I have been using one of these (an early version) for about 15 years now and never had a problem with it. Build quality very good and quite a bit quieter than other antennas I have used.
Around 1976, I got home from work to hear aurora on 10 metres! Had a A contact with a local on ssb. We both had 2 ele quads and beamed North. We were 5 miles apart! G4BTI.
So basically, it is a shortened dipole fed with a 4:1 transformer. It would be interesting to see a longer version, or one with a remote ATU in the middle. Good low noise result, probably less efficient but you can fix that with an amplifier.
I built my own a few years ago, cost me about £50 in total. I used a 1::1 balun in center and it worked very well. I mounted mine vertically with a line isolater at the base to stop feedline radiation.
Signal strength isn’t always important, but the SNR makes it possible to hear them, as shown in the video. It’s not a Yagi, but for 20m and up it out performs my EFHW for sure. Cheers
Nice build and video. A bit of opinion… you might want to add some kind of thread lock liquid, lock washers, or even a coil spring on the the fasteners especially those affixing the elements. With the constant movement and thermal cycling, those fasteners will come loose and an element could skewer someone. Be safe.
Merci pour votre vidéo / présentation Antenne testée au QRA. Mais ma déception est grande Cette antenne nécessitant un ATU cela fait que l'on accord l'antenne + le coaxial + le balun + le dipôle capacitif ! Donc des pertes, le câble coaxial qui fait parti intégrante de l'antenne et rayonne [ il suffit de promener un Deep Mètre le long du feeder pour s'en rendre compte]. Une attaque du dipôle avec une ligne bi filaire serait plus appropriée en 450 Ohm par exemple, permettant de supprimer le transformateur d'impédance. Son avantage est qu'elle est un bon compromis lorsque la place manque et la recherche de discrétion. Le rapport qualité prix est très élevé, de plus avec le Brexit des frais de douanes s'applique désormais (+77 Euros pour moi payé a DHL ! ). Personnellement j'invite les OM et surtout les SWL a construire eux mêmes leur propre Dual Beam Pro Merci encore, Best regards Sir, 73's
That's why I used a remote tuner a few meters away from the feed point of the antenna, meaning less loss, less coax radiating etc. Cheers (PS, I dont speak or read french, but google translate did) :-)
I do not like the phrase in the Specification: "This antenna requires an ATU to minimise the reflected power". You will still have reflected power (and corresponding losses) on the feedline but with the ATU just keep the transmitter happy. The only way an ATU can minimise reflected power is when placed at the feedpoint.
That’s a pretty neat antenna! I like how it drops the noise floor without dropping the radio signal. I book marked the website. Anyways, another great video as usual. Thanks! De n5vwn
I understand it is a non-resonant antenna in all the bands it supports, but how non resonant? I couldn't find any info on the actual SWR figures. Most modern radios with an internal tuner cannot cope with anything over 1:2.5 (1:3 best case), so this information is very relevant for potential buyers.
@@TechMindsOfficial OK, now found it. Seems, for people only equipped with an internal tuner, this antenna is only usable between 10-17 meters. At 40m, with a SWR of 1:21, I don't think it is usable at all with any kind of tuner.
I tested with a CHA URT1 about 5 meters from the feed point and that tuned it on all bands fine. I also tested with an ATU-100M Pro in the shack separately, and if I remember that had trouble on 40m. So a decent tuner is defo required for 40m. I would only ever use 40 on the DBP if I had nothing else to use, otherwise a wire antenna for 40m is way better. Cheers
That noise floor comparison is really nice and it seems to work very well. I will finally be able to use my radio's in anger in September when I move to my place in Italy with the mrs and looking at options for antenna and new home base. 73 de G0LQP
Basically then it is a not a beam, it is only a single element , a rotatable dipole and the capacitance hats on the end make up for the lack of element length
@@BusDriverRFI Dual beam implies to me it has 2 elements , the gain is not over a dipole but DBI the mysterious isotropic source that gives highly inflated readings
@@paulsengupta971 I have always felt that a dipole should be the starting point/unity for any gain figures. If this is a shortened dipole how can it have more gain than a dipole ??
