Raibeam Antennas

"...only 2 elements and it beat my Log-periodic on DX by 3 to 4 S-units... unbelievable" ...W5CKP

"...I was very surprised with the outstanding performance of my 2 element Raibeam ...W6TVW don@dss.reno.nv.us

"...compared to the Raibeam my KT-34 seems like a dummy load" ...ZL1SB sapich.s@ihug.co.nz

"...it's the best antenna I've ever used in my 50 years of Ham Radio... and the F/B ratio is outstanding" ...WT4K/KH6

"I think it's the best mechanically built antenna on the market and the performance is outstanding. In line-of-site tests, the RX/TX of my 4 el. 10m Raibeam is up to 4 S-units stronger than my 5 el. Cushcraft and it receives less noise" ...KB8YUX hdharmon@access.mountain.net

"During the (1998 VHF/UHF) contest we worked 255 QSO's in 120 Grids on 6-meters... About 100 stations were TROPO to California and Oregon, and Southern Nevada (Las Vegas). About 125 stations were E Skip on Saturday during the first 4 hours of the contest. The rest of the 30 contacts were the most fascinating because I can only explain it like this:

I would point the antenna to Calgary, Canada. The band is definitely not, I repeat not, open for skip. I would call "CQ Contest". After several calls, a faint partial call sign would come back to me, either part of my call, or part of someone calling me. I would respond with callsign and grid (N7LQ DN01). The station at the other end seemed to have no problem with my 1500 watts and impressive ERP. What was unusual was the way I had to almost coerce the operator at the other end to repeat his call and grid square enough times to catch only a burst of the information each transmission, sometimes taking 5 minutes to complete a contact. It gave the appearance of him hearing me by "scatter" and me hearing him off of "meteors" with the likelyhood he was at lower power.

The stations would be in Canada, usually 800 to 1500 miles away. Some very rare grids for us and definitely not in the direction of any prevailing E Skip during the contest. The contact would be exactly in line with the antenna azimuth! I would move the antenna 3 degrees to the side and repeat the scenario. Quite a rush I might say.

In conclusion, for only a small E Skip window during the contest, we managed to work more 6-meter stations than in any of the past 7 years from the same site. The antenna has always been mounted in the same location. We have only had 1500 watts for the 1997 & 1996 contest, but have never experienced scatter like this. My choice would be to use the Raibeam (RB-506) again next year." 73's...Dave/K7UI From FOX MOUNTAIN/DN01 davemetts-k7ui@worldnet.att.net