IMAX-2000 CB/Ham Radio Base Station Vertical Antenna, 24-Feet

I have been around Ham radio since the early 1970's, back when REAL radios glowed in the dark! My dad was a ham and I spent more time than I would like to admit home brewing antennas, erecting antennas and trying out something new. To say I know how to wring out an antenna would be an understatement...I learned a few tricks along the way, I also learned a few things to avoid...I installed this with the radial kit a couple of months ago and wanted to give it a good test before I reviewed it here on Amazon. It has become one of my favorite antennas. I have ended up using it a LOT!Verticals are inherently noisy - not THIS antenna! CB antennas are usually pretty cheap and shoddy - not THIS antenna! Some aluminum verticals are a pain to put together - not THIS antenna!Not only does it perform wonderfully on 10, 11, 12 and 15 meters but it is QUIET!!!I didn't cut it to tune it, I left it just like I bought it and assembled it in less than 15 minutes upon arrival. I put it on a tripod on the roof to test it out before putting it up on the 50 ft. tower. I even put a 30 year old coax on it because I just wanted to see if it worked... I figured if it worked like this, it was going to work great on top of the tower...In a word, WOW! At first, I thought something was wrong, instead of a wall of white noise on HF - I hear quiet... Maybe that coax was bad after all...And then I tuned around and found all sorts of signals out there down in the weeds where I couldn't hear them before! I flipped the switch to my old antennas and these people disappeared - flip back to this antenna and WOW, DX all over the place!India, North Africa, Italy, Spain, France, a bunch of islands in the Atlantic and a bunch of South American hams and loads of US stations in the first few hours of operation... The pacific islands, Australia and the far East opened up when the sun moved over to the West. I dusted off my microphone and worked 14 DX contacts with no effort at all what-so-frickin'-ever!Uhmmm... wow... I mean Wow... But I was still curious... This wasn't my first vertical antenna... They are usually noisy beasts when the sun is high...I was sort of stunned - really, seriously... This made me scratch my head... It made me want to take it all apart to see what's inside! The antenna nut inside my head was saying DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! The practical old fart who doesn't like climbing towers more than once inside of me won out though...I moved it to another tripod 12 ft. away - same results... Amazing...It makes my other antennas seem lame... Not bad for 18 ft. off the ground and a 30 year old coax that is two steps away from the recycling scrap pile...It is more quiet than any other 10m antenna mono-banders I have up in the air! (I have a couple) It is more quiet than my multi-band verticals OR my dipoles. It is hands down 10-20DB better on receive than my 3 element beam at certain points of the day - which is REALLY saying something! It displays about 1.5:1 SWR on the CW and SSB portion of the 10m band. It is flat as a pancake in the 11 meter band. It has about 1.6:1 on 12m and 1.8:1 on 15m. Whoa... How did they do THAT!?! This is weird... That isn't really supposed to be true - but my bird watt meter and antenna analyzer doesn't lie...Not only does it outperform other antennas, easy and quick to assemble, it is QUIET and more broad banded than any other antenna I own. It has been up in its "not so great" configuration for a couple of months now.I have 8 HF antennas up at the present time - and this one is my new favorite!It is going up on top of the 50 ft. tower (with 7/8" heliax!) this weekend and I can't wait for the DX to come rolling in...Totally amazed and very happy,73 de N5MBMINSTALLATION NOTES:My "not so great test bed" installation is on top of the roof on a short tripod mount. This mount is not grounded by a ground wire. It is mounted to the tripod with a 8 ft. piece of pipe and I ordered and installed the Solarcon radial kit. No other radial or ground counterpoise was installed. The roof has normal composition shingles. The antenna is about 18 ft. above ground level.I am using a very old 100' run of RG8 coax dating back to the early 1980's with silver plated Amphenol connectors. It is old but in good condition. I put an RF noise choke at the base of the antenna. I also put one down at the shack.The RF noise choke consists of the RG-8 coax feedline. The normal feedline you use to get the signal into the shack. I left a 6 inch pig tail for the antenna connection and then wrapped 12 turns around a 2 inch piece of PVC pipe about 8 inches long - making a coil around a PVC form secured with black zip ties through holes punched in the PVC pipe. It looks like a big wire wound resistor, but it works! This cuts the noise down!I ran the coax 30 ft across the roof horizontally and then down to the shack where I put another RF choke in line just like the one up at the antenna with a 6 ft. pigtail to my antenna switch. All one long piece of coax, no connectors in between the antenna and my antenna switch box. The fewer connectors in-line, the less loss you have and the less chance to introduce NOISE from your homes electronics and the power grid.It isn't the greatest installation, but it is a temporary "test" spot to tune and test the new antenna. (At the time of this review it had been installed over a couple of months.) I am still amazed and can't wait to put it on top of the tower with some good Andrews 7/8" hard line at 50 ft. above the ground!Three things to remember when installing this antenna -1 - Height, get it as high as you can! 9, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54 ft off the ground or multiples of 9 ft. will help your chances of good DX.2 - Radials and a good ground are a MUST! The radial kit they sell is good, but you can improve it. The more radials you put on it, the more SWR you will have and the narrower your band width but your efficiency of transmission will be improved. Tuned radials for your favorite bands WILL help, but they will also make your tuner become more necessary...3 - The RF noise chokes make this antenna so broad banded and Q U I E T it is absolutely amazing... The word "quiet" doesn't even begin to describe the performance. It is worth the extra coax and the funny looking coils dangling in the air!I wrote this while listening to a guy working QRP SSB out of Amsterdam on 28.400 Mc - he is running 20 watts working a Stateside pileup and I have an s4 on him but SOLID copy out of the noise!73 and GUD DX!

