HF Manpack Collapsible 7 Element Whip Antenna 285 CM Length

I ordered the 285cm version; 9.3ish feet, and it tunes up perfectly on 12meters, as expected. (Helpful hint for any brand-new hams who haven't done this: tune for *resonance* (x=0) first, tune the antenna physically if you can, and only then tune the SWR if needed. Works great!) This antenna is not resonant (of course) on 15 and 10 meters (10 is close), but the internal tuner on my G90 tunes this antenna up very nicely for SWR. (Not as good as resonant + good SWR, remember) The 3/8x24 mount is ideal for many portable/mobile/lightweight/etc antennas and I think it's a good choice for this one. Oh, and there were comments from others about not getting good contact between sections, or bits of plastic, or such. Mine had no such problems, straight out of the tube. Remembering that this is a light-duty sort of antenna--great for portable/temporary use--it's quite nice. Works exactly as a quarterwave vertical for 12 meters should (with radials) and exactly as well as it should on 15m and (better) 10m. I won't know the price in the future but the price when I got mine was quite reasonable. I'm very pleased with this antenna. 73 de AC4RD (Ken.)

It got me contacts across the country on the 10m band. You’ll need this antenna and a balun- the CHA Hybrid Micro is good, or a knockoff. (This antenna is actually a knockoff of a CHA antenna. My whole setup is an eclectic combination of CHA products and obvious knockoffs of CHA products.) Of course you will need a feed line (male to male UHF connectors on RG-58 or better coax) and a counterpoise (long wire hugging the ground) to complete your setup. If you don’t need the collapsibility, consider a simple telescoping 18’ stainless steel antenna. Chinese examples are available all over the web at ~$20. One advantage this collapsible does have over the stainless steel antennae is that it’s threaded for 3/8-24. The stainless steel ones are threaded (as they specify) to a metric standard that needs an adapter to interface with your balun.

Was hoping to use this for portable ham HF, and with small a coil it will do 40, 20, 17 and 15 meters well. I run a Wolf River Cools "SOTA Special" antenna setup which comes with a 77” telescoping element, and I prefer that one over this one. Thought I'd give this a shot because I was curious, and I know everyone’s setups vary, but for me there’s no advantage to a ~3' longer antenna. It's actually less versatile than what I already had. I can do a lot with this antenna, sure, but I can do MORE with the shorter one that came with the Wolf River package, like 6M if I collapse it a little, and the shorter antenna is easier to deal with, so it makes more sense to carry that. I don't know how people are able to get this to resonate on 20m on its own with no coil. I put the NanoVNA on it and it has a nice dip (but not even that close to 1:1) at about 27mhz, nowhere else. Durable antenna though - looks to be the same as what you get with the Chameleon MPAS, and it’ll at least work as a CB antenna with no coil.

Works awesome on 10m band for sure. I was portable and made contact from my location in Hawaii into Texas the first time I used it. Guess that's about as good as you can ask for!

First impressions: Seems to be fairly well made. Set up is easier than take down nice tight cords Like others have said the dab of glue was difficult to work through. Needed to clean up the threads to get it to sit flush. Not a big deal. Had plastic sleves and one piece of heat shrink tubing, maybe for permanent set up. I removed them. Set up in my back yard with a KB9VBR magic carpet style ground plain. 20 was below 1.5 across the entire band with 40 being below 2. 40 was more narrow but still no problem. I will update this review with other bands and field experience. Antenna is much heavier than previous whip from WRC. this may make the coil more likely to tip over. Due to the length 10m may not work with this set up. Unknown if collapsing a section and using attched velcro to secure will give 10m. Looks like they also make a 6 section version maybe more appropriate for higher bands Update - awesome antenna, 1st POTA activation with it and 60+ contacts in under 1hr. A bunch of DX stations as well. Only used on 20m will update with other bands in the future. Great replacment for WRC 102" whip 40 and 15 work very well, has held up well for about 10 activations so far. Will be purchasing the 6 element as well

I really wanted to like this antenna. However, there were continuity issues between some of the sections which affected overall SWR. Also, as one other reviewer mentioned, there I had difficulty screwing the antenna into the mount due to some sort of polymer coating on the 3/8 by 24 stud.

This is a product virtually inspired by the collapsible military whip sold by Chameleon in dimensions and style for a fraction of the cost. I like it and it seems to function well as a replacement whip for my Wolf River Coil TIA mini. Alone, this is resonate on 17M. Using it with the coil gives you a very flat SWR curve for 20M as well. On 40M, it begins to narrow its bandwidth but manageable. To weatherproof it, I would suggest adding dielectric grease to ensure it works properly at the joints in wet weather. It came with fitted clear plastic sleeves for each joint but I am not positive that they are shrink tube. Since I plan to use this for portable HF, I will not be heat shrinking it. Regarding a previous review, there is a place in the 3/8-24 thread with a dot of plastic/glue. I believe that it is designed to help keep the antenna from spinning loose in the wind, as mine was flush and did not impede mounting/unmounting. As a bonus, being camo green makes it easier to hide in plain sight and to make it harder to get photos of by your HOA. ;)