Shark Antennas 4-Pack 10-80M Hamsticks

This antenna design concept is old, reliable, and consistent. Shark's implementation of this idea is not good. My primary complaint is they made a design decision to replace the standard hex nut at the top of the shaft joint with something smooth and polished. This can make it difficult to separate the shaft from the whip.

My rating is particularly critical because of the deviation from a simple proven design that resulted in a worse product. The fact that the prices of these is now a magnitude greater than in the past AND they are a worse design is difficult to swallow. Disappointed in my purchase. I am familiar with wire wound whips like these and have a lot of experience and understand what to expect from the product, my rating is not tied to any unrealistic expectation on antenna performance, SWR, or bandwidth.

These work great. I added a 17, 15 & 12 meter stick, a Hustler mