I have not heard of Greyline until now, the listed specs for their 12'
antenna are incredible:
Strong, Smart, Elegant design. "Pretty" premium aluminum, No messy stubs,
coils, etc.
Premium-only, Made in the USA. Double-dipped, double-walled tubing &
stainless steel parts.
160-6M with extremely good SWR, the worst listed is 1.9:1 at 29.6MHz
80-100 MPH wind rating
>90% and better efficiency across all bands
Lower Angles than ground-mounted verticals requiring 100+ radials
Lower Noise too reported widely
The F12 Sigma verticals look to be a very good design for a shortened
antenna, too bad that they are QRT. I have a multi band Sigma vertical that
requires a physical band change at the antenna but I have never tried this
antenna yet. The Force12's horizontal tubing would probably not be
acceptable to his XYL just as the dipole was not. A loaded 80m freestanding
vertical with ground radials would probably be the least offensive and it
would work quite well however ground radials were also not allowed by the
bride.
John KK9A
Kim Elmore N5OP wrote:
I have a F12 Sigma 80 antenna, which is an OCF vertical dipole with
inductive loading at the feed point and a hairpin match. While it
*requires* a common-mode choke at the feed point, it works very well for
DX. On stateside contacts, I think its radiation angle is too low and
performance for anything within about 400 mi is much worse than for my
inverted V with (apex at 40 ft). On DX, though, it does MUCH better than
the inverted V. I have no radials beneath this antenna.
I know a friend is buying a Greyline antenna for his QTH. They initially
look a bit pricey, but I've not actually seen one, so I don't what the
build quality is truly like. Assuming it's build quality is pretty good,
and assuming it has a good CM choke, there's no reason why it shouldn't
perform relatively well given the constraints. Certainly better than no
antenna at all!
Kim N5OP
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