| 9H5QB |
Rating:      |
2010-07-31 | |
| Great Rotary dipole,delivers 100% |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Well folks, I must say that after reading the reviews here, I was more than convinced about the Comet H422, so went ahead and bought one myself from UK!
Setting it up and configuration was a breeze. It is well made, also well constructed and durable. Found it extremely efficient and delivered some real DX that were hardly heard!
Bottom line, if you need to improve your system, invest by getting one, you will not be disappointed, guaranteed!! Just seal it properly and work away.. |
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| K7LA |
Rating:     |
2010-06-17 | |
| 60 Day Test Results from California |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have a tight urban lot in Southern California USA, and have the Comet H-422 in vee configuration mounted on the roof at 40 feet (about 10 meters). I also have a G5RV on the side of he property as a comparison. The G5RV is inverted vee at 50 feet.
The antenna has been in the air since mid-April 2010 and is driven by a Kenwood TS-440AT at 100 watts. I chose to dial in the antenna for the extra voice bands on 10-15-20-40. If you follow the instructions packed with the antenna 40 meters is right in the cw portion, simply shorten the antenna rods 2-inches on each side and that should situate your ssb needs. Once you have configured for bands, use professional grade electrical tape to seal off the open traps. The quirk is the left side of the antenna is slightly longer than the right, which corresponds to the balun arrangement. Read assembly notes carefully and lay out your components before fitting. Recommend you download the assembly manual .pdf file before purchase so you can save time on the assembly. The translated instructions are in "eng-rish." Simple hand tools are all you need.
A lightweight TV antenna rotator works just fine. The antenna fires broadside almost as wide as a moxon, about 160 degrees, so just get it in the neighborhood and transmit. I constructed a RF choke with eight turns of coax just below the antenna, and my station is grounded properly. I have no stray RF issues and it was up 3 weeks before my nosy neighbor even noticed it above my roof. He has no issues with it.
How does it play? I was worried about noise in the vee configuration but that did not occur. It is almost as quiet as the G5RV, within one S-unit. 15 meters is a flat match, 10, 20 and 40 tune up quickly with the radio inboard tuner.
Since I started using it, I have worked Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, New Zealand, Tasmania, Russia, South Cook Islands (on 15 meters), Finland, Azores, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Chile, Portugal, Madeira Island, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Germany. In North America, I can check into almost any stateside net I care to if band conditions cooperate. People are very surprised when I tell them it's only running 100 watts.
Conclusions: It plays very well for its limitations. This is not a DX pileup buster, but you will be heard with clean audio. It is an excellent ragchew or net antenna. It's great for working a contest station that knows how to run a frequency.
Are there better antennas out there? Certainly, but this is hard to beat for the money (I paid about $400 USD brand new). If you have limited space, and use mostly four bands (10-15-20-40) this is a nice option, and complements a wire or vertical antenna very well.
I am looking to add 500 watts of amplifier to this antenna to lift the signal out of the occasional qsb, and will report on those test results at a later time. Thanks for reading.
7 3,
Jim K7LA
Cypress, California, USA |
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| G4GOH |
Rating:     |
2010-05-07 | |
| Works for me (but then I'm a Brit!) |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I would take a lot of convincing that an 8' vertical performs better than the H-422!
Mine is mounted horizontally on a roof tower at about 35' agl and although I have a rotator the antenna is not as directional as I expected it to be. No RFI problems that I know about and no complaints from neighbours even though I live in a very crowded suburban area (of Tokyo).
I have worked lots of "real Americans", in fact I have worked most of the world with either 5 or 50 watts - being a Brit we like to do it without a kilowatt or two even though I can run up to 1 Kw here.
