| W5MHG |
Rating:  |
2022-08-31 | |
| Love it! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| For a long time I've heard nothing but good reviews about this antenna. I finally got my hands on one and the reviews are absolutely true. I put it up and DX was starting to come my way right away. Spain, Venezuela and New Zealand and many more. Great product! |
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| N5TCH |
Rating: |
2022-07-21 | |
| Works as advertised |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| We ordered the KIO beam for local ham club about 2 years ago for field day and other event use.. It has always worked great as we have a portable light tower with generator that cranks up to about 30'.. Lights are removed from tower and have aluminum 4' military mast to mount antenna.. The mast rotates, although it is manual, we don't usually rotate it much.. The first time putting together took some time but now we get it in the air in less than 30 minutes.. We bought a golf travel bag to store and carry it in and it works great.. Have all parts and tools needed for assembly in bag with wheels..Just ordered the six meter wire today as we only had 10,15 and 20 meter wires.. It has improved our contact numbers over just using end fed wire antennas before.. I want one for my QTH now!! One perk we found, is when checked with Rig Expert analyzer, it is also resonant on 2 meters!! |
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| AI4SR |
Rating: |
2022-06-22 | |
| 5 Years on 55ft tower. Excellent. |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Best investment dollar for dollar I have made in Ham radio. On a 55ft tower with YAESU medium duty G-450A Rotor. 20,17,15,10 Meters. FLAT SWR, great front to back, and it has lived through 3 ice storms. I use at any where from 100W to 1500W when needed. (not often).
Support is great. |
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| NX7U |
Rating: |
2021-12-05 | |
| An outstanding product |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I've had mine up for about a month and it is "as advertised". Assembly took about 3 hours (but I'm slow) and the instructions were flawless. SWR is less than 1.3:1 across all 5 bands, and front-to-back is very good.
The hardest part was figuring out how to get it up on the mast--at 20' diameter and about 25 pounds it is an awkward lift to be sure.
My only knock is that with the "Universal Clamp" the antenna is a bit off-center with respect to the supporting mast. I suppose that's expected with a "universal" solution, but it did add some extra challenges in rotation (I am rotating the mast from the bottom).
Most definitely would recommend 5/5.
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| KA6OTJ |
Rating: |
2021-10-10 | |
| 10 yrs and going strong |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have had Leo's K4kio hexbeam up now for over 10yrs and this thing just keeps on amazing me as to how well it works. I mounted it on a homemade push up pole at 26 ft. I planned to move it up higher but it has worked so well at that height I never saw a need to raise it any higher. He has made several nice improvements to the antenna over the years since I bought mine but I can't find any beam out there for the money that can do any better. I did make the mistake of not painting the fiberglass spreaders and yet here it is 10 yrs later and still hanging in there under the hot Sacramento sun shine. Thanks Leo for putting out such a quality product.
73
Jay
Ka6otj |
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| VA3LUK |
Rating: |
2021-10-10 | |
| Work great at 45 ft |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| This is my second antenna of this type. The first one was made by SP7IDX but I lost it by a lightning strike. Unfortunately, due to the death of Waldek SP7IDX, I do not have access to spare parts. I decided to buy the same type of antenna from K4KIO. I didn't have to wait long for the antenna to come. The shipment was sent by FedEx. Note I, as a resident of Canada, had to pay duty tax to the courier on delivery. Fiberglass tubes need to be painted to protect them from UV. But it's your choice and you don't have to do it. After mounting it on a 45 ft. tower, The SWR is 1.1-1.2 which is better than it is written in the assembly manual. Only 15m has 1.3-1.4. What is important the antenna works very wide on the entire bands. The wires that the antenna has are thick and in clear insulation that allows you to see the quality of the wire. I am very satisfied with this purchase. I highly recommend it. |
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| N7TEI |
Rating: |
2021-08-22 | |
| Excellent quaility and experiance |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
After much consideration of obtaining a gain antenna with that did not require a hefty sized tower to keep it up in the air, I purchased the K4KIO hex beam. Once it arrived I read the directions again, and spray-painted all the fiberglass arms with a Krylon UV protectent and then gave it a second coat the following day. One day 3 I assembled it as instructed in about three hours. Directions are spot on, and easy to understand. (Unlike the cobweb antenna I got last year from MFJ which was poorly written, confusing and the most expensive dummy load I have every put on a mast!)
I put the K4KIO Hex beam on a mast 8 feet in the air to await the arrival of a the rotor. (It took 5 months for the rotor to arrive due to the COVID-19 pandemic) The entire time the HEX beam never needed tuning and was only at 8 feet above ground, and worked so incredibly well.) Worked all over the NA, SA, Europe, Japan, Australia, and Russia. If I could hear them, I could work them. Not bad for 100w from Utah.
