On the X6100 mailing list, someone at Radioddity posted this message:
We are excited to share that we are exploring the possibility of introducing a portable HF antenna for our customers. In our research, we came across a highly portable antenna that caught our attention. We would love to hear your thoughts on it.
Have any of you had the opportunity to use this type of antenna before? Would you consider purchasing one at the listed price? Here is the antenna we found:
https://www.tecsunradios.com.au/store/product/hf-amateur-radio-dipole/
We greatly value your feedback and suggestions. Thank you in advance for your time and input.
The antenna costs $185 AUD, which translates to about $120 USD.
While this product appears to be a perfectly good antenna, and it may be convenient for someone new to the hobby to simply purchase it, there are several good reasons (in my humble opinion) for not paying for an antenna like this and building your own:
- You could easily make this antenna yourself for half that. It would cost even less if you already have a 1:1 balun (or build your own.) And, not only would you save money by doing it yourself, you’d learn a fair bit about antennas in the process.
- It’s designed to be a resonant antenna. To change bands, you have to lengthen or shorten the elements. That could be very cumbersome out in the field.
- I don’t like the RG-58 coax. If you’re only going to be operating 40 meters and 20 meters, it’s not that big a deal, but on 6 meters, your coax loss could be as high as 25%.
My experience has shown me that a non-resonant doublet, like my POTA Antenna, rev B, is a better solution, at least for me, for portable operations:
- It’s inexpensive.
- I don’t have to futz around with element lengths so I can set it up quickly.
- It uses twisted pair wire for the feed line, which is very light.
- I can change bands by simply hitting the ATU TUNE button on my radio.
Instead of offering this antenna, I would suggest that Radioddity develop a simpler doublet antenna kit that’s designed to be used with the internal antenna tuner of the Xiegu radios. It would cost less and probably work better than this antenna.