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Reviews For: XR-100: HF portable dipole for 80 to 10m

Category: Antennas: HF Portable (not mobile)

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Review Summary For : XR-100: HF portable dipole for 80 to 10m
Reviews: 1MSRP: 205
Description:
A small portable dipole, comes with two telescopic black whips, a set of coils for 80/40/20/10 meters and a small support for mounting and PL239 connection.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.wimo.de/antporthf_e.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0014
ON4VP Rating: 2006-06-07
does the job as expected Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Today ON8PD came up the driveway on his motorcycle. In a small case he carried the very portable XR-100 antenna. We used two fiber poles to setup the antenna, a 18ft and a 33ft mast. We could extend either to 12 or to 25 feet and the dipole kept nice in place on the masts.

If you gonna expect that you have a big station, forget about small portable antennas. One must take into account that you WILL loose signal against a full size dipole. If you are used to work with a beam and more than 100 watts, you're in for a big suprise. Nevertheless the antenna performs well.

1) Finish.
the kit is especially made to disasemble into very small pieces, only 1 ft without and 2 ft with the support. the support comes with a PL connector. the telescopic whips have a black finish. A set of coils per band is provided, handling 100 watt just fine. The coils go first, next go the whip and when setup the antenna has a light V-shape.

2)building.
When you setup the antenna, first you choose the band you will operate on, next you check for the correct set of coils. the warc bands can be set, using the coil of the lower band and adjusting the whip (reducing lenght). A small cheat paper is provided so you can preset the lenghts. In almost every occasion the dip was spot on, even very close to the ground (because it is a portable antenna, she will be at low heights most of the time). When setup higher some bands needed a small correction.

3)on air.
First we tested SWR and dips on the lower 12ft pole. All checked out fine. On 40 meters we worked some stations in a 300 to 400 miles range, as expected because the antenna is almost at ground level and acts as a NVIS antenna. Good reports and decent work at 5 watt using a FT-817 on a external 12v battery.
Next we tried different bands, and the antenna went up 25ft on the larger pole.
Now we did see some DX effect on the bands starting at 17 and up. Also the directivity of the horizontal dipole became noticable.

On 40 and 30 meters you will get a -2 S-points compared to a full size dipole, on 20 and 17 this is reduced to -1 S-point, on the higher bands the results are similar to a full size dipole. Also the take off angles will go down and therefore better dx can be obtained.

We did work some 1500 to 2000 miles dx on 17 and 15 with only 5 watts in SSB.

4. Extras
In the documentation nothing is noted about using the dipole for higher frequenties. Taking out the coils the antenna can be used on 50 Mhz with fully extended whips. the dipole dips around 50.4 Mhz, and with an SWR of 1,2:1 on the SSB call frequentie the antenne performed well. We made a nice 900 miles contact with a Sicilian ham working 50 watts and a vertical. We had the 5 watts and the XR-100. Great 6M fun with some openings also let us work 9A2 and IZ5 and IS0.
Even on 2 meters, the dipole comes to live reducing the lenght to aprox 47cm. the antenna dips at 145 and we worked some repeaters on 145 FM. Finally with the whips fully collapsed, the antenna will resonate at 435 Mhz. Great benefit.

5. conclusion.
this XR-100 is no miracle antenna, just a dipole reduced in size and with loaded coils. But if you keep in mind that the antenna is highly portable, has almost no weight and sets up in two minutes, you will have a lot of fun. In our opinion this is what /P is about. Have a challenge and get out with /QRP on this XR-100 on a 25ft pole (even at 12ft) was a lot of fun, working some dx on different bands.

The antenna works as described, and if you set your goals right, the XR-100 will forfill your needs. It is a good portable solution that you can carry in almost any situation and therefore ideal for portable work. Compared against the well known Buddipole I would say that the Buddipole will have the advantage of longer elements, center loading, so a little better signal can be expected, but, the big advantage if this antenna is it size and small package.

I'll give it a fair "4" because I think things can always be better, but the antenna does the job as you would expect it to do.

You will make a lot of contacts with it on many different occasions and because it's small and easy to take along, in the long run, you'll make more contacts with it than you'd ever thought...

73 de ON4VP
(thanks to ON8PD for borrowing the antenna for this field test).