A few weeks back I caught a nice band opening on 6 meters, and actually loaded up my G5RV and worked a couple of guys in Mississippi and Florida. Then I ended up switching over to my Diamond V2000A vertical for 6m/2m/70cm. Well that antenna is only resonant from 52-54 so I had to use the tuner. Of course, most of the weak signal SSB activity is horizontal, so I set out to look for a decent and easy horizontal antenna to use. Here is my review on my new loop. So first I must say – this antenna is made by one of my favorite antenna manufacturers, Par Electronics. Please take a hard look at the stuff they sell – the service by Dale, W4OP is phenomenal. Having had both email and telephone support discussions, I can say that you won’t find that with the big guys. Plus he is semi-local, being in Western North Carolina. I am also a big fan of his end fed dipole antennas – since it’s just so nice being able to feed your antenna at the end with 50 ohm coax. Between Neil and myself, we own 5 of those antennas.
Back to the OA-50. I installed and tuned it by myself in an afternoon on at the 20-25 ft level on the mast that is on the back of my house using LMR-400. Mounting hardware was included. The antenna is basically 4x4x3 feet and is constructed out of a rigid boom, and semi-flexible aircraft aluminum style tubing that you join together. Tuning is as simple as moving the two aluminum elements back and forth. The recommendation is to actually tune the antenna a little higher than the operating frequency because wet and foggy weather can cause the resonant freq to vary slightly. He explains it well in the FAQ online and the literature with the antenna. Using the antenna analyzer made it very easy to setup. This antenna is also easy to adapt to portable or even mobile operation – I’ve work a guy in St Louis using it mobile on his truck.
When I got this antenna up, I was right in the middle of a band opening. Beacons from the FL, MS, IN and IL were audible, and there were guys on SSB and CW. I wrapped up the install as quick as possible, and immediately started working guys. Reports ranged from 5×3 to 5×9++ from some guys, and the same applied to incoming signal strengths. A couple of quick comparisons between the vertical and the loop revealed that signals were close, but a tad bit stronger on the loop, and the loop seemed to pull in less static and noise. Of course, no need to use the tuner on the loop. It made sense that signals were stronger since most of the guys were using horizontal antennas anyway.
So my overall assessment of the antenna is – easy to put together and tune, reasonable performance given what the antenna is and great for portable operations with a decent price of around $79. I will continue to assess the comparison on the vertical, but it certainly seems to outperform it in the first week or so of testing – even though it is higher and fed with hardline! The Diamond antenna literature does make mention that it tends to have a directional pattern on 6m due to it’s design. A true omni certainly meets my needs better.
I’ve got some additional pics of the install so please take a look. Looking forward to working lots more stuff with it this summer. I liked it so much that I bought a second one just for portable ops when time permits.
