By Dave Jensen, W7DGJ

Hams love to argue about antennas. Does it ever seem to you that the antenna is closely tied to our emotions and "radio ego"? While I have indeed run into brand zealots ("ICOM vs. Yaesu" or vice versa) that bothers me a lot less than when someone comes out and disses my choice of antenna. I've learned that you don't brag on your antenna too much or you'll get nailed!

I thought that it would be interesting to put a vertical up to the challenge against a dipole. After all, both are common and everyone who has ever installed a dipole or vertical will tell you that it has great bang-for-the-buck. Of course, neither will perform like a tower and multi-element beam . . . but they are the choice of thousands because they take up little space and are affordable. Of course, the wire antenna (the "mother antenna" of them all) is the least expensive if you cut it to work on one band. A more exotic dipole can be about the same cost as that vertical if you go for multi-bands and balun/chokes.

Judging by their eHam reviews, I am comparing two very popular antennas in this article. For the vertical antenna, I chose the Xiegu VG4, a four-band antenna (10m-15m-20m-40m) requiring no additional radials. While verticals go up nice and easy, the addition of 20 or more wires on the ground (some have as many as 60 radials) makes it more of a chore and cranks up the price when you consider today's cost of wire. Where I live (Arizona) the ground is unforgiving. Digging is no pleasure when the ground is hard like concrete! Plus, we have the "critter factor" . . . if I decided to just lay the wire down on the ground, it would only be days for it to be nibbled to death.

For the dipole, I chose a multiband OCF dipole produced by Buckmaster. It was reviewed in this column in the past, and in fact this is the dipole that initially got me into about a dozen squabbles after the piece was published. I found there are people who object to ANY plug-and-play antenna, as well as those who just don't like the OCF design with the potential "feedline as a radiating element." If you add in the gripers who don't like it that someone sells a wire antenna at close to $400, you'll understand why there's a lot of resistance to the Buckmaster. But the user experiences make this a good choice for my article. Like the design or not, it's a good antenna that should compete nicely with the vertical.

The Xiegu VG4

The Xiegu is also rated very highly on the eHam website. I have mixed feelings about the experiences I've had with Chinese-made ham products, starting with my first Baofeng. The Xiegu G90, a small HF transceiver that has quite a following, convinced me that Chinese manufacturers could make a good product if they wanted. I assumed that an antenna from the same manufacturer would be a good bet, and while there were a few gripes mixed into the generally positive reviews for the VG4, it did look like a design that would work for my shack. 

As I said, there are "no radials required." It was under $300 from Radioddity and I am sure there are other vendors, but I've had good experiences with the customer service from Radioddity and didn't look any further. (There are often bundle specials offered for this antenna on the Radioddity website.)

The product arrived quickly, shipped from the USA in a sturdy container that can be sent by UPS. All of the required parts were in the box, which differs from the "Oops, missing stuff!" issue that happens so often with some suppliers. In fact, even the tools needed to build the antenna were in the box. The build quality on this antenna is terrific, and I have no concerns about durability in our tough Arizona climate. I do wish, however, that Xiegu and other antenna manufacturers would avoid the use of black matchboxes. A white enclosure would be so preferable when it is 112 degrees in the shade. (One black matchbox I had for review from another manufacturer literally melted).

I found the instructions for assembly to be almost completely unusable until I was told about an update available on the Radioddity website. Luckily it goes together quickly -- each part is numbered to make your job easier. Rick Lawn (W2JAZ) recently reviewed the VG4 for QST and I must thank him for his help on the assembly of this big boy. Yes, it's 25+ feet high with an interesting appearance -- a thing of beauty to me. (Unfortunately, it's the "ugliest thing I've ever seen" to my XYL. There's nothing that God or Xiegu can do about that phenomenon, which I am sure others have faced before me.)

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Assembling the Vertical

My earlier article about the Buckmaster talks more about the installation experience I had for the dipole. In common with the vertical, my issues were related to getting the required height in a region without tall trees. Mechanically, it was fine with one exception and that proved to be my fault as I had a non-ham helping me out on the ladder and he pulled a bone-headed stunt. I had given him a bottle of green liquid tape and asked him to coat the PL-259 connection, which he proceeded to do -- inside and out.

