I replaced my ladderline-fed doublet with the DX-LB Plus this spring. I made no attempt to “tune” it for any band, and you can tell. I need to use a tuner nearly everywhere, although 40m was good enough out of the box that I can get by without a tuner on that band.

It seems to me that on 80m this doesn’t perform as well as the 110+ ft doublet I was using prior. Then again, it could be that I just haven’t used it enough to make a clear statement on that. There has been so much activity on the other bands that I have nearly forsaken 80m so far this summer. Last year 80m was the best band for me with the doublet in stateside contests / QSO parties. This year the sunspot activity has caused a lot of the activity to move up to the higher bands, and so I just wasn’t as much activity in the contests on 80m . So the antenna was probably doing fine on 80m.

On 40m it works better than the doublet did. It has to be because it has a different pattern. I really enjoy working 40m.

An internal radio tuner will tune anywhere on 40/20/15/10. Need external wide-range tuner to tune all around 80m. WB2WIK says he uses one on 160m and can tune anywhere he wants with a wide-range tuner — his antenna is higher off the ground and away from obstacles. I can tune anywhere on 80m with a wide range tuner. On 160m, I have only managed to tune one sweet spot at about 1812. As you can guess, the bandwidth is extremely narrow on 160m.

I’m sure that in the favored directions (broadside) it works better on 40-10m than the doublet would, simply because it would have a more predictable pattern.

To be honest, the antenna is just too close to the house and too close to the ground for me to give you a worthy review of it. Apex @37 feet, ends at about 4′ off the ground. And the antenna is parallel to the back of the house and about 12′ away from the house. This is far from optimum for this antenna.

I am confident it would be a completely different beast if it were at least another 20 feet away from the house, if the ends were at least another 10 feet off the ground, and certainly would be better at snagging DX if it were a flattop and/or if it were up around 66′ in the air. Then it’d have gain broadside to the antenna on 40-10m.

On 80m and 160m it’s shortened, so it’ll never perform like a full length dipole on those bands, and on those bands it’d really require that it were even higher than 66′ feet if you wanted to try any DX with it.

It is what it is. It’s no miracle antenna. It’s heavy with all of the coils. I’m quite certain if you could get the whole antenna up in the air at a decent height it would work pretty well as far as dipoles go.

If you can get this antenna [or some other antenna] up higher, in the clear, away from the ground and away from a house, I’m sure it woudl do better on 160m. It hears pretty nicely stateside on 160m — better than the 110′ doublet did.

There are guys who have an LB-Plus up and say it works great for more localized 160m statesidde activity, and they don’t have a problem tuning it. The difference is that they have the antenna up 20-30 feet higher in the air than I do or at least have the ends significantly higher off the ground than I do. I can’t remember the exact height figure, but I think the ends really need to be up off the ground at least 16′ for it to work well and tune easier. And it needs to be away from large obstructions [like a house].

$200 bucks is a lot of money. One thing I can say for certain is that the AD dipoles don’t fall apart. They are made extremely well and can withstand some real torture. I’ve had a DX-EE up for a couple years with the weight of LMR-400 pulling straight down on the center of it and nothing has ever broken and the DX-EE as it should for a dipole. The wire used in the AD dipoles is much easier to wrok with too.

Mike

Any updates?

73,

GJ

There are ramifications for doing that. If I weren’t affiliated with any club I’d do it in a heartbeat. But, as I do belong to a club, anything I say can reflect poorly on the club regardless of how factual it might be. I’ll just leave it as a rant.

I work the man in question during all the big contests. He’s a seasoned contester, having been active in various multiops over the years according to his site. As his site isn’t up to date with the contests he has worked in, I have no clue if I worked him while he was in a multiop effort. He’s always an SO variant when I work him in a contest.

Just seems to me that I’d probably generate more grief for myself than anything else if I were to “out” him. Some would say I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. It’d also be a he-said / she-said thing. It’s not worth it for me. Plus, I worked him for a Q and a new mult, after I had witnessed his previous behavior. What does that say about me? :)

It did cross my mind after the contest was over that perhaps the guys he was working were friends of his and they were just having some fun, but it would seem unlikely that one would work two people in a matter of five minutes and that only he would exchange “pleasantries” like those :) Everybody has their bad days, but I have never seen that activity in a contest before. Of course, I’m pretty new at the game.

I can’t help but to hold those winning contest ops to higher standards. I think that’s how it should be. It’s not just about what you can do — it’s how you behave when you do it.

Mike

It’s certainly not how any of the top contesters I admire ever behave.

David – K2DSL

For sure I wasn’t happy with myself. It’s definitely one of those moments I’ll be glad to forget and hope not to repeat. Thanks for stopping by!

Hope to work you in the ARRL Sweepstakes this month!

73,

Mike