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Reviews For: Alpha Antenna 6-160 HF J-Pole

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Alpha Antenna 6-160 HF J-Pole
Reviews: 44MSRP: 199
Description:
The Alpha J-Pole Jr & Sr Antenna systems achieve resonance on nearly all of the HF bands and presents an SWR on the remaining bands that are low enough for external tuners to achieve a perfect match.
Product is in production
More Info: http://AlphaAntenna.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00444.9
N5STT Rating: 2016-10-20
Versatile antenna, great customer service Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is an edit of my previous review.

PROs:
- Light, handy, small
- Very low feedpoint SWR when configured as a vertical or near-vertical sloper (<15 deg)
- Improved construction in the newer model makes it very sturdy and resistant to wear
CONs:
- Quite inefficient when used as vertical (improves a lot as a sloper)
- Common mode RF, your feedline becomes part of the antenna, you need to choke it before entering the shack.

Most recent news:
After just over 1 year the antenna stopped working properly. Steve from AlphaAntenna promptly contacted me offering a replacement, this isn't something that happens every day! The older antenna had, in fact, some unexpected problem. The new antenna performs as expected and I could see some important technical improvements on the construction that probably makes it more mechanically resistant to everyday use and exceptional bad weather. Overall, excellent customer service that very few companies will provide nowadays.

My experience:
The best configuration I found is 45 deg sloper with the match box at the lower end at ~3m and close to the shack. Compared to vertical configuration, noise drops sensibly and I could hear many more stations and work some DX in SSB. SWR at feedpoint is manageable on all bands by my FT-450D internal tuner.
In all configurations, I experienced RF in the shack with flickering monitors and other people hearing me on their headphones. It takes some beefy chokes to eliminate RF completely.

Bands:
The antenna tunes well on all bands, but working DX will become increasingly harder from 40 and up. 30 works particularly well, 20 to 10 work as expected for an end fed.

Final opinion:
As with every end-fed, this is a compromise antenna. I bought it right after getting my license to get on all bands and I still enjoy that aspect. Working DX on some bands will take some effort, but is feasible. This antenna probably works best for mobile use, because very little time and effort is needed to put it up and have it working.
The customer service is excellent with prompt response and solutions.
K4UX Rating: 2016-08-11
A little known gem of an antenna. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Did some research on this antenna before buying it as I was skeptical that it would really perform. Steve at Alpha responded promptly to my inquiries about the antenna both before and after the sale and patiently discussed the technical aspects of the product with me. So, 5 stars for customer service from this company.

I erected it per the instructions with the balun and feed point at 25' and the bitter end at 55' giving the wire an angle of about 35 degrees. Feeding it with about 45' of a good quality RG-8X coax. This is the Senior model and one observation is that the wire is heavy so there is more sag to the span as opposed to bare or stranded wire typically used in other wire antennas. However, it is a strong jacketed wire and should resist breakage and weathering.

Initially tested all bands, 6-160m, for ability to load and SWR without the use of a transmatch. On all bands except three, the SWR was 2:1 or less and on the other three bands it was 3:1 or less. The autotuner in my rig did little to improve the SWR on most bands; but, when I put my wide range manual tuner in line the antenna easily achieved 1.1:1 on all bands without much tweaking.

The antenna manual clearly indicates the power limitations and at 100 to 200 watts CW there is no problem. I decided to push the envelope to 300w CW and that caused the SWR to start climbing. I suspect the balun gets saturated at higher power so that lesson was learned without frying the coil.

Conditions are pretty poor right now with high noise levels and fast QSB so assessing performance at this time is difficult. Nevertheless I have been able to work CONUS and some DX on 30, 40, and 20m. Will have to wait until conditions improve before I will be able to tell.

A recent move somewhat forced me to explore antenna options to fit the new premises. This antenna seems to be a good alternative.

Bottom line, it is what it is advertised to be and is reasonably priced.
KA5OXA Rating: 2016-06-06
EZ UP & Great Performer Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Received this antenna two days before Museum Ships Week End. Erected to the aft flag halyard of the Battleship USS TEXAS in a few minutes. Radio room on 2nd Deck and began working. We made over 150 contacts mostly 40 and 20 with many 59 plus reports using the 60 foot Senior. It was easy to reorient from WNW to NNE
Steve and the others at Alpha Antenna answered a number of questions in the two days before the contest. I definitely recommend the antenna. It is best to feed it from the upper end. Takes more coax but performance and portability is worth it. Operators were KA5OXA, N5KT & K9GEM
KE4GRP Rating: 2015-07-11
Remarkable1 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Received the Sr. a couple of days ago, and in between rain showers, I was able to get it up.I hung the connector end to a Sun Setter flag pole about 20' up and the other slopping down to a tree about 8' up.

