| W4AEG |
Rating:  |
2020-04-05 | |
| Great antenna |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| Mine is the 40 meter version. Easy to assemble. Unequaled support from Steve, the inventor. Mine is up 9' on my deck in the vertical position and I hear all of the US, Canada, Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rica, Costa Rica, Central America, Mexico, the Isle of Man, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy most often 5/9. I was able to resonate it at 1:1 on 7.2 MHz. Highly recommended. |
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| N9HDE |
Rating: |
2019-09-12 | |
| CW Contester using TAK-tenna |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
My interest in ham radio involves mostly CW contesting. Since July 2019, I have been using the 40 meter TAK-tenna on the roof up about 25 feet. The results have been really solid. In fact, I have had personal records in the following contests: IARU HF Championship, Worked All Europe CW contest, and the North American Sprint CW contest.
The antenna is resonated on the CW portion of the 40 meter band. Yet I am able to operate 80-10 meters using the LDG IT-100 automatic antenna tuner. For example, in the IARU HF Championship contest I was able to work 20+stations on 15 meters—I was able to work pretty much any station I was able to hear. In August, I participated for a few hours in the North American QSO Party CW contest and worked about 30 stations on 80 meters.
During the past few months using the TAK-tenna, it has performed best on 40 meters. I have even felt like my signal was really loud at times on that band. As a result, I was able to work about 30 different DXCC countries in the IARU HF Championship contest and 10+ DXCC countries in the Worked All Europe CW contest. The vast majority of these DXCC countries were worked on the 40 meter band.
My father Kent, K9ZMU, has always been my ham radio mentor. He helped me greatly with both assembling the antenna and resonating the antenna. His encouragement and knowledge about antennas was extremely helpful during the entire TAK-tenna project. Steve, WA2TAK, was also very helpful during the entire antenna project. He replied to my frequent via emails and/or phone calls. During the final installation of the TAK-tenna on the roof of my house, Steve spent several hours assisting my father and I to more easily find the final resonance on the 40 meter CW band. I am grateful to both for their valuable assistance.
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| K9ZMU |
Rating: |
2019-07-24 | |
| Assembly |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
Skeptic to Believer
K9ZMU Kent Scheuerell
When my son Scott N9HDE, an avid DX contester, told me about this antenna I was a bit of a skeptic. However, after doing a lot of reading and reading various evaluations from people using it, he decided to buy it.
We assembled it one Sunday afternoon and then hooked it up to my rig as the TAK-antenna sat only about 8 feet off the ground in my backyard. We made a couple of quick contacts on 40 meters and decided it was OK.
Scott took it home and continued to make contacts 80 thru 10 meters using a tuner while temporarily setting the antenna on his 2nd floor deck.
Today we finished putting it on the roof of his home. Even though he was working a lot of stations, we had not been able to find the resonance point. Wanting to improve his signal with the antenna that was already getting out well Steve offered to help us find the point of resonance.
Now even though I have been a ham since 1960, and Scott in the early 90’s, we both social science teachers and our knowledge is somewhat limited in the area of electronics.
Now this is where I was the most impressed. Steve the TAK-antenna technician is very patient. He spent a lot of time helping us help Scott to find the point of resonance on his TAK-antenna. He was very polite even when we did not follow his directions correctly.
I would recommend the TAK-antenna if you want an antenna that is compact in size that works well. If you lack a lot of technical skills you can be confident that Steve will walk you through things step by step.
--Kent K9ZMU
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| NG7V |
Rating: |
2019-04-05 | |
| Happy with my TAK-tenna |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I am as happy as can be with my TAK-tenna. For the money, the size, location and my lack of complete expertise, it works really well. Fun to assemble, challenging to resonate but well worth the effort. Post-sale support was very helpful, provided all the assistance I needed. I took in about 30 contacts on the CQ SSB contest last weekend and it took me aobut 2 hours with a 100 watt tranceiver on less than good band conditions. So, not bad. I would have done lots more with more time.
This antenna has enough stealth to satisfy my HOA which is quite relaxed but still quite firm making antennas blend in as much as possible. |
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| WB1FXB |
Rating: |
2018-03-31 | |
| Closely check all connections before resonating. |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Late last year I ordered a 40 meter TAK-tenna. Delivery was prompt, material was well packed.
I assembled it shortly after receiving it. Easy to do (less than an hour) just follow the very clear
instructions. The U bolt for attaching the antenna to the mast had a manufacturing defect. I could not find one like it the hardware store so a quick call to Steve and the item was in the mail.
After I had it assembled, other matters prevailed and I did not return to the antenna until March of this year (2018).Using an antenna analyzer, I had difficulty in locating resonance. Once again Steve to the rescue. We found that the salt air here in SW Florida had oxidized the surface of the wire and the alligator clips were not making consistent contact from sitting outside all of that time.
Steve worked With me over the telephone for several hours over two days helping me to achieve resonance. This time I soldered the taps on the spiral radiating wire.
The SWR minimum achieved was 1.5 in the middle of the phone band. This works well with my
Yaesu 450 D.
The price for this antenna is VERY reasonable considering the QUALITY of support provided by
Steve. Steve is not a set it and forget it kind of person. He has called and emailed several times to
ensure proper performance of his antenna.