Although I rarely run more than 100watts, I did attach my 1500w linear during during one weekend, and again...flawless operation. I compared it often to my GAP titan and my Carolina Windom, and am totally impressed with this antenna. Excellent F/B ratio. Now that it is up on the roof at 35 feet, I am more than happy to give this a 5 star review.
8/22/2021: Still performing better than ever!! Some rotation over the last year where it attaches to the mast. I wound up placing a bolt thru the bracket and mast to prevent rotation. The supplied bracket has teeth. but if you have high winds, it will eventually loosen and rotate like any antenna. |
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| WD4ELG |
Rating: |
2021-07-08 | |
| Expecting this to be a good purchase long-term |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
My K4KIO beam is now in the air and operational.
I won’t subject you to any pithy but irrelevant comments like the SWR is low across the bands (although it is).
Time will tell regarding the performance of the antenna.
What I can say is the following:
1. Installation was easy. I won’t say that it is idiot proof, but it’s about as close as we can get in the year 2021 to have a directional antenna that can be assembled with ease and minimal hassle I put it together over the course of three afternoons in the summer heat (frequent water breaks at my age); total time expended was approximately four hours of careful and deliberate effort. I am not mechanically inclined, although I am able to read instructions and follow them if they are sufficiently explained and I can control my ADD tendencies. The instructions were quite complete, and it did help that I have assembled previous hex beams from Traffie.
2. Materials and design seem to be very rugged to me. I like that the wire elements have a small thin layer of insulation on them. While I am not a fan of the hose clamps that are used for this antenna (cut myself three times with a long screwdriver trying to tighten them), they definitely seem to work well for their intended use.
3. Considering that my Traffie hex beam wires have broken and been reconnected, I shouldn’t be surprised that the Traffie antenna isn’t working as well as it did when I first put it up 11 years ago. Initial receiving tests on the new K4KIO unit using WSPR & QRSS CW initially indicate that the new hex beam is hearing a little bit better than the old one, especially on those bands where I have stitched the wire elements back together after numerous breaks.
4. The coax chokes (which I did not have on the older hex) seem to have reduced some of the RF hash from nearby sources (like from my idiot neighbor and his cretin offspring with their numerous plasma TV’s for gaming, whatever happened to kids playing outside?)
In any event, I am so far happy with the purchase. I have the ice cords but did not install them yet, I wanted to get the thing in the air as soon as the elements were hooked up.
First test will be Tropical Storm Elsa coming through Thursday morning through the Carolinas. Winds forecasted here up to 35 mph.
The thing just feels rugged, so I am hopeful for a long and profitable (DX-wise) installation.
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| W4USA |
Rating: |
2021-04-04 | |
| Great Investment |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have owned many antennas in my 40+ years as a ham.
I remind the new hams, that the Antenna is by far the most important part of any radio station. I relocated from a antenna farm with 54 antennas, phased array on 80, full size 4 element beam on 40, 3 towers, etc. Now in the Tennessee hills, I got cought with some antenna restrictions. I did allot of research into the Hex Beam and who sells them. I choose the KIO hex beam. KIO (Leo) uses only the top quality parts and easy to understand instructions (which I should have read first, would have saved me a big headache) The antenna works great, hidden in the back only 10 feet off ground (were on a 1000' Ridge) I can work anybody I can hear, But the real test is the 3 to 5 db increase on receive and 3 db less on noise. The owner Leo, is a good man, returns calls and very helpful. |
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| KD6IQW |
Rating: |
2021-03-31 | |
| Amazing Antenna |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have horrid QRM issue's at my QTH from neighbors solar panels to 4 Am stations within a mile, and a power substation.. Made wire antenna's pretty much worthless. After reading a ton of reviews about how quiet and affective Hexbeams are, I decided on a KIO kit. After the painting and clamp placement is done, you can indeed put it together in a couple hours or less. My initial testing was done on a 10 foot piece of tower with a 3 foot mast. So only 13 feet in total! Plugged it into an icom 7300, and turned it on to what I can only call.. Breathless.. and in shock.. Signals throughout the band on 20 meters like I have never seen. Noise levels down 6 S units. I absolutely couldn't be happier with it's performance. With the internal tuner, the SWR are completely flat other than 6 meters and that is 1.2 to 1. I have gotten excellent signal reports from around the world already on only 100 watts. The old adage of antenna before power is very true. And remember, I still am at 13 feet. Waiting on tower base that will put me at the sweet spot of 35 feet. Thank you Leo for a great antenna.
As a side note, I have worked a lot of stations over the years with quads, and log periodic antenna's. I have an easier time working pile ups and DX using the Hex than the other antennas using amplifiers. Drives my father crazy that we get as good of a signal into him at 100 watts as he gets to us with a 1000 and a quad antenna. |
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