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Reviews For: TRX 80

Category: Antennas: HF Portable (not mobile)

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Review Summary For : TRX 80
Reviews: 4MSRP: 117.00
Description:
Portable 6 thru 80 meter antenna
Product is in production
More Info: http://danielchristopher14@yahoo.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0043.8
KK6IYM Rating: 2014-03-10
Works well Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The antenna is not over-priced. I use it when I camp and it functions on all the bands. I mount it about four feet up and add a set of 8 10' radials slanting down to metal tent stakes. I would recommend using a antenna analyzer to set the right spot for the slider on the coil as it can be tricky. I had SWR readings in the high 1's and low 2's for all bands. I use a Yaesu FT 897d and have made contacts all over the US and heard stations from Germany, Spain, and Italy.

73

KK6IYM
KB7BS Rating: 2012-08-16
Good Idea, But........... Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
When purchased it was slated to be a mobile/portable. It is, however mobile operation is marginal at best. The sliding sleeve approach for tuning ia a novel idea. It easily tunes as suggested however when running mobile the vibration of the road it very easily comes out of tune. I know of two others in the area and all havecthe same problem. The coil is small 1 3/8" in diamter and windings are close spaced on PVC. al this leads to a low Q and low efficiency. It does work and I have made a lot of contacts with it. I used it on 75m mobile to talk to a group while going to work.

A test was conducted with a friend of three mobile configurations I had experimented with. All were exactly the same except for the coil. Receive antenna was 1/2 wave dipole at 75' and receiver an HP 3886A Selective Level Meter. Frequency was 3.86 MHz and distance about 40 miles. Two tests were done, one at 400 Hz and another at 20 Hz. My open 3" coil was -94 & -86 dbm. The TRX-80 came in at -95 & -89 dbm respectively. Totally scientific, no. But close enough to get a good idea of theie performance.

Bottom line do what I did, buy a Texas Bug Cathher. I installed it without telling anyone. The guys thought I was running power.

73
Larry

&
KC7HAJ Rating: 2012-02-04
Very good unit Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I would give this 4.5 out of 5 if I could. I have had the unit for about a year and finally had a chance to use it over the Christmas holiday in 2011. I traveled to South West AZ and setup the antenna on a camera tripod in the back yard and fed it with an FT-897. I did have a Kenwood AT-130 in line mostly to check SWR and for most bands it was set to “Through”. During the day I worked some 10M, 17M and 20M stations and at night it did better than I expected on 75M. I would recommend learning to setup, tune and use this when the weather is nice where ideally you can even have the radio outside to make the adjustment a bit quicker. I think it is a great setup to take on vacations as it packs down very very small and could even say fit in a Pelican case with the radio depending on the radio and case sizes. On report on 17M was from Idaho and they could not believe I was using a portable vertical antenna in South West AZ. If you were going to leave this up for semi permanent use I would consider some mono filament line to stabilize the top some but the wind load is next to zero. For the money you get an antenna that works very well and packs up small.
N9AJR Rating: 2011-09-10
beyond expectations Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
my portable station: yaesu ft-817-gel cells in ammo box-tri mag mount with TRX 80 on 4 ft mast
and included brass stinger.made contacts on 17,20 and 40 meter.mag mount was on dodge flat bed p/u (stationary only). 5 watts used on all contacts.contacts were made on 40 meter and 20 meter as well set up on canera tripod and counterpoise.i would recommend this antenna to anyone QRP to 100 watts.i will probably purchase another coil.

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Earlier 4-star review posted by N9AJR on 2011-09-09

good product.I have only tested for tuning and receive capability for about 30 minutes of use.works great so far.i am using with yaesu ft-817.i will send an additional review after more time on the air.
James N9AJR