| W0WCA |
Rating:  |
2020-05-08 | |
| Trouble |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I bought this antenna after the late spring snow last year decimated both the trees that were supporting my G5RV. Most of my ham operations are on 20 and then there is the 10 meter Thursday evening net so thought this would be a reasonable antenna for now – and it is.
Initially, the thing gave me fits! There are two traps that are constructed of coils wound over a plastic mandrel and secures to their adjacent tubes with screws thru the coil ends thru the aluminum tubes and into the plastic mandrel. On my antenna, these attaching screws were never tightened!?!.
Once I took the traps apart (no mean feat) and tightened the screws, the antenna works as advertized and I’m pretty happy. But, alas, when the wind blew it back and forth a few times, the screws loosened up again and once again I had intermittent “issues”!
Please look at the pictures/drawings of the antenna and note that there are black plastic caps on only the tops of the traps. These plastic caps are pretty stout and if they were present also on the bottom of the traps, the mechanical rigidity would be greatly enhanced and I think the screws holding the traps together would stay tight.
I have ordered the additional caps from Hi-Gain ($.75 ea) and will drill small weep holes at the bottom and install them. We’ll see . . .
But yes, this is a reasonably good antenna.
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| KI8DJ |
Rating: |
2016-07-19 | |
| surprised |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I just assembled and installed this vertical,took about 4 hrs. Every part fit perfectly and nothing was missing,even had extra nuts and washers! I cut the radials to the lengths the manual recommended using 2 each for 20 meters and one for 10 and fifteen. The swr curves are perfect didn't have to tune at all. The Q of the traps must be pretty high as my rigs tuner would not tune 12 or 17 meters.By the way this mounted on a 12 foot pipe with elevated radials.Not bad for a branch of
mfj. |
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| K4TIN |
Rating: |
2013-12-14 | |
| High Marks--No Surprise! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Portability, ease of set up and operation are the obvious advantages, and as most everybody points out, low cost.
Mine is lashed to my chimney; due to its location (corner), radials could not be placed as recommended by manual.
This seemed to matter little: radials drooped at slightly different angles and oriented horizontally as best I could. Much, much DX worked on all 3 bands, with great success on 10 and 15.
It would be hard to imagine a better and user friendly reference/field day/portable/camper antenna! |
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| M3MQR |
Rating: |
2013-11-06 | |
| re-reviw |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I first reviewed the 12AVQ in May 2011, I have since moved house and mounted the antenna at ground level making the manufacture's adjustments for the CW part of the band, also included 40 ground radials and a earth rod. Running an avarage of 10w I have never been able to break pileups but if I can hear them ... then I have worked them. Build quality 'so I am informed' is mutch better being hygain telex rather then mfj. I would certainly recommend this small vertical
73 David |
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| K0VQ |
Rating: |
2013-08-01 | |
| Radials make all the difference! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I installed the Hy-Gain 12AVQ on my single story rancher's roof mounted evaporative cooler by way of a 5 foot tv mast and stand offs. I thought the mass of metal and ductwork would be enough for a good ground plane and low SWR. Wrong! Radials do make all the difference in the world! I cut three sets of radials out of 14 ga clear speaker wire and attached them as directed. The other ends were then attached to those Christmas light shingle brackets you can buy for decorating your home for the holidays. These are a convenient way to get a permanent solid attachment point to the roof without drilling holes or damaging the shingles. Just remember to do it on a warm day so you don't break any shingles while inserting them underneath. I also used cup hooks to attach several radials to a hip roof that I have with no ill effect. The best part is that the way I arranged the radials makes them almost invisible from the street and quiets the nosy neighbors issues with my ugly ham antenna! But I still have a good vertical antenna that works DX with the best of them! Another helpful hint: Beg, barrow or steal an antenna analyzer from a buddy. This makes it so so much easier than climbing up and down the ladder 50 times tuning your SWR! Have fun and good DX! 73 Tracy, K0VQ |
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| KC9IH |
Rating: |
2013-05-30 | |
| FANTASTIC ANTENNA |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
In 1979 I picked up a 12AVQ as a replacement for my other antennas. I mounted it 10' up and used a 14x60 metal roof for the ground. The result was a resonant 50 ohm match on 10-40. yes, 40. The results from Central IL were outstanding. It ran rings around the ground mounted 4BTV and low 40 meter dipole that it replaced. The 12AVQ was not quite as good as the highly directional sloping V-Beam for 20 that had been up higher. I moved and used it in an attic with great results, along with Field Day. After another move, I sold it have have kicked myself ever since. I plan to get another and put on the eave, with a couple sloping radials, and another for portable and Field Day use.
My antenna went together well, survived a lot of storms, and was set at the factory ground level dimensions even though elevated. It was perfect without tweaking, and I was very pleasantly surprised when I put the GDO and Noise Bridge on it for testing. |
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| G4FFD |
Rating: |
2012-10-17 | |
| Worth the Tuning Effort |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| This is a small robust antenna for the 3 main HF amateur bands. It is a tried and trusted design with high quality parts and 2 factory tuned high grade traps. It lends itself to inconspicuous elevated mounting. Problems of tuning arise with this mode in that the addition of radials makes it a complex interactive antenna system with a very large number of variables. First, set the dimensions of the antenna to exactly those in the supplied diagram. Two, measure 6 radials 5% longer than recommended, try and slope them at 45degrees. Use your favourite antenna analyser to trim each radial to help fall into band. You will find that snipping one radial, even small amounts, affects readings on the other bands. Start from the 10 meter band, working through 15m to the 20m. If you want good 3 band matching use a suitable multireading analyser(e.g AA54). By careful snipping in dry conditions, bring each band to its desired matching point. Use new cable and new connectors. Couple filters at both cable ends and test. You should obtain very low SWR on all 3 bands, sufficiently close to unity. It is not a good idea to rely on the rig's internal tuner to flatten the line. I found DX reception very good although not always better than a wire antenna. What is surprising is the number of CQ responses from directions you have never worked before. Solid, reliable, little swaying in gales, unaffected in wet weather, provided you have sprayed with the amber- coloured waxoyl spray. It works, its cheap! |
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| G1MQQ |
Rating: |
2011-03-13 | |
| Great once set up |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Amazing performance from such a small unobtrusive antenna, and it's reasonably priced. Mine is ground mounted. I've added a couple of radials but they don't seem to have any effect.
