Diamond W-735 40 & 80m Dipole – impressions

The Diamond W-735 is a dual band wire antenna covering 80 and 40 metres. The choke traps act as loading coils on 80 metres, shortening the antenna length on this band, thus making this antenna a good choice where space is limited. An inverted-V installation would make fitting into small yards even easier. Initial tests display a SWR figure that is easily within the 3:1 SWR range of transceiver antenna tuners. Some users have said that the bandwidth is a bit limited but that’s not surprising considering it is a wire antenna with traps or coils. The bandwidth is wide enough that satisfactory SWR can be achieved easily with any tuner. Tuning is performed by folding excess wire rather than cutting it. On 3.604, the SWR is 1.6, on 3.575 it is 1.11, on 7.100 it is 2.2. The quality of the parts is extremely high and the weather sealing of the coils is excellent. It has a 1:1 balun and a SO-239 socket. The power handling is 1.2kW PEP. This antenna has outperformed longer G5RV and OCF dipoles at my location, even at a modest 6m height. It’s an antenna which has me active on 80m in particular, so it’s a keeper. It could also be used as a portable antenna with a single pole, as an inverted-V.

de Paul VK2AMT