I have a MFJ annalyzer and found that the antenna was under 3:1 on all bands. I have never had antenna that handle all bands at that low swr. Ok, it won't work on 80 meters, I thought. Well I was wrong. It tunes perfectly with the antenna tuner in my SPE 1k FA amp. I keep the power at about 600 watts and the antenna handles it well. The only slight down side is that it doesn't handle full legal limit and I am down about 2 s units on transmit compared with the Carolina Windom that I have on the same pole. That just might be the location of the Sr.

This is a great antenna for the new ham or any ham in a restricted area.

73
K4GRP
KA0VXR Rating: 2015-03-19
Plug & Play 6 to 160 ! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I have used several popular ground mounted verticals , inverted V's , random long wires , homebrue delta-loops . This Alpha Antenna is the cream of the crop at only 34 ft long , I was skeptical of its all band performance & low SWR on all the bands seems like 85% of the swr with out the tuner is around 1.1 to 1.7 . Its kinda nice to be able to talk to every one you hear , some stations cant tell that I was only on 5 watts wen I called or checked in , then I would turn up the wick for the ones with lessor receive ability !
I took my Delta loop down out of the tree & replaced it with the Alpha 34 ft. J-pole antenna , ( not to be confused with Alpha Delta antennas )and or ( not the Alpha Amplifiers ) with the feed point approx 30 to 35 ft above ground sloping to a wooden fence pole to approx 6 to 8ft off the ground , I will have other antennas later for specific Bands , but I will always want this antenna in my arsenal of antennas , watch out field day hear comes the Alpha 34ft. J-pole !!!
PS, I can take it down & back up in less than 5 minuets .

73
De Dave KAØVXR
KA3CBD Rating: 2015-01-05
update Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
just turned radio to 14240.9 pileup for YT1A got through with a 5/9 great antenna

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Earlier 5-star review posted by KA3CBD on 2014-12-10

I have been out of ham radio for a few yrs. about 20 yrs. got the bug again still had my icom 745 in great shape. my antenna blow down in a bad wind storm.saw the alpha on ebay a got one.it is a great antenna every time I turn on the radio and check the bands usually find a good dx station and get honest reports.cant beat the price or performance. thanks again.. KA3CBD
KB3YXS Rating: 2014-12-22
2 years + 48 deployments portable and still going strong. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is followup to review I did in August 2012.
I use two AA 6-160s with great success. One is a spare and has been used to check its performance twice a year. My primary 6-160 Jpole has been used handling continuous packing and deployment for all my fishing and camping trips these last 28 months.
I have never raised it more than 28 ft for a sloper and use it NVIS at 16 feet flat most of the time across old military poles. I fish the Jackson and Maury rivers and a couple lakes along Skyline Drive, Virginia regularly and use the NVIS to radiate from 100ft down in the river gorges. Baluns are holding up just fine. I use this antenna with a W4RT Ultra 100 tuner and 706MKIIG typically at 50 watts. These antennas are keepers.

73s
KB3YXS
La Plata, Md.
KM4EKZ Rating: 2014-12-21
Awesome Antenna Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Having a backyard of only 24'x24', I needed a high quality HF antenna that could provide full performance from 6M to 160M. I am happy to say that this 34' almost invisible antenna gets the job done. I have been able to DX all around the world with great results. Steve at Alpha Antenna provided me expert technical advice to help optimize my sloper configuration. For any new hams looking for a solid, great performing antenna to start out with, look no further. Well built, I look forward to years of solid operation from this antenna.
W1IPS Rating: 2014-12-09
better than advertised Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I bought the Alpha Antenna J-Pole Sr back in April of this year, I used it for about 2 weeks with good results and then something went out of whack.. The swr was going all over the place on all bands. I put my 20 meter end fed back up on the same feed line and that seemed to worked OK. I called Alpha Antenna and explained to Steve what was happening. After a few questions Steve was more than willing to have me send it back for repair. The next day I was having the same problem with the 20 meter end fed.. Needless to say the problem was my feed line..
I now have both the Jr and Sr version of the Alpha Antenna J-Pole. It's amazing how well these antennas work..

Great antenna's with with excellent customer service..
KD7YIB Rating: 2014-09-07
amazing antenna. first dx contact ever after 20 minutes of use Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I live in a hoa and am unable to put a tower or a large permanent antenna. I put the alpha antenna up on fiberglass poles at 20 ft and ran it as a sloper to a tree. Had it up for about 20 minutes and made a local contact on 15m. Then a friend informed me of a Japan contest and tuned to 21.317. Made a call to ja5fdj and he replied right back. Confirmed callsigns twice and exchanged signal reports. I was so happy. This was my first dx contact ever and it was so easy. 6170 miles from a 35 ft wire antenna that I put up in 3 minutes. I could hear stations in the Caribbean islands and south America very well on 10m this morning. I'm excited to use this antenna and make some contacts! Thank you Alpha Antenna!!