful twin driver beam is first class as always from Optibeam.

Support from Tom was great, all engineering details and .ez files were submitted so the possible impact of this antenna could be reviewed.

The OB 4-40 will be disassembled after each contest, so sound engineering of the boom connection and elements was needed. The OB 4-40 has all that.

When the OB 4-40 was first used I happened to travel by car in Southern Europe. This actually was a great experience since I was at the business end of the OB 4-40 and could see with my own eyes how the S-meter of my Icom7000 went to tilt when the beam was turned into my direction while I was driving over 1000 km away from the contest station.

If you have the space and tower capacity for a OB 4-40 get one. The twin driver concept makes it a nice wideband 40 meter yagi antenna with great gain and F/B ratio

73, Dick
PA3DUV
W6DUV
9K2HN Rating: 2006-09-12
I Love it Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I have installed my OB4-40 in the end of April 2006, after I'm done putting the beam on the top of my US Tower I noticed that I have very high SWR all over the band, I'm sure I have done some thing wrong because with my experience with all the optibeam antenna's i have installed in my qth and at my friends qth (8 optibeam antenna's so far) never had a single issue of high SWR, and this is a monobander which spouse to be flat cross the entire band, then i decided to call Tom over the phone to get some advice. He gave me few things to check, and one of them is to check that if the feed line is installed correctly and TIGHT enough, and after bring the beam down BINGO one of the screws was missed and the feed line was not touching driven element at all, after fixing that the antenna was back up again but this time with flat swr all over 40m (7.000 to 7.300).
The comments I'm getting every time i operate on 40m make me feel happy that i have spent my money in the right place. Last comment was received during WAE 2006 SSB from my good friend Ramon XE1KK "I think this is the time that I have heard you so loud for almost three hours. You are as strong as the Western Europe big guns that are much
closer to me than you."

Thank you Tom and Thank you OptiBeam.
OE1EMS Rating: 2006-03-11
Excellent Antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
@OE4A we are using allready OB16-3 25m above ground, 5m below we had 3 el yagi by hy gain (renewed 2 years a go)and just one mounts a go we finaly replaced with OB4-40.
what to say,it´s hard to belive,compering OB4-40 with our other antennas (5/8L vertical and Dipole) i find out that OB4-40 must be better from hy-gain for at least 10 dB.
it´s hard to belive, but this just confirming my opinion that Hy-gain 3 el yagi doesn´t work propertly and Optibeam does!
Mechanic of this antenna is great, assembling
is very easy nad Tom as always gives great support!
SWR more as 350 KHz better as 1:2.
After ARRL CW/SSB and after much testing in last
few weaks on the band i have to say every Euro which we invest in this expensive antenna was worth.
Now we are now looking to buy next Optibeam OB2-80!

73 es best dx
de OE1EMS/OE4A
BRaco
K4TD Rating: 2006-02-24
Outstanding! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The purpose of this posting is to provide feedback on my experience with the OptiBeam OB4-40. I can summarize my experience with this antenna using a single word: OUTSTANDING!

The antenna is extremely well engineered using very high quality materials. The components were well marked so assembly was a snap. We assembled the boom and elements in my shop and then walked the components out to the tower site where final assembly was completed. Winching the antenna up the tower to the 140 foot level proved uneventful. The antenna bolted nicely onto the AN-Wireless 55N tower.

The first test of this antenna came in the 2005 ARRL CW DX contest. We managed to get my rotating tower antenna system on the air around 2300 CST the Friday night that the contest started. Obviously, I was the most interested in seeing how the new OB4-40 would perform. The very first contact using this antenna was with a KH6 on 40M CW, and it relieved any doubt that the antenna would perform extremely well. The KH6 was working a pile of stations when I gave him a call. He immediately returned my call and took time out from running his pileup to ask me about my station. The KH6 told me that he couldn’t believe how strong my signal was and gave me a signal report of 100 dB over S9. (I don't think I have ever seen a rig with 100dB on the S-meter so I don't know how to objectively evaluate his comment). However, it was the emotional high point of the contest for me.

Continued use of this antenna provides the same sort of experience. Since installing the OB4-40, I routinely have great success in busting pileups and working DX on 40 meters, including long-path openings to places like 9N and 4S. Calling CQ from my location starting about an hour before sunrise always yields a string of JAs to work. Additionally, I snagged K7C, CE0Z and 3Y0X on my very first calls to them. I have also tried tests on 40 meters into Europe from Alabama using only 1 watt output from my transceiver. Busting pileups into EU using 1 watt takes a little more effort (especially since I’m used to getting through with only one call), but they are routinely accomplished. I could go on and on citing examples of the DX I’ve snagged with this antenna, but I’m sure you get the picture. The point is that this antenna works and works great!

Living in Alabama, I don’t have to worry much about snow, but ice can sometimes be a problem. Since I have installed the antenna, my location has had no appreciable ice accumulation so I have nothing to report on this aspect of the antenna. I will report any results along this line if and when the data becomes available. On the other hand, wind is a continuous threat to antennas in this location. From summer super-cell thunderstorms to tornados to hurricanes, high winds are an ever present danger to which one must always be aware. I have had several instances of straight line winds in excess of 70-75 MPH (including Hurricane Katrina), and the OB4-40 has survived them all.

As I write this review, the antenna is entering its second year of service at my QTH. I am completely satisfied with its performance and durability. I am confident that this product will continue to provide me with outstanding performance in the future.