Just an interesting information: We call this type of antenna in Russia - Robinson! Because it looks like an umbrella of Robinson Cruzo during his stay on the island alone.
I have used the 5 band (40, 20, 18, 15, 10 meters) version of this with great success. Since I built my own, it was a hassle to tune it initially because although every band seem to have its own wire, the antenna actually works as a whole. So, tuning one wire affects the other bands and a lot of going back and forth among each wire is required. But once done properly, the result is great. It is considered a "compromise" antenna because of its small(ish) size but actually it matches or out performs many larger sized ones. My only con on it was the lack of 80m band. It is possible to add it but it requires a much bigger and stronger support frame (=heavier and more prone to wind damage) for the length of the wire required which kinda defeats the purpose of having a cobweb.
Yes, I have had this exact antenna for 2 years with great success. It is 13.5m high and can easily accommodate a 3-element shortened beam. But it also has two properties that can be very disadvantageous. 1. It reacts extremely when it rains - the SWR often shifts down to 300 khz. (strangely only very little in snow) 2. It has an extremely narrow band but can usually be retuned with the internal tuner. Otherwise, I have never had a more powerful omnidirectional antenna.
Been using this same antenna from Paul for a few months now with great results. Other than the fact that the SWR changes in the rain its been a great performer. Mine is just above the peak of my roof so low profile but is better than my end fed when crossing the pond so to speak. I used your video as an assembly guide but the version he sends to the US is cut down for overseas shipping. Thanks.
Ive had one of these antennas from Paul for about 6 months.I also have had Hexbeams in the past.This antenna isnt as good as a hex but its damn close.Im in WNY and the anteena hasnt seen winter yet.I think it will be just fine.This antenna is at 35 feet and works great!
I had mine from the man himself, good overall performance. Out performs EFHW and the higher the band the better. No need for external ATU on mine bearing in mind the spreaders are plastic and mine is about 35’ off the ground and can be lowered to sit in the apex of the roof - so it has a low profile as far as the neighbours are concerned. Hexbeam would be the next step but going without is cheaper than a divorce🤪 73 de M0AZE Mike
Hi Mathew I too have one of these cobweb antennas too the one I have from Paul Koshaolin from Poland is the same as yours. What an antenna the boy can sure make them.. I've had 5200 qso in 3 months 125 countries with conditions still to peak..with this antenna. Only downside is Skin effect with the wet weather you'll find the VSWR shoot up and require to use your tuner to make amends. Great vid as always @Tech Minds As a side note I would drill a small hole in the underside of the grey chocolate block outer box as a breather hole otherwise the innards tend to swell and rust with condensation and ice
Hello from Ve8ap well I received one of these antennas a few days ago and I am still set back on how well this antenna is working and how well it’s built. I have my cobweb 40ft off the ground SWR was bang on and first stations I worked one in Indonesia and one in Japan and one Seattle and I asked to do a antenna comparison with my 2element tribander and this antenna around 26ft up I was shocked cobweb outdid the yagi by 1S unit. And did I mention the receive very quiet shockingly quiet on some bands. Keep making these Paul I love it and the footprint it takes up and performance can’t be beat
I use the 7+3 from 73 Antennas. It covers these 7 Bands. 7,10,14,18,21,24,29,Mhz. Added frequencies with antenna tuner are 1.8, 3.6 and 5 Mhz. I have Yagis for VHF and UHF. They may be "compromise" antennas. But they are great for those of us with small yards and no place for vertical ground radials.