I have owned several Antron 99's since the 1990's, and still use one for my CB base antenna, but I wanted to try the Imax 2000 as well. It seemed to do okay on CB but on 10 meters the SWR is 1.3 or less, and I'm making contacts from Florida to places like Spain,Brazil, England Puerto Rico , the U S west coast, Barbados, Romania, and many other countries. This antenna is very easy to put together right out of the box with no adjustments needed for mine. I highly recommend this antenna.

>build quality and survivability: I purchased and installed this antenna last September, 2012. After that, in our area, hurricane Sandy went through, and, several other fronts with sustained winds > 60mph. I left the Max 2000 up during all. It still looks new this spring. Also, the antenna is in Rochester, NY with snow, ice and temps below 20F on a normal winter basis. Antenna has no cracks in any joint after one winter. I do use "Protect All" fiberglass protector on the antenna every six months.>SWR. I did not cut my Solarcon or modify it in any way. When my Solarcon base is mounted 6 feet from the ground, without the GPK ground plane, and rings set to the bottom of their range:28.400 Mhz - 1:1.2 (10m)27.205 Mhz - 1:1.8 (11m)24.940 Mhz - 1:2.9 (12m)21.300 Mhz - 1:2.6 (15m)18.110 Mhz - 1:2.2 (17m)I added 6 ground radials 1/4 wave on each side of the mast, for 11m, 12m and 17m. This lowered 17m SWR to 1:1.8 but increased 12m and 15m slightly. I left them.I use the antenna on 12, 15, 17m with an old MFJ 901B manual tuner at the radio. Works great to lower SWR to 1:1.1 for the radio impedence matching needs. (does not do anything to reduce the actual SWR on the line).I have tested with and without a coax RF choke and definitely the RF choke helps the antenna perform better. You can see the results of the experiment across the bands and also a photo of my antenna install at:http://www.qrz.com/db/N2UJNHowever, if I raise the antenna base to 14 feet, receive is better, but 17m SWR is 8, reducing the efficiency to 60%. Perhaps earth ground, which lowers the SWR, is reducing the antenna efficiency to 60% when I lower it to get a good SWR. I am using EZNEC at this time to explore that.> Contacts. As a new Amateur operator on the HF bands, looking for an inexpensive way to experience a few contests, make some good contacts, learn the protocol, and not offend my neighbors with a big antenna....this antenna is working for me. You can see my LOTW most recent confirmed contacts at the above qrz link for my page. I think I have more than 60 countries since December on 10m - 17m.> Install. The total cost to install, including coax, galvanized pipe, 2 ground rods, post hole digger to sink the pipe, and PL-259, for me, was around $220. That works out to something like 38 cents per country if we are trying to get a value metric. The antenna is very light, so, I can maneuver it on a no wind day by myself. I DO NOT use the locking nuts that are sent with the antenna. They rust. Rather, I carefully file off the stubs and screw the antenna together without the locking washers......So, for new General Licensees, like me, I recommend this antenna. It allows you/us new hams to experience HF, learn the ropes, explore, without a huge investment in tower, beam, permits, and neighbor angst. Good antenna.One down side: no bragging rights for this one. I do get through about half the pile ups I enter into. But, that is not because of the antenna, but, because of technique.

This antenna was not tunable for less than 1.7 SWR at any power over 4 watts on 11 meter (CB). But, on 10 meter I have a great 1.1 SWR match and have worked 16 countries with 80 watts. I have run 1200 watts through this antenna on 11 meter with an antenna tuner. Antenna would be great for a novice CB'er running radios at legal limits, (20 watts or less).Seems to have a good receive on both 10 and11 meters and works DX very well mounted at 24 feet above the ground. Be prepared to struggle with 11 meter swr with TX power over 20 watts. Good luck,73Ps. It has been suggested to me that the length of coaxial antenna cable should be 50 feet for optimal antenna tuning. I'm using 75 feet because of the distance from transmitter location to antenna. The antenna has very good receive. I'm hearing almost as well as my closest radio operator using a 5/8 wave ground wave antenna.