@@dave10524 2.15dBi is gain of a dipole in free space, over ground, good ground, you get gain from the ground image created. You can get up to 6dB gain from this at 20-30 degrees elevation, so a standard halfwave dipole could measure as much as 8.15 dBi in a real world installation.
I am amazed you get HF in the house. I find , even with an external antenna, it is very noisy and I cannot hear much! Outside with a telescopic whip or long wire, works fine though.
Cool antenna, I'm having to downsize house so it'll stay just a dream haha but I was just wondering: 9:19 above the ".03" you have a sign like wifi, what's that? I have this radio forever I've never seen that sign lol
I use a Commet H422 trapped rotary dipole. Its a good antenna but after a winter of storms the traps can take a battering so i was always wondering about the Dual Beam but as a heavy 40 meter user i would be wondering about its performance on 40. Very interesting video..
I had one some years back and although it did tune on 40m performance was marginal at best. For 20m and up it did perform quite well. I bought mine without the balun and fed it with 450ohm back to my own 4:1 balun at the shack and a manual tuner, basically it performed like a short rotatable doublet more suited to the higher bands.
Is it a horizontally polarised antenna ? (di-pole type). If only I could persuade the wife and neighbours as noise floor is the bane of my HF life. 73 M7BLC.
@@johnratcliffe6438 that is true, however you won't fix the issue without knowing what it is. You can minimize the noise by different methods depending on what the noise issue is. If you know what it is, at least you will have a piece of mind as to what you are up against and work towards making things better knowing what you know. I have had a lot of trouble with power line noises in the past. 10 over S9. Then you have to deal with the power company. It helps to find the insulator issues. It could be LEDs or wall wart power supplies. It could be an April Air humidifier. If you have an uncooperative causing noise, try moving the antenna away from there. Without knowing, you can't really begin to solve it.
A circular azimuthal map with you at the centre is easiest of all. The map he used certainly didn't look like an azimuthal equal-area projection, but maybe it was more or less azimuthal.
Didn't see any SWR curves. You sound like using 2 tuners getting some signal where there is never a proper resonance. Typical for a G5RV graduate where bandwidth is not really defined. Cheap in materials and good in crowded areas where dx is just what is over a mile.
Yes I agree it should be named more appropriately inline with what it is. It could be a trap for those less technically inclined thinking they are buying a beam.
Hi Mat, I stumbled on this video because I'm looking for a solution to put on a 10 meter mast. Watching your video the Dual Band Pro performs quiet well and compared to your end fed wire the signals are evenly strong but with the noise drop so far all stations become much more clearer to receive ! Did you test this antenna on 30 and 40 meters as I would like to know if this antenna is any good compared to a longer wire antenna at almost the same height. And when turning the antenna away from a station how much drop of signal you noticed ? So you tuned the antenna with the Chameleon tuner, that ofcourse is a good way to go because you can place the tuner close to the matching unit. Great video. Also price is ok. I'm gonna look further into this model. They also have the I-PRO Home but thats a vertical dipole. It's almost the same design but in a vertical position. I know these antennas since I once had the I-Pro traveller and this smaller version was performing well. The big advantage to me is not have to concern about radials. Cheers ON4VP Phil.
A current 4:1 balun would be better in my opinion, it would be better to feed the antenna with 300 or 450 Ohm twinlead straight into a symmetrical tuner. I find the antenna quite high priced ± 350€. For 350€ you buy a lot of aluminum tubes and brackets and make yourself maybe 2 or 3 antennas
I bought the same antenna I tell you the truth compare with a cobweb I saw the sun finally . Great report from 20 mt to 6 mt and I manage to great dx in ssb . I’m using the same rotator not problems at all . 73 de 2e0bjl
@@stephengrey8512 hi mate , well I had the cobweb for 4 years always struggling to do great dx in ssb but now yes !!! another thing the cobweb are great in 20,17,15 mt but not in 15,10 and 6 mt and quite hard to tune as well . Anyway with this antenna I can see a great reports in all the bands in ssb and digital .
I think the conductivity of the braided wire connection will degrade over time due to being outside in the elements.Will that be a concern in the near future?
