| MM0IGN |
Rating:     |
2018-12-25 | |
| Impressive. |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I bought the 33’ DX Extreme antenna. When I initially put it up, I wasn’t impressed back to back with my attic dipole. UK house plots are sickeningly small and Planning Permission utterly punitive. Hence, the 33’ unit. Ideally I’d have the longest one, obviously.
Anyway, I took it down and put up another antenna which was patently less good. Then I thought I’d give the Ultimax another try. It made my first ever US QSO. Clearly, it is not a bad antenna. It is what it is, a pretty good antenna and pretty decent value. If your garden is big enough for a dipole, male one. If it isn’t, this is a very decent alternative. |
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| W6ZSL |
Rating:     |
2018-10-27 | |
| Great product, great customer service |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I was looking for an antenna to take camping. I was primarily interested in 80/40/20 meters. I purchased this antenna after reading many reviews and seeing some utube videos. I hoped it would work with my Yaseau FT-450D internal tuner without an eternal tuner. I've rated this a 4 out of 5 because I still needed the external tuner on 40m and 80m. Even so this antenna works! In just in evening I worked 3s, 4s, 5s, 0s and even a VE3 from a camp site in east Texas with QRP. I contacted the manufacturer by email and got a prompt reply on additional lengths of wire to bring down the native SWR on 80 and 40. If I could make one suggestion to the manufacturer it would be to offer the option at the time of ordering for the longer wires pre-cut to the proper length to optimize for the lower frequencies. I would definitely recommend this antenna to any one looking for a portable antenna that is quick and easy to put up, especially with the longer wire lengths for 80/40. |
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| KF4WSN |
Rating:      |
2018-10-26 | |
| Great Porable antenna |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I use this one for camping fast deployment you have a few options of wire length but have worked plenty of DX on the short 24' wire Almost no one believes what I am using Tunes 6m-80m with the Balun on the ground I have never had an Issue with SWR right out of the box. As a mater of fact I have loaned it out and every one who has used it ordered one. if you want a antenna for your go bag or RV this is a good choice Stop trying say that its not working like your Beam at 100' but if you wan good an simple fast to deploy and recover and not break the bank this is it. |
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| K9KGM |
Rating:      |
2018-05-30 | |
| Excellent Antenna! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| This was my first multiband HF antenna. Due to my particular circumstances, I ran the 24' wire straight up a tree trunk. I was able to mount it and the Ultimax line isolator above a DX Engineering radial plate with 20 ground radials (all 25" long). Performance was beyond belief for a 24' wire, literally running along a tree trunk. It was a DX beast! 46 countries with my farthest SSB contact being ZS6JES in South Africa on 20 meters. I was able to get Austrailia on 20M FT8 as well. I would recommend this to anyone who's looking for a great low-profile antenna! |
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| KC7JNJ |
Rating:      |
2018-01-26 | |
| More update |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
More of an update: as of 15 Dec 2017-26Jan 2018 I have used nothing but a FT-817nd (with a BHI dsp, and a Sotabeems speech compressor) with this antenna. The solar flux has been between 69-71 the whole time. I have worked 33 states and 3 Japanese contacts. All on the stock 24ft of wire. I don’t understand it but I am on the air having a blast. And I am staying QRP!
I have this antenna on a 32ft jakite pole mounted as a vertical on top of my house. I have 40ft of counterpose wire running down to my wood fence and along it. I have tried many of the lengths of wire Albert suggested. But in the end I went back to 24ft. My location sucks for radio. I can never have a full sized windom or a nice tower and beam. But I am on the air and I am still having fun! I have worked 80-40-20-30-18-10 with it. It has been in the air a few winters and is still doing what I need. This not a full sized antenna mounted 100ft in the air between to trees miles from the nearest man made noise. You should not expect it work like one. What it does is keep me active, doing the parts of the hobby I like. |
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| W6GAE |
Rating:      |
2017-12-05 | |
| Great Antenna! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| As a new General licensee, I spent a good deal of time researching equipment for my entrance into the world of HF. After much consideration and a thorough review, I purchased a 33 foot Ultimax DXtreme given it's size, ease of use, frequency range and enthusiastic reviews (both of the antenna and of Albert). I was not let down. After some initial set up problems caused in total by my inexperience and with the very helpful guidance provided by Albert, I joined in a recent DX event contacting a number of operators around the country and, to my happiness, in Saipan and Brazil, all on my first night with a 100 watt transceiver! Have now contacted many across the US and even South Africa, Spain and Japan all with a 33 foot vertically mounted (on telescoping pole) antenna. Albert is a true professional whose focus is on delivering a superior product backed by a superior focus on customer service. He went the extra mile to get me up and running and provided quick and very helpful response to my questions. In a nutshell, great product with great customer support. |
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| W1LTX |
Rating:      |
2017-05-12 | |
| great antenna |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| my ultimax 100 works great but i did improve the antenna by adding 44 ft 12 gage wire huge improvement |
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| K6SDW |
Rating:     |
2017-05-05 | |
| end fed antennas |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Like all end-fed antennas, there's nothing magical about them or should be.