yes i have just ordered the same one the antenna im using at the moment is the 80m uk antennas endfed the same as your using and although its good for inter g stations its not that good for dx in the configuration i have it in with having a small garden. i noticed the two butterfly nuts on the box am i right in thinking you can put ladderline on it if so ill order some 450ohm stuff 73 great video from m7byf in skelmersdale
Brilliant review, thoroughly enjoyed watching this (for the 3rd time lol). I currently have a Prosistel PST1524TV Vee antenna 40/20/15/10 but with each leg pointing skywards 18ft (at an angle), it does attract a bit of attention and I am thinking of replacing it. It is brilliant on 40m and 3 S points stronger than my inverted L. But it is not very good on TX/RX on 10m - which, you were noticing with the Cobweb (has this improved at all ?). A question I do have, how has it been in strong winds, I know you have the mast guyed but how does the antenna get on ? Best wishes and thanks again for your review :) Steve G4KIV / G1G
sounds like a good antenna. Wish I had bought it rather than the cheap crap MFJ cobweb antenna I have. Rather support a person than a company and rather have a better made version as well.
It looks like you have your Spectrum Scope on HIGH sensitivity for the 2D display. Do not know why Yaesu would have this as a default? Works much better when NORMAL is selected! Your Tx peaks are off the screen. Most of the time I have my CENTER SPAN on 10kHz, so that I can see the quality of the incoming signal better (1kHz per box). Even though your VSWR was not too bad, why not use your built-in tuner to bring it down even further? Enjoyed the video! 73 John N2KBE
I did, but I don’t think I checked 80/40. I know my DX10 internal tuner will not tune it on those bands. Paul does make a 40M version but it’s very large!
wow, that is pretty cool! He will really rock the ham world if he builds a Hex Beam along those same lines.. Has anyone tried to hang their laundered clothes on that, yet? BTW- "Gravity assist" never works in my favor. 73, -K1QS. neat design!
Я сам сделал аналогичный, но прикрепил его к концу горизонтального кронштейна и использую в вертикальной поляризации, поэтому он чувствителен к направлению и я могу его вращать. HA4GBJ, Анатолий I built a similar one myself, but I attach it to the end of a horizontal bracket and use it in vertical polarization, so it is direction sensitive and I can rotate it. HA4GBJ, Anatoliy
Good reason not to use an automatic antenna tuner with memories. The automatic part is fine, but not memories. In a rainy situation, I would always tune fresh instead of relying on "memory."
@@davejensen8119 your right with some auto tuners but I have found with the LDG you can set a threshold if it goes over that it re-writes the memory and does a full tune
Does anyone know if Paul still builds these? I'd love to get one, but the ebay site doesn't exist anymore and his website AWK Antennas seems to be down, too 😕
The performance of the antenna is impressive, but unfortunately there is another disadvantage. We now had 30 cm of fresh snow which completely destroyed my antenna. The radials are now just hanging down, freed from the snow. It is therefore not suitable for winter because the radials are not braced.
I bought one of these last year. It's really well made and works well, but is little more than a dipole on 4 and 6 mts. It also goes out of tune when it rains.
Looks good and the new regulation in respect to how far away it needs to be away from the public would not be difficult, it would be quite easy to conform to the new regulations.
I get wet if I stand out in it too long lol.. but if you’re referring to the antenna, then not that I’m aware of. I have heard others say the antenna goes long when wet but I havnt personally experienced this. Cheers
Nice video, thanks a lot very interesting. As far as I know the cobweb is directional, it's basically a 2 element yagi right? I didn't see a rotator so are you just pointing in the direction you use most or maybe you have the "teenager rotator" deployed for that? 🤣
I think you are looking at the version with the 40M 7Mhz element, these are double the price of the one I have shown in this video. If you dont need 7Mhz, and just want the bands covered in this video, then drop Paul an email, I'm sure he will make you one at the right price :-)
Yeh, thats the 40M version he has for sale. The version I show in this video is not currently listed on his Ebay, which i why it's best to contact him and ask when he will re-list the 70mhz version, like in the video. You can contact Paul through this website here: www.awk-antennas.com
Nice review of what looks like a great antenna. Too bad it does not cover 30m and 40m, otherwise I would get one. Tnx fer this video, Matt. 73 de Arnie W8DU
I had the same antenna you need an external atu and when is rainy the swr gone very high . I tried the uk version much better when is rainy no high swr at all
++++++++++++++INTERESTING++++++BUT IN AUSTRALIA+++++++ADELAIDE+++++++SOUTH AUATRALIA (WHERE I'm AT WE ARE ONLY ALLOWED 12 WATTS PEP ON SIDEBAND CB+++++++BUT THERE ARE ALWAYS LINEAR AMPLIFIERS++++++THERE'S A THOUGHT ???