Must go, my tea is being served in the garden :-)
JG1CYJ |
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| former_K7FU |
Rating:      |
2010-05-05 | |
| Excellent Antenna |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| This thing works great. It replaced an R7 vertical at 15 feet. The R7 was noisy and while it worked respectable it was becoming a maintenance nightmare with constant swr problems. I have the H-422 mounted at about 30 feet and have been working many many stations and they have all been giving me excellent reports and I can hear them much better due to the lower noise floor. I hope to get it up to 35 feet or so, but so far so good and no complaints from my neighbors....yet. The instructions were simple enough and construction is straight forward with simple tools. |
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| N0YXE |
Rating:   |
2010-03-19 | |
| Second review: NOT THAT GOOD |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| This is my second review. The antenna was recently removed due to restrictions and a neighbor whose only mission in life is to complain and talk about other people. The antenna was mounted at around 18' off the deck and could barely be seen. I still got some kind of RFI that was the form of a clicking sound. Yes, it did provide some QSO's and the antenna was somewhat directional. The Brits seem to love this antenna and believe that it solves the small garden problem. I suppose, if you are that close to other countries and most of Europe is that close, it might be useful. HOWEVER, I made a discovery out of the angst of being without an antenna. I found the most incredible and amazing HF antenna for base/portable use: the TRANSWORLD. It's a vertical dipole that at 8' is absolutely amazing. Perfect for small lots and very stealthy. This antenna is a DX wonder. I've completed my WAS (Worked All States) after several years of wondering the bands, working Hawaii on Tuesday and Alaska on Wednesday! Yesterday, I worked 9A9A in Croatia, about 5,200 miles, 5/9 both ways. Brits: Are you still reading this? This means that you may actually have to talk to someone in the USA once in awhile, even though they don't give you much power to play with! A couple hundred USD's more than the Comet and you get a great antenna. You can sip tea in your garden and talk to a real American, like me, in the center of the country! The TRANSWORLD has brought a new life and renewed the excitement of HF. |
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| M6GOM |
Rating:      |
2010-02-01 | |
| Good for limited space |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Bear in mind the only antennas I have to compare it to are my own homebrew wire jobbies.
Had mine a week now. No problems with the build quality and instructions are reasonably clear enough for anyone with half a brain. It is mounted on a 5m aluminium pole in the V configuration in the back garden. Borrowed a MFJ antenna analyser to set it up but to be honest, it wasn't really needed as it gave good SWR (minimum 1.1:1 up to just about usable 3:1) on all of the bands for the whole of the band except 40m. 40m is quite narrow but the internal tuner in my Kenwood TS-480SAT manages to tune the antenna fine. ATU isn't really needed on 15m and above. Interestingly, the analyser also showed a low SWR over most of the 6m band - certainly low enough to be used. However there's a lack of 6m activity in my area so I've not been able to try it.
I'm only UK Foundation Licence so limited to 10W. Despite that, I've managed QSOs up to 1600 miles on 20m and 40m this week with Moscow being the furthest. Antenna is broadside East-West (pointing N/S) and despite that, I've had QSOs with Portugal and Italy suggesting that it is quite omnidirectional. Maybe that is more to do with only being 5m up.
Does it work? Well its certainly no worse than the monoband homebrew wire dipoles I put up and 1500 miles on 10W, whilst being mounted quite low with next to knack all propogation seems like reasonable performance to me.
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| NU4J |
Rating:     |
2009-09-20 | |
| SWR Measurements |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Just got the antenna up, element lengths adjusted and thought I would share my SWR measurements with you while fresh on my mind and before I scrap the paper.
My H422 came with the CBL-2500 balun and there was a change notification sheet included to explain that. Evidently earlier models came with a CBL-2000 balun and I have no idea when that change happened.
The instructions aren't great but this is what happens when Japanese translate Japanese into English.
You can set the lengths of the two elements for CW operation, SSB operation or FM (28 MHZ) operation. The lengths of both legs are not exactly the same length for the 40m band. That had me scratching my head. The left element is 11.8110 (300mm) inches longer that the right leg. Every measurement in the instruction sheets are in centimeters or millimeters so be forewarned.
Not expecting to have good SWR where I wanted to operate, I wasn't disappointed. Although I set up the SSB portion of the band for 40 and 20m it was resonate in the low portion of the CW band right at the band edge.