Instructions are not too good for the novice. "shorten the 10m adjustment one inch" etc. Fine if you have enough experience/knowledge to work out where the 10m adjustment is. To achieve one of the dimensions specified I had to attack the antenna with a hacksaw!
SWR on 20m and 10m is as claimed (about 1.2:1) but on 15m I cannot get it below 1.5:1 anywhere on the band (despite the hacksaw!)and at one end it's 2:1 but I can live with that.
On air performance is outstanding. Better than the 20m homebrew quad loop on my roof.
Behaviour in 30mph winds is frightening. I'm not convinced the traps will withstand much more, let alone 80mph as claimed! but it's very light and easy to dismount.
Despite the above negative comments in my location it's way ahead of the cushcraft MA5V (2 wrecked in the space of 3 years) or the Sandpiper MV on the three bands it's designed for.I wish I'd bought the quad band version.
It's my doubts about the claimed survivability and the quality of the instructions which stops me giving it 5 |
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| AB0RE |
Rating: |
2011-01-04 | |
| Love it! |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Quite honestly the AV-12AVQ is not an antenna I think I'd normally consider purchasing (It's a sister-company of MFJ, it's a vertical, it's a "cheap" antenna, etc, etc). however, I ended up getting one for free from the estate of a silent key who lived a couple blocks away. I thought I'd give it a whirl at Field Day and November sweepstakes this year to see how it did.
I mounted the Hy-Gain AV-12AVQ on a 17' mast with two tuned radials per band, made from #12 stranded THHN wire. The radials have a short run of black dacron rope on the ends of them which, in turn, are staked in the ground using tent stakes. The radials are mounted at approximately a 45 degree angle. I used the assembly dimensions for "roof mount" and "CW", and it provided a good SWR (<1.5:1) across the CW and voice portions of the CW and voice portions of the 10/15/20M band.
How's it play? It seems to usually be on-par with my roof-mounted multi-band dipole, and sometimes has the edge of an extra S-unit or so over the dipole, more than likely because the dipole is a bit directional.
So why bother with the AV-12AVQ? Well, first of all, it is a *resonant* antenna. In a contest environment it brings much delight to spin the dial, find the station, and hit the PTT button. No fiddling with the tuner is necessary! For a new ham who wants to get his feet wet on 10/15/20M the AV-12AVQ would make things much less expensive to get set up and provide much more operating enjoyment than a non-resonant antenna ran through a tuner (and it'd likely perform better as well).
Secondly, the extra S-unit here and there can make the difference between working the station and not being able to get the job done.
Third, the AV-12AVQ is not an expensive antenna. One can get an AV-12AVQ new for $140, which is not bad at all. Sure, it's probably not in the same class as the Butternut or DX-Engineering vertical, but it's construction is not at all bad and the antenna should last many, many years.
Overall I'd say the AV-12AVQ would be a great antenna to add to your antenna collection. Remember if it is ground-mounted to use a bunch of radials and not just run a ground connection to a ground rod like the manual suggests - if you install it with no radials the ground will suck up a lot of your signal and you'll never know what you've been missing. |
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| LA5LIA |
Rating: |
2010-06-20 | |
| Good value for money |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Bought one at the webshop here in Norway. When it arrived, the plastic spacer at the base of the antenna was cracked. Not possible to tell if it was due to manhandelig in the mail or by tighening of the screws at the factory. Got the part replaced with a new one.
The Clamps supplied is just not up to the job! I broke 3 of them before I even got close to fitting the sections with enough toruque to prevent slipping. I bougt new one at my local hardware store, And they where mutch better.
So I put the 12AVQ up on my garage metal roof. At first I tried it on a 4 Meter aluminium rod with radials. It looked like a christmas tree and I could not get good SWR on 10 and 15 meters. Anyway, I could not just leave it up there as ugly as could be. Did not try any adjustments.
I decided to take it down and changed the length dimensions from roof mount to ground mount. I went over the entire roof whit self drilling screws to make shure that I had an electrical connection between all the metal plates. I also included a giant steel boom that support the upper wheels for the sliding garage doors. It was a BIG peace of steel so I thought It would be a good idea to include it.
Then I hammered down a 1.5 meter long copper spear and connected the whole metal roof to ground.
I put the antenna at one end at the top of the roof using a short metal pipe.
No radials. Just a 10 cm short groud wire onto the roof wit a self-drilling screw.
Went inside my shck to test it. Heard a G7 station on 20 meter with 59 signal. Gave him a call and got 59 back.
Promising result!
When checking the SWR I found it 1:1 on the whole 20 meter band. 1.1:1 on 15 and 1.3:1 on 10.
WOW ! Must be something wrong. I have read on the net that the 1/4 wave antenna is incapable of such low SWR over the whole band.
Well. I decided to let it run like that for a while and see what reports I get.
I also have i Dipole antenna to compare performance with.
I worked Japan with 100W and got 55 on the 12AVQ and 53 with the dipole.
Other times I work stations with the oposite result. I guess it`s depending on the conditions.
In general I get the best report on my 12AVQ.
Satisfied customer here! |
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