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Reviews For: Austin Suburban 3 & 4 Band Antennas

Category: Antennas: VHF/UHF+ Omnidirectional: verticals, mobile, etc

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Review Summary For : Austin Suburban 3 & 4 Band Antennas
Reviews: 2MSRP: 89 to 199 depends on bands
Description:
The Suburbans from Austin Antenna are multiband, center-fed 1/2 wave antennas. Models are available for 3 and 4 bands. All models are ground-independent which means that no ground planes or ground radials are required. Center-fed coupling also provides maximum radiation on the horizon for the best apparent gain. Performance equals or exceeds a 1/2 wave dipole on each band (2.14 dBi).
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.austinantenna.net/multiband.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
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KA7NIQ Rating: 2022-05-10
Great Antenna To Pull Up A Tree ! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
A Ham on Disability I know has had one of these for several years. Some fellow Hams pulled it up a tall tree branch for him, next to his small mobile home.
The Top of the antenna is near 80 ft up, and it works very very well. Because it has no radials, it is easy to pull up a tree, and it has been up in that tree for years, with no problems.
KA2DEW Rating: 2013-11-28
durable as hell - adequate performer Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought a 3-band Suburban in 1987 and another in 1989. The first unit was lost due to a move when I could not recover the antenna from the roof (where it really didn't belong in the first place). The 2nd one is still on the air. As of Fall 2013 it is slung up in a tree at about 60' off the ground and working just as well as it did when it was new. I hope the new models are as good. This one was certainly worth it's price.

The coaxial connection for the 1989 3-band 2m/220/440 unit is an SO239 on the bottom of the white tube. That tube makes a tight friction fit into a 12" long chrome tube which extends down below the antenna. The chrome tube gets strapped or clamped to the mast or vent-pipe. The coax feeds up inside the chrome tube to the bottom of the antenna, providing an excellent weather shield.

The antenna does not have as much signal radiated (I hesitate to call it gain) as any of the collinear antennas but it also has no ground radials and needn't be mounted straight up and down. Mine is at about 15degrees off of vertical hanging down from near the top of a tree. The Suburban has much less LOSS than a disc-cone antenna. It is certainly less fragile than a disc-cone! You could beat down a mailbox with one of these.

I haven't looked inside for a couple of decades and didn't have digital cameras when I did, but, as I recall, the interior construction of the antenna is a thin copper hard-line from the coax connector. The hard-line is coiled about a dozen times then runs up to about 2/3 of the way up the tube. From that is soldered two concentric brass tubes folded down over the coax, one for 220 and one for 440. Two concentric tubes and one vertical rod go up the radome from the solder point. This acts like three separate but parallel vertical dipoles, one for each band. The manufacturer used a sweep generator and spectrum analyzer with reference antennas to tune the performance of each tube, and then cuts them in the factory. Duplicating this antenna is possible but not worth the price. I've made single-band heat-shrink antennas like this and they work for a while. The Austin antenna has all the bands in one tube, lasts for half of a life-time (so far) and doesn't look like crap.

I recommend this antenna for friends who are putting subtle antennas on condos and such. Because of its lack of radials it isn't what most nosey neighbors think an antenna looks like.