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Reviews For: Yaesu ATAS-120A

Category: Antennas: HF Mobile & Accessories

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Review Summary For : Yaesu ATAS-120A
Reviews: 119MSRP: 369.00
Description:
The ATAS-120A is the upgraded, more weather resistant version of the ATAS-120. Leave comments only on the ATAS-120 "A"!
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
24.51193.9
K6SDW Rating: 2007-06-25
Junk..... Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I struggled 3 years babying this POS.....initally it worked FB and put out a good signal. Then slowly but surely it began to "not want to work." I was convinced it was my doing, that damn ground thing!! So.....redid the ground but still the antenna was tempermental and at times not wanting to screw in or out.

Finally, it stopped for good, read the blogs about havning to take it apart and repair the base....well, enough was enough and sold it fer parts.

Neve again Yaesu!!
VA6GWC Rating: 2007-06-25
Total garbage Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I purchased an ATAS-120A as my first antenna to work with my FT-847, thinking I would not need an expensive tuner.
It worked for approx. 3 months then cratered.
I placed a simple inverted V in it's place until the 120 returned from the hospital.
I never did check it when it returned home. (my fault) Since then I have replace the chip and still cannot get this junk to do anything except retract. I have $400 into it now and that will be the last!
So I learned to spend money after talking to friends in a club, they have a lot of history of what works and what doesn’t.
Glen Chapman
VA6GWC
WX9DX Rating: 2007-06-24
Poor Antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Well I'll have to tell you all, that the ATAS 120 antenna on Joyce's
SUV is kinda sad. It's preformance even with tons of grounding is
very poor. On 40 meters it works better if you hook 25' of antenna
wire to it and an end insulator, hooked to a tree. Then the antenna
will tune 40 meters and work some what for TX. But for driving down
the road talking, it's a very poor choice for a HF antenna. Price
with band splitter was $399 and something from AES. I've had this
antenna exactly two weeks and I'll have to tell you that there is no
way I'd tell anyone to buy one. This antenna does not cover the WARC
bands at all and takes tons of time to install. If you want a good
Screwdriver type HF antenna go with the Preditor 5'X3" antenna that
covers from 10 to 80 meters. That is a sure bet in a preformer. This
is from experiance I'm telling you all this.

Field day from the tallest Mountain in Tenn. I could hardly break
any stations on 40 meters to answer their CQ's. Oh, and 20 meters
was worse. Even with an added wire to the top it was a poor
preformer on 40 meters.

Any Questions? Just call and I'll give you an ear full about how sad
an antenna the Yaesu ATAS120 is!

Jimmy:(
M3KTG Rating: 2007-06-21
gOOD sOUND aNTENNA Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had this antenna for just under 2 yrs and
mounted on 2 diffirent vechiles. This antenna performs well come rain or shine, Be it driving round the towns or sat on top of a hill. I went for the combination of the 120a and the ft857 as i am well we could say im undertall and carnt keep climbing on top of the car to change monobanders. all in all it performs well for its size and limits.
AE6TR Rating: 2007-06-16
Can work vwey well. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I Have used this antenna on two cars now. The first install went well with no problems. The second install took a while to sort out. After working out all of the kinks, both antennas work well to very well.
The thing to remember with the ATAS-120A is this is a mobile HF antenna (in general, this is a bit of an oxymoron). For any mobile antenna to work well, care in installation is needed. First, your feed coax must be high quality with good shield connections to the connectors. Second, the antenna must have a good ground connection to the vehicle body abd chassis. Finally a good mount is needed.
Any problems I encountered with the ATAS-120A trace directly to violations of these three principles.
This antenna has been used in the mountains of Southern California where it is exposed to rain, snow and the heat of the desert. These weather conditions do not appear to have affected this antenna at all.
I would have given the ATAS-120A a "5" except for the choice of an antenna mount made by Yaesu. A NMO mount would have preferable to the pl-259 / so-239 connection used in this antenna. I would also have given a "5" if this antenna were capable of 75 meters.
N2CLB Rating: 2007-05-26
wow Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
i put this thing on my truck last week and have worked 1 9k2 station, and tons of other dx for it's size this antenna is the best.




73,
n2clb
KD7GKE Rating: 2007-04-02
Still going strong Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Everyone keeps telling me I should have gone with a Sidekick...But I have no problem with this antenna. I like the fact that I didn't have to run a separate power wire, or a tune switch... May try to pick up another to mount on the RV!!! Once, and only once, did I have to re-initialize the antenna to activate the Auto Tune, but regular cleaning and maintenance keep things happy!!!
LNXAUTHOR Rating: 2007-03-19
Works Great on a Good Install? Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The ATAS-120A has so far provided me with three solids years of use in snow, sun, rain, salt air, and hurricane conditions.

The mobile environment is hard on equipment and connnections, but this antenna provides me with simplicity, ease of use, a simple install, some performance, and a single antenna and coax for VHF and HF communications.