I will be purchasing the 80 meter version of the TAK-tenna soon. |
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| VE3BXG |
Rating: |
2018-02-11 | |
| Performs as advertised! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
This is my second update review of this antenna since starting to use it in mid-July, 2017. I own the 40m version and it is mounted horizontally, about 33 ft. above ground. My location is Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Apart from the US and Canada, I have worked the following DXCC entities with tak-tenna:
Hungary, Italy, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Cayman Islands, Cuba, Russia, Dominican Republic, Hawaii, Portugal, Bonaire, Brazil, Trinidad & Tobago, Spain, Canary Islands.
Modes used were CW, SSB, FT8 and PSK-31. Bands were 40, 17 and 15m.
Not bad at all for a "compromise" antenna. |
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| N2LWE |
Rating: |
2017-12-28 | |
| Works for me! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Here is the bottom line. I live in an HOA that allows antennas ten feet above the home. Not many choices here. So I purchased a Jetstream vertical for $240 and it is mediocre to say the least. So I started looking into alternatives and came across the Tak Tenna. After reading the reviews and web searching how to build one, I decided to try it. It went up today in a temporary location only nine feet off the ground until I can take the vertical down and set it up in its place. So, never having any good luck on "80" meters, thats right "80" meters, I made my first contact from New Jersey to Ohio. No big deal to some, but a very big deal to me. The other thing that impress me was my first contact on 40 meters when my report was a "5 9". Something no one said with the vertical, I would always hear your 5 5 or 5 4, etc. And with the noise level increasing through the day, yet I am hearing so many more qso's and even on 80 meters. So, my experience so far is very impressive and give this a thumbs up, not to mention the fun of saying I built it myself. |
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| K6HR |
Rating: |
2017-07-29 | |
| Up Since 2009 |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I've had mine up since 2009 and after some refurb work it is still in use. I've used it for diversity RX, portable work, and SSB. With my Palstar tuner I can use it on several bands. I still find it to be very useful and will probably just leave it up! Yes! This antenna works, and is easy to assemble and tune. Also great customer support if you need it. |
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| KM4QML |
Rating: |
2017-07-24 | |
| Meets my needs well |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
5/5
Although I am not limited by neighborhood covenants, my property foot print is limited and without trees to string a wire antenna far or high enough. In my research for an antenna for a confined space I came across the Tak-tenna. There are many home brew plans for similar designs and I considered a build from scratch. My wife encouraged me to err on the side of convenience. She gave me good advice. In the end, I went with the kit TAK-tenna 80 Standard Style Multiband Antenna.
It arrived with all parts and well packaged. A careful review of the assembly instructions paid off. The premeasured notches and high-quality parts were a plus for me and the antenna came together with ease. The kit saved my time spent searching for parts. The experience was a nice balance between the satisfaction of building an antenna without hassles.
As emphasized in earlier reviews and in the assembly directions, it is very important to resonate any antenna. This is a critical step for getting maximum antenna performance.
Resonating the TAK-tenna was made simple by following the easy instructions in the manual. Properly soldered wire junctions using solder flux are also very important for proper RF current flow.
Using only my rig on low power and only an SWR meter I made the antenna resonant in short order. Resonance paid off on all bands. The antenna tuner provides quick matching and with very little if any churning in the auto-tuner attached to my transceiver.
I was in touch with Steve(WA2TAK) by e-mail (Tak-tenna) for one small build question and he was extremely fast on the reply and very helpful.
My original antenna is a compact multiband vertical. The TAK-tenna is consistently less noisy and performs better across each entire band. It also requires much less tuning in most bands.
I have tried both the vertical mounting option and the horizontal. Currently it is mounted horizontally at a 22-foot height. Although I can switch between my two antennas, I stay on the Tak-tennamost of the time.
The Tak is holding up well in the elements with no loss of performance.
I am very pleased with the TAK-tenna. Glad it was my choice.
Mark/NI2Y
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| KK6YO |
Rating: |
2017-03-17 | |
| I can't believe it's a antenna :=) |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Update: 20 feet up: horizontal. compared to my bazooka. 2 s units different. weird little thing BUT it actually works. A little patience and you will have a better than average antenna. Very cool. For those who can't get it to work. Send it to me (JK). 73 to all and see you on 7.155 morning group. Jerry KK6YO
P.S.
Remember this is not a full size antenna so don't expect it to work like one. It definately is not a POS.
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Earlier 4-star review posted by KK6YO on 2017-03-14
Ok, I just put the antenna together and tuned to 7.010 @ 1.5 to 1. Put it up and it received @ 11 feet 5 s units lower than my double bazo0ka up 40 feet. I was surprised on how well the antenna does being as small the foot print is. But is is no way close to how the bazooka works. I know what you are thinking. The bazooka is completely a different animal. I agree. I plan to do more testing as this morning on the 7.155 group I came on using my heathkit sb-200 to push the TAK antenna with out the group knowing, @ 500 watts I was still an average of 3 s units down on what the guys were hearing me. That being said I turned the antenna from north to south to east to west and the signal came up 2 s units. (NVIS?) Maybe. Anyway this is a great little antenna to experiment with and I will update as I see necessary. If you live in a cc and r location, it will still be better than nothing. 74 to all KK6yo - Jerry |
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