I have a Gap Titan. As the other people indicate it is not as good as a whole variety of other antennas. It is only good for 80 and up. I find that it works fairly well on 40 and 20M. Do I get stomped on in a pile-up - yes I do. Will I eventually make the contact - probably. At times my dipole on 40M does better, at other times it is the Gap Titan. However, I didn't buy this antenna to be the top of the pileup. I bought it to be maintenance free and a low hassle installation. It has been up for 10 years, and it has satisfied the goal of having an antenna in the air with very little maintenance. I make contacts when I want - I just wont be the first one to work the rare DX in a pileup.
Scott aka kb0fhp -----Original Message----- From: Topband [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of DGB Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 6:27 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Topband: GAP VERTICAL QUESTION K7LXC book review was with the Titan. It was a poor performer against the Challenger, much less my other antennas IMHO of my testing between the two, Junk! de ns9i On 12/11/2012 5:13 PM, Tom W8JI wrote: >> >> So my question is.... does anyone have actual experience with these >> antennas (especially the voyager) as compared to other antennas for a >> specific frequency. Now guys .. I know you cant really compare a 6 >> element beam to a vertical of this kind but I am talking about a >> comparison that is realistic.. like how does it hear, tune, match & >> get out compared to something like another vertical or a dipole up >> some reasonable distance. >> > > Jim, > > Years ago someone purchased and had me measure a GAP vertical. The Gap > was terrible on 160 and 80 meters. It was OK on most other bands. On > 160 meters, although I have a pretty good mobile antenna, I had about > the same field strength from my mobile antenna. The Gap was down about > 10 dB from a 1/4 wave on 80 meters, as I recall. My mobile antenna is > about 20 dB down from my 1/4 wave 160 meter vertical. > > The ARRL reviewed one Gap vertical in an on-the-air A-B test, and a > small ground mounted trap vertical was equal or better. I'm sure you > can search ARRL reviews and find this review. > > Also, the HF Verticals test by K7LXC and Ward Silver compared many > verticals, and had about the same results on 80 meters as I found and > the ARRL found. > > All of these completely independent tests were A-B tests against other > reference verticals, and all pretty much agreed with each other. > > This doesn't mean you can't work DX with a Gap, because I can work VK, > JA, and Europe on 160 with my mobile antenna. I've worked several > Europeans on 160 SSB while driving down the highway. I can, at times, > even beat others in pileups from the mobile on 80 meters. Obviously if > the Gap is as good as a better mobile antenna, you can probably work a > lot of DX with it. > > 73 Tom > _______________________________________________ > Topband reflector - [email protected] > _______________________________________________ Topband reflector - [email protected] _______________________________________________ Topband reflector - [email protected]