This unit built fine and works when you understand it's limitations.
In my case for me to work 40/80 meters I had to increase length to around 67' otherwise this antennas was numb to the lower 2 bans.
This antenna never could resonate on 30meters with builtin antenna tuners
Cheers All.
k6sdw |
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| WW2PT |
Rating:      |
2017-04-02 | |
| Good performance, great value |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I purchased an Ultimax 100 antenna on a whim at the Orlando Hamcation in February 2016 to use for field portable QRP work and perhaps as an auxiliary antenna for my home station. The price was low enough for me to take a chance that it would live up to its specs (the hamfest special price was $55). If not, oh well... I spent more on gas and lunch that day, so the risk wasn't too terrible. I'm pleased to say it was money well spent.
Circumstances arose shortly afterwards that prevented me from operating until I moved into a new house; it wasn't until late January 2017 that I was finally able to get the radios set up again at a new QTH and give this new antenna a try. At my previous QTH I was using a ground-mounted Tarheel screwdriver vertical with a few 10' ground radials; at the present house I plan to eventually install a much better radial system and put the Tarheel back up, or perhaps go to a bigger vertical. Until then, however, the Ultimax is all I have to work with. The only other option at this time is to remain QRT.
At first I just had the antenna indoors, looped around my office/shack. I wasn't expecting much from an 24' wire inside a house with a metal roof - it was like operating inside a Faraday cage - and to be honest it was a challenge with the high noise and low signal levels, but over the next few weeks I was able to work 47 countries running between 50 and 100 watts with my Elecraft K3, and occasionally my KX2 at 5 watts. (Other than phone contests and a very occasional SSB contact, all of my operating is CW.)
At the beginning of March 2017 I moved the antenna outdoors, running the wire vertically up a 31' Jackite telescoping fiberglass mast that I zip-tied to the front deck railing just outside the window of my shack. Right away I noticed an improvement in signal strength, although the noise was still high. I was only running about 10' of coax despite Albert's recommended 25' minimum feedline length. But I was on the air, working DX, and happy. By the end of March I was up to 82 countries worked, including a few all-time new ones (Pitcairn Is., Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, Guinea-Bissau), plus a whole lot of other DX operations in February and March, giving me a bunch of new band slots. I've lately started working QRP most of the time, reducing the K3's output to 5 watts and only occasionally cranking it up to 100 watts if needed to get a new band slot. I've already got well over 20 countries worked QRP in just a couple of weeks with the Ultimax 100; if I can hear the DX, however weakly, I can work them almost all of the time. Hearing them was the problem, however, because my noise level was pretty high (a constant S6-S7 on pretty much all bands). The K3's noise reduction, blanker, and filtering helped a lot, but still... I knew I was missing a lot. I was also getting some RFI in the shack, most likely due to the short feedline and close proximity of the antenna to my equipment, forcing me to reduce power on certain bands.
Reading some of the reviews here, I found that others were able to reduce their noise levels and RFI by running longer feedlines, so today (April 2) I relocated the antenna to the back of the house with a 100' run of LMR-400 coax, and I'm happy to report that noise levels are greatly reduced (as low as S3 on 40m as I type this). Time will tell how much of an improvement in performance there will be, but at this moment it looks promising. I am now thinking about using a longer wire (66' seems to be the magic length, from what I've read here) to see if I can improve performance on 80m and 40m.
In all, I am very pleased with the Ultimax 100. The price is right, it has gotten me on the air quickly and easily while I gather parts for a more permanent antenna, and I plan to keep it in use even after my vertical is back in operation. Since I am a renter I need to keep a low profile, and this antenna and the Jackite pole supporting it are barely noticeable from the street. As I do not have a high-power ATU I've yet to try using my KPA500 amplifier with the Ultimax 100, so I cannot comment on its power handling claims. I can say that the ATUs in both my K3's and KX2 have no trouble matching this antenna on all bands from 80m through 6m. |
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| N3HKN |
Rating:      |
2017-03-07 | |
| Solved By Vendor-UPDATE |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Adding at least 31ft of coax to the feedline reduced the noise and improved the performance. The web site mentioned feedline for other models but the 100 had no mention of min-feedline. I just grabbed about 40ft of RG58 connected it to the match box. It is draped from the window on the third floor to the ground and back up to the tuner. I had to do that since the matchbox is only 6ft from the tuner. Reduced noise by 2 S-units. Dead bands were really not dead.... |
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