For the SSB portions of each band the instructions say to "Assemble To See One Hole Only" between the 15 and 20m traps. I needed to raise the frequency on 20m so I set to see NO holes between the 15 and 20m traps... effectivly shorting the distance between the two and raising the frequency.
Using an old Autek antenna analyst and the H422 eight feet off the ground these are the measurements I obtained. I'm sure I could tweak the measurements a bit better but I'm 70 years old and lazy. BTW, the SWR didn't change from eight feet off the ground and 25 feet off the ground. Another pleasant surprize. Here we go:
SWR Frequency
3.0 7.115
2.5 7.138
2.0 7.155
1.5 7.195
2.0 7.231
2.5 7.253
3.0 7.274
2.0 14.060
1.5 14.110
2.0 14.240
2.5 14.270
3.0 14.300
1.5 21.000
1.0 21.100
1.5 21.240
2.0 21.330
2.5 21.420
1.5 28.000
1.1 28.680
1.5 29.240
After reading other reviews, I'm aware of mechanical problems with rivets. I didn't find any loose so I didn't drill them out and replace them. Remember, I'm 70 and lazy!
This antenna should work good! I put it up in the rain. |
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| YV4DHS |
Rating:      |
2009-07-11 | |
| Great antenna |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| I am happy with my new COMET H422 ,the same is great for field day and outdoors activities . All bands 10/15/20/40 mts works without problems . I use this antenna with LDG AT 7000 wonderfull. |
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| W3AM |
Rating:    |
2009-06-05 | |
| Works fine, beware poor fasteners. |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
For a compact multiband HF antenna the 422 performs as well as you'd expect for a simple dipole. No complaints there. The 40M capability is a real boon, especially since the broadcasters have moved. Although the bandwidth is very narrow on 40M and it takes time to adjust the elements to get it where you want it, (somewhat narrow on 20M also), I'm using an LDG AT-200Pro autotuner with it and it's a great combo. Can make it work 40M-10M no problem.
The problem with the antenna is the traps are all connected to the elements using aluminum pop rivets, some of which may be loose out of the box. You may not have problems with yours right away, but I'd expect most of these antennas to develop loose connection issues as they age, especially if installed in windy locations that flex the elements a lot.
My unit had intermittent connections in the 20M traps on day one, causing transient mismatch problems and annoying receiver noise.
The fix isn't hard, but requires the rivets to be drilled out so you can open the traps and then drill out the rivets inside so you can replace them with machine hardware. After I did that, no more problems and the antenna is very solid and works well.
From Miami, set up as a 'V' at only ~10M AGL, I've worked around Europe and out to the west coast with 100W. Can't ask for more.
For someone who's looking to just buy something and not have to fool with it, beware the rivets. But if you don't mind a little work it's all very fixable.
I'd also echo the earlier review about being careful with the plastic element insulators, they will crack under tightening if you don't make certain they are totally flat against the surface of the mast plate before you tighten. But it's not fatal. You should probably also open the balun and check to make sure the connections are tight. Mine wan't bad, and all the solder connections were ok, unlike a couple others I've read about here.
If you don't have trees or supports for a good wire antenna and are limited in space, a dipole like this is a good compromise and is very easy to install.
If it weren't for the rivet problem I'd give the antenna a 5. Now to see how it holds up thru hurricane season this summer! |
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| G0NCE |
Rating:      |
2009-05-25 | |
| still in the air after 3 years |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Ok, the H422- has been up for nearly 3 years now, have just repaired the 20m traps. Rewound with copper instead of aluminium, and used fiberglass instead of plastic as the coil former.
The rivets came loose and have replaced them as well. The 20m traps seem to be the weak link, otherwise its gone back up and should last just as long if not longer.
Don't think that making the coils of copper has improved things, but must have reduced some losses albeit a small fraction.I regulary speak with a friend in Spain on 40 and 20m who has the same antenna and I can say his signal is better than most using a g5rv or dipole. he is getting the same results as me, and still pleased with his purchase.
G0NCE
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