![[TOP 3] Best HF Antennas For Ham Radio In 2024!](/img/n.gif)
Just an interesting information: We call this type of antenna in Russia - Robinson! Because it looks like an umbrella of Robinson Cruzo during his stay on the island alone.
Thanks for sharing this information, I didn’t know this.
I like that 😅😅😅
I have used the 5 band (40, 20, 18, 15, 10 meters) version of this with great success. Since I built my own, it was a hassle to tune it initially because although every band seem to have its own wire, the antenna actually works as a whole. So, tuning one wire affects the other bands and a lot of going back and forth among each wire is required. But once done properly, the result is great. It is considered a "compromise" antenna because of its small(ish) size but actually it matches or out performs many larger sized ones. My only con on it was the lack of 80m band. It is possible to add it but it requires a much bigger and stronger support frame (=heavier and more prone to wind damage) for the length of the wire required which kinda defeats the purpose of having a cobweb.
Yes, I have had this exact antenna for 2 years with great success. It is 13.5m high and can easily accommodate a 3-element shortened beam. But it also has two properties that can be very disadvantageous. 1. It reacts extremely when it rains - the SWR often shifts down to 300 khz. (strangely only very little in snow) 2. It has an extremely narrow band but can usually be retuned with the internal tuner. Otherwise, I have never had a more powerful omnidirectional antenna.
Have this same antenna. It has survived 2.5 years of west of Ireland weather with no issues. Outperforms my inverted L by 2 s points on most bands.
Been using this same antenna from Paul for a few months now with great results. Other than the fact that the SWR changes in the rain its been a great performer. Mine is just above the peak of my roof so low profile but is better than my end fed when crossing the pond so to speak. I used your video as an assembly guide but the version he sends to the US is cut down for overseas shipping. Thanks.
Ive had one of these antennas from Paul for about 6 months.I also have had Hexbeams in the past.This antenna isnt as good as a hex but its damn close.Im in WNY and the anteena hasnt seen winter yet.I think it will be just fine.This antenna is at 35 feet and works great!
I'm aiming to put mine up about 10 metres soon. Currently sat at 4 meters and it still rocks! Awesome antenna!
I had mine from the man himself, good overall performance. Out performs EFHW and the higher the band the better. No need for external ATU on mine bearing in mind the spreaders are plastic and mine is about 35’ off the ground and can be lowered to sit in the apex of the roof - so it has a low profile as far as the neighbours are concerned. Hexbeam would be the next step but going without is cheaper than a divorce🤪 73 de M0AZE Mike
😂
Hi Mathew
I too have one of these cobweb antennas too the one I have from Paul Koshaolin from Poland is the same as yours.
What an antenna the boy can sure make them.. I've had 5200 qso in 3 months 125 countries with conditions still to peak..with this antenna.
Only downside is Skin effect with the wet weather you'll find the VSWR shoot up and require to use your tuner to make amends.
Great vid as always @Tech Minds
As a side note I would drill a small hole in the underside of the grey chocolate block outer box as a breather hole otherwise the innards tend to swell and rust with condensation and ice
Thanks for the info and thanks for watching 🙏
Great design pre-built and easy to deploy. This is on my wishlist.