The initial issues I had with the vertical were caused by the poor instructions. I found the quality of parts to be excellent, but there was no description of how far each tube is supposed to slide into the other. It would sure make it easier to assemble if Xiegu were to put marks or tape at the point in which the antenna has an approximate match to a "tuned up" position. Instead, after assembly I picked up the antenna off my workbench and it immediately broke in half (the tubes were not extended far enough into their neighboring tube.)

Luckily, the components are constructed of quality material and I was able to tap them back into shape and reinsert the tubes further into one another. Other minor annoyances were the fact that the matchbox is in the way of the radial holes and it took great jury-rigging to get the radials into place.  Even with these issues, however, I was mounting the VG4 to my 10' fence post in about two hours. 

In our desert lot, I'm unable to get up to the Xiegu recommended height (they want their radials at 10' or higher) and I found myself a foot or two short of that ideal. I'd expect to achieve lower SWR numbers it it were at the Xiegu height. My fence post is sunk into a couple feet of concrete, but because the Xiego only weighs 15 pounds, I don't think there will be an issue as I'm not trying to support a huge structure.

SWR Measurements

On the Xiegu vertical, you adjust the bands by sliding the various tubes in and out until you get the match you are looking for. I started with some readily available measurements I got off the web, and then made a few tiny changes that brought the SWR into the range I was looking for. The wire from Buckmaster enjoys a relatively flat SWR, under 1.5-to-1 on all four frequencies (plus a couple of others). It's a broad match with the dipole but the Xiegu has wide matches only on 10 and 15 (1.1 and 1.3-to-1 respectively across the whole band). Specific areas of the bands are resonant on 20 and 40, where I was able to get 1.2-to-1 at the center of 20m and 1.4-to-1 at the middle of 40m. 

I contacted Radioddity support and got help on how to tune as I had trouble with 40 meters initially. It appeared to be optimized just under the USA ham band, but after their advice ("Make sure the matchbox is above the top of your fence post") I got quite usable SWR readings. You can't tune this antenna at a comfortable distance off the ground -- it's got to keep going up and down your mast as you fine-tune.

Using Both Antennas

I've had previous experience with vertical antennas. I was expecting, based on other designs, that the Xiegu would be a noisier antenna in receive mode. The first thing I noticed, however, was the opposite. The VG4 is quiet. Switching over my dead air to the Buckmaster, I noticed that while neither antenna was noisy, I could hear more static crashes on the wire with a noise floor just a tad higher than the vertical.  

Still in receive, I scanned the bands and found that the Buckmaster pulled in stronger signals in the North to South axis of its radiation pattern. But when trying to hear Northern Europe, the vertical pulled in solidly and considerably stronger than the wire. The vertical is much more omnidirectional, something I definitely need at my shack. I now find myself selecting an antenna based more on the region of the world I am targeting. 

In Conclusion

I had earlier tried explaining the concept of an "antenna farm" to my wife and had failed miserably. But after I brought her into the shack and showed her how each antenna had a purpose, she started to get it. Not that she likes all the masts and wires around the house, but she could hear the difference between signal strength based on which part of the world it was and which antenna I had selected.

For a local 40m net, the vertical seemed to provide better ground wave communication. For a far-off DX station within the propagation pattern of my wire, the Buckmaster would take the prize. But for DX in a different part of the world impacted by the Buckmaster's severe null fall-off, I often switch over to the VG4.

Which antenna gets my recommendation? The Buckmaster clearly has an advantage in power handling (3000w versus 1000w with the Xiegu) so whenever I need to hit the "max" button on my amp, I'm on the wire. But the quiet receive and omnidirectional results that the VG4 provides on four important bands are attractive additions to my shack. I'm sold, and it's definitely on my list to recommend when friends ask me about vertical antennas. Here's a product that just might change your mind about that "Made in China" stamp on the box.

PS - The WSPR scan shown here is from the Xiegu VG4, and the map is from the great little iPhone app called WSPR Watch (free from the Apple Store).  I highly recommend that application for easy WSPR viewing while you are out and about. The maps it draws are terrific!

73 for now,

Dave W7DGJ

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