That's hard to beat.

My mobile setup uses a Yaesu FT-857, the ATAS-120A, a Diamond K400C mount, and a Comet CF-706A duplexer.

I had to use Diamond's mini-coax extender to get from the well-ground mount to the rig. DC voltage runs straight from battery through firewall to rig.

Good grounding is important with this antenna, which uses positive voltages (+8, +12 IIRC) for controlling the screwdriver. That said, I didn't obsess about the install, which is the same from the first 15 minutes the rig and antenna have been in the truck - haven't changed a thing - and the combination has worked just fine since.

I have taken no steps to protect my ATAS other than to make sure it is fully screwed into the Diamond mount, that the mount's screws have a good bite into the top of my truck's door frame, and that good ground exists between the door and frame.

Replacement whips are reasonably priced.

I use my antenna and rig every day, nearly every time i get into my truck, and have had some great contacts (best so far was with a Kuwaiti op while parked in front of my bank down here on the Gulf of Mexico).
N1IZE Rating: 2007-03-19
SIERRA-HOTEL- INDIA- TANGO Time Owned: more than 12 months.
As the title states it.. the ATAS is what it is, Must have the clutch motor of an Ford motor product. Bucks and spits in the cold and doesn't function up or down. I have the combo, FT857d Yaesu mobile with the ATAS 120A antenna, For the first 6 months it worked well. 9months later, it gave birth, I thought it may be the ice or a faulty connection, I press tune and hear the clutch motor kick in and the antenna is stuck at the 40mtr length. I may take it off its mount and screw it back on maybe that might reset the whole thing.
This antenna is not worth 250$ at all. Why is it that technology is excellerating at a faster pace than the quality of the design and manufacturing process? The design is great, the concept well thought out, but the quality is to be desired. It is apparent that the mentality of push the item out the door and place in the market place with out real long term test data in actual applications rather than on some design engineers computer - function model program, is ever present. R&D is based on computer models rather than real usage. This antenna is reminiscent of the ICOM 756, The CRT screen issue that ICOM was aware but still pushed the rig out to market, knowing that the life cycle of the CRT screen was just long enough to have the rig out of warrentee so the consumer (ham operator) had to pay for replacement of the screen.
W6NYG Rating: 2007-03-03
results equal most mobile ant's Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
After six months of extensive tests I can state the Yaesu 120 A is the best five foot screw driver ant available.

Comparing the results I receive using ham stick antennas the Yaesu mini screw driver is comparable.

I've worked lots of long haul DX recently on 17 meters using a Yaesu FT 857 D. Generally speaking
if I can hear a station I can work it.

I've received S nine plus reports out of Japan on 17 meters. That was driving back from our Pahrump NV QTH on the I 15.

The ATAS antennas requires a first class install.
Care must be taken to ensure grounding. Watch those mounting screw that go in to the vehicles
floor matting. The transciever must be grounded to the vechile. Do not expect the coax shield
to provide a good RF ground. Remember you are dealing with RF not DC.

The antenna recieves the control motor voltage via the coax. Great design that elimates the need for a seperate control cable to the antennas motor.

If the antennas is not properly grounded it will not auto tune on 40 meters. Grounding straps should be added to hatch back door hinges.

The antenna will not out perform a single band antenna at the same height. The difference between a single band antenna and the five foot
auto tune antenna is not worth the trouble.

When you might see a slight difference will be on the 40 meter band.

One negative item is the antenna does not work on 75 meters. Some hams have lengthen the telescoping selection and add a top capacity hat.

MFJ manufactures a module that adapts any transceiver to work with the ATAS 120 A.

A sloppy install will result in problems. Hope your HF mobile works like the one in my SUV.

----------------------
Earlier 3-star review posted by W6NYG on 2006-10-08

The ATAS 120 A will not produce the same results as a bug catcher or large screwdriver antenna.

It is a trade off for hams like me who do not want to haul a telephone pole HF size antenna or poke a big hole for a side ball mount.

The difficulty I have with the antenna is on 40 meters it is marginal. It is somewhat of a nescience to have to screw it on the small mount.

Those negative points are worth the trouble as the antenna works well on 20 and higher. The ATAS 120 A on my SUV hatch door does not scrape the ceiling in a car parking structure.

It's best feature is there is no 13 Vdc control wiring.

It is easy to qsy by simply pressing the tune button on the FT 857 D.

Although it's performance on 40 will not match larger screwdriver antennas it can communicate with most any station the transceiver hears.

I have found excellent results on 20 and especially 17 meters phone.

I've worked Portugal, Canary Islands, Finland, Italy this week while driving around Placentia CA.

Working Japan is no problem and the signal reports I'm receiving are comprisable to when I used a SG 237 and ham stick antennas.

I have worked 256 DXCC countries in the last five years using ham stick antennas with quick disconnects.

I miss not being able to work the 75 meter band but I'm pleased at what the small antenna can do.