[TowerTalk] Poor eHam reviews of the AV 480

[Roger (K8RI) on TT]

On 4/10/2014 7:24 PM, Mickey Baker wrote:
> Folks, there are ONLY THREE eham reviews for this antenna. If there were 10
> bad reviews from 10 different hams, I'd suspect the worse, but 3?  The
> AV640 is a similar antenna (doesn't cover 80m) and has 64 reviews and a 4.2
> rating.
>
> I browsed the manual and it seems to be a fairly complicated assembly, with
> "capacity hats" for 3 bands. I can see where something can go wrong, but I
> would never make a judgement on a product that only had 3 reviews, based on
> those reviews alone.

Done in order and shortening only one wire of the hat makes the AV640 
easy to adjust as does adjusting the stubs.  I don't think I've found a 
multi band antenna that was easier to adjust.


73

Roger (K8RI)

>
> 73,
>
> Mickey N4MB
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 7:09 PM, David Gilbert <xdavid at cis-broadband.com>wrote:
>
>> It's actually the AV-680, and all three eHam reviews describe major
>> quality issues.
>>
>> http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/10961
>>
>> Two reviewers accordingly gave the antenna a poor grade..  The third
>> reviewer gave it a good mark because the dealer provided good followup
>> service although he had no other antenna to compare it against and fell
>> back on the invalid "if I can hear it I can work it" endorsement regarding
>> actual performance.
>>
>> The only conclusion that can be made here is that three users had
>> out-of-the-box quality problems and that none of them were able to
>> objectively comment on the performance of the antenna.  Without searching
>> for other reviews nobody would know if the quality issues are typical or
>> not since, as someone else here pointed out, people are much more likely to
>> take to the forums to air a grievance than express satisfaction.
>>
>> 73,
>> Dave   AB7E
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 4/9/2014 5:47 PM, john at iguanavilla.com wrote:
>>
>>> I was curious what this antenna is and google cannot seem to find it.  Are
>>> the poor reviews quality related or regarding performance?
>>>
>>> John KK9A
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> To:      <towertalk at contesting.com>
>>> Subject:         [TowerTalk] Poor eHam reviews of the AV 480
>>> From:    "David Thompson" <thompson at mindspring.com>
>>> Reply-to:        David Thompson <thompson at mindspring.com>
>>> Date:    Wed, 9 Apr 2014 19:19:46 -0400
>>> List-post:       <towertalk at contesting.com">mailto:towertalk at contesting.
>>> com>
>>> I tried to convince Ray W5EW to replace his 6BTV vertical with a Hy-Gain
>>> AV-480 but the reviews on eHam were so bad he has decided not to spend the
>>> money. The 6BTV has 30 radials and does well in the RTTY Contests he
>>> enters
>>> running low power.
>>>
>>> How do we over ride the poor reviews from hams who probably have no idea
>>> of
>>> how to set up a vertical?
>>>
>>> 73 Dave K4JRB
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>