Hello from Ve8ap well I received one of these antennas a few days ago and I am still set back on how well this antenna is working and how well it’s built. I have my cobweb 40ft off the ground SWR was bang on and first stations I worked one in Indonesia and one in Japan and one Seattle and I asked to do a antenna comparison with my 2element tribander and this antenna around 26ft up I was shocked cobweb outdid the yagi by 1S unit. And did I mention the receive very quiet shockingly quiet on some bands. Keep making these Paul I love it and the footprint it takes up and performance can’t be beat
Great to see I’m not the only one blown away by it’s performance! Thanks for sharing your experience.
I use the 7+3 from 73 Antennas. It covers these 7 Bands. 7,10,14,18,21,24,29,Mhz. Added frequencies with antenna tuner are 1.8, 3.6 and 5 Mhz. I have Yagis for VHF and UHF. They may be "compromise" antennas. But they are great for those of us with small yards and no place for vertical ground radials.
Nice review Matt. The fact they come pre cut and assembled is a huge plus. Which poles did you use to mount them? Are these swaged by any chance?
Yep, got them from Screwfix but they are really heavy, especially when you have 4 strapped together.
Thanks for this review. I got the 40m version of this and love it.
How is it in relation to rain and snow wind etc.
Clean and powerful both in RX and DX, love it. a solid signal into Zagreb? wowser!.
Yep, was a few S points stronger than my EFHW on 20
Высота над уровнем моря какая? Прежде чем восторгаться работой этой антенны.
Art, high quality art, worthy of display in any of the Earths finest galleries!!
These antennas always remind me of the rotary washing line.tyanks for the video.have a great day all.
Great video which convinced me. Just ordered mine.
Its a fantastic antenna!
What software are you using with your VNA?
Cheers Mat, ordered this today hopefully can put it to use in Bulgaria over the holidays !!!
How did it work out for you? It’s one year later, and now i am hoping to order one from Pologne.
yes i have just ordered the same one the antenna im using at the moment is the 80m uk antennas endfed the same as your using and although its good for inter g stations its not that good for dx in the configuration i have it in with having a small garden. i noticed the two butterfly nuts on the box am i right in thinking you can put ladderline on it if so ill order some 450ohm stuff 73 great video from m7byf in skelmersdale
I was wondering too where those 2 screws were for.
If it's possible ... how do you use 450ohm ladderline with this cobweb ?
Brilliant review, thoroughly enjoyed watching this (for the 3rd time lol). I currently have a Prosistel PST1524TV Vee antenna 40/20/15/10 but with each leg pointing skywards 18ft (at an angle), it does attract a bit of attention and I am thinking of replacing it. It is brilliant on 40m and 3 S points stronger than my inverted L. But it is not very good on TX/RX on 10m - which, you were noticing with the Cobweb (has this improved at all ?). A question I do have, how has it been in strong winds, I know you have the mast guyed but how does the antenna get on ?
Best wishes and thanks again for your review :)
Steve G4KIV / G1G
Good Video Matt. Have a cobwebb being delivered tomorrow
Bloody good value Mat and being able to collapse it for portable ops is great! Cheers Chris Gm4zji
It’s great mate, it will be staying up for a while that’s for sure! Take care mate
sounds like a good antenna. Wish I had bought it rather than the cheap crap MFJ cobweb antenna I have. Rather support a person than a company and rather have a better made version as well.
NIce one Matt its agreat antenna had mine for over a year now and so far so goos and as you know we used the other one one the G8AMC field day
Yes this intro music I've been trained to get hyped for a new episode when it plays. 😉
Cool episode.
Yay! Hype hype! Thanks for watching 🙏
What software is this
It looks like you have your Spectrum Scope on HIGH sensitivity for the 2D display. Do not know why Yaesu would have this as a default? Works much better when NORMAL is selected! Your Tx peaks are off the screen. Most of the time I have my CENTER SPAN on 10kHz, so that I can see the quality of the incoming signal better (1kHz per box). Even though your VSWR was not too bad, why not use your built-in tuner to bring it down even further? Enjoyed the video! 73 John N2KBE
Curious, did you use the VNA to test 40 and 80 metres? (despite it not being "for" those bands ?
I did, but I don’t think I checked 80/40. I know my DX10 internal tuner will not tune it on those bands. Paul does make a 40M version but it’s very large!
Just ordered the 6-band version after talking with a friend who has exactly the same and also has not a lot of space to put something bigger.
:p
Poland to Belgium took 4 days for delivering.
wow, that is pretty cool! He will really rock the ham world if he builds a Hex Beam along those same lines.. Has anyone tried to hang their laundered clothes on that, yet? BTW- "Gravity assist" never works in my favor. 73, -K1QS. neat design!
Cheers!
These green zipties are reusable witch latching mechsnism. U can use them multiple times.
Я сам сделал аналогичный, но прикрепил его к концу горизонтального кронштейна и использую в вертикальной поляризации, поэтому он чувствителен к направлению и я могу его вращать. HA4GBJ, Анатолий
I built a similar one myself, but I attach it to the end of a horizontal bracket and use it in vertical polarization, so it is direction sensitive and I can rotate it. HA4GBJ, Anatoliy
I was curious what kind of mast are you using for the cobweb antenna?
where can i get my hands on one,nothing on ebay
How are you getting on with the cobweb antenna.have you worked much dx ?
I have this same antenna and use it portable on a 25ft push up flag pole. VFB TX & RX performance.
oh just a FYI the SWR goes all out of wack in the rain :)
I’m yet to experience this but others have said the same, I’ll test it out when it rains.
Good reason not to use an automatic antenna tuner with memories. The automatic part is fine, but not memories. In a rainy situation, I would always tune fresh instead of relying on "memory."
@@davejensen8119 your right with some auto tuners but I have found with the LDG you can set a threshold if it goes over that it re-writes the memory and does a full tune
was there any additional costs to have this sent to the UK over and above the P+P now that we're no longer in the EU?
Well, I didn’t pay any thing extra, so I believe the price is the price.
How does it do in bad weather ? Being in Scotland we dont get a lot if good weather 😅😅😅 , seller on ebay says tuning goes way out in wet weather .
Thank you for the review - very informative!
Glad you enjoyed it!
ebay link only shows 6 bands ?
how long did it take to come from poland just ordered one of him
Mat for receiving outside of the cut bands ,how does it do? Tim
I have this antenna.. Brilliant 👏
It’s very good! I love mine.
@Tech Minds how high do you have it ?. Mine's at about 20 feet but been informed I'd hear more on the bands if I can get it to 30 feet
Nice review mate. Cheers from VK.
How do I contact him and order and information on cost
Does anyone know if Paul still builds these?
I'd love to get one, but the ebay site doesn't exist anymore and his website AWK Antennas seems to be down, too 😕
He still build it. I just ordert last week and its now on the way to me.
Not sure when you bought this but did you have to pay any import duties/vat extra? I’m really tempted to give this antenna a try.
I got it around the time I made the video, and nope, I didn’t personally pay any import duties. You can check with Paul, the seller though to be sure.
Just seen this video. Antenna sounds fantastic but I did not see a price or any seller information. Thanks. N9FIS
I received mine a week ago and no import taxes were added
The performance of the antenna is impressive, but unfortunately there is another disadvantage. We now had 30 cm of fresh snow which completely destroyed my antenna. The radials are now just hanging down, freed from the snow. It is therefore not suitable for winter because the radials are not braced.
I bought one of these last year. It's really well made and works well, but is little more than a dipole on 4 and 6 mts. It also goes out of tune when it rains.
What radio is that is that a Yaesu radio that's a beautiful scope
is there any forward gain with these antennas like you have with a beam?
these antennas are omni-directional.
Hey Tech love the videos brother. have you ever looked into GSM Data Receivers?
That is pretty cool.. Thank you for sharing!
You’re welcome!
Looks good and the new regulation in respect to how far away it needs to be away from the public would not be difficult, it would be quite easy to conform to the new regulations.
Matt do you have any problems when it rains?
I get wet if I stand out in it too long lol.. but if you’re referring to the antenna, then not that I’m aware of. I have heard others say the antenna goes long when wet but I havnt personally experienced this. Cheers
What do you use for the mast?
Swagged poles from Screwfix :)
Nice information for inverted umbrella antenna 👍👌
Great music! Good video…
i have one also but having a lot of Problems with my one.
At what point was he +20?
Thanks for sharing, nice antenna. 73 Leo
Cheers Leo!
Nice video, thanks a lot very interesting. As far as I know the cobweb is directional, it's basically a 2 element yagi right? I didn't see a rotator so are you just pointing in the direction you use most or maybe you have the "teenager rotator" deployed for that? 🤣
The elements are folded dipoles, so it’s omnidirectional, which saves mounting on a rotator.
I thought it was more like a cross between a fan dipole and a halo antenna
Thank You very much
great review matey however hes doubled the price lol was gonna order one but not at the new price :D
I think you are looking at the version with the 40M 7Mhz element, these are double the price of the one I have shown in this video. If you dont need 7Mhz, and just want the bands covered in this video, then drop Paul an email, I'm sure he will make you one at the right price :-)
Yeh, thats the 40M version he has for sale. The version I show in this video is not currently listed on his Ebay, which i why it's best to contact him and ask when he will re-list the 70mhz version, like in the video. You can contact Paul through this website here: www.awk-antennas.com
Actually, he does have it listed but under a different Ebay account, look here: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/125383733028
Nice review of what looks like a great antenna. Too bad it does not cover 30m and 40m, otherwise I would get one. Tnx fer this video, Matt.
73 de Arnie W8DU
Hey Arnie, he does make a version that covers 40M too, take a look on his EBay selling items :)
@@TechMindsOfficial Thank you for your reply. I did try to find that on ebay but was unable to locate a listing for that. Oh well.
Who makes this?
AWK-ANTENNAS ..Google them guys name is Pawel.. currently cost £210
Thanks!
You’re welcome Chris! Thank you for watching sir!
Thanks for a nice review. With such a good product I have a feeling Paul will be busy. 73 Chris G7OGX
Think he sold out, oops! lol
I might try making one of these. Wire is cheap. It doesn't look too big.
G4GHB
It’s very good! 20M band is better than my EFHW and it’s only 6 metre off the ground.
@@TechMindsOfficial Great. I made wire dipoles in the attic, 14 and 18 mHz up and need to put up the 21, 24 and 28 mHz, but fancy trying a cobweb.
I had the same antenna you need an external atu and when is rainy the swr gone very high . I tried the uk version much better when is rainy no high swr at all
Wow, he's doubled the price sice your review !!
You are looking at the 40m version for £366, the 7 band version has only gone up by £10,, £189 plus postage
@@chrisabbott1009 I must have been looking at the 40 MTR version
Unfortunately, he is out of stock or so it appears. This looks like an interesting take on the design
Ping him an email via his website, he’ll respond quickly. :)
Looks like a washing line. 👍😂
Also, his eBay store is empty at the moment.
++++++++++++++INTERESTING++++++BUT IN AUSTRALIA+++++++ADELAIDE+++++++SOUTH AUATRALIA (WHERE I'm AT WE ARE ONLY ALLOWED 12 WATTS PEP ON SIDEBAND CB+++++++BUT THERE ARE ALWAYS LINEAR AMPLIFIERS++++++THERE'S A THOUGHT ???
Fantastic vid mat well done sir VK2OMG 👌👌👌
Thanks Rob!
I bought one of these a few weeks ago, paul has put a lot of thought into his build had some really good contacts check them out on my Qrz M7PLD..
I cant find him on eBay. Have you got his contact details? - Mark
@@markchristianshaw he sells very quick he has just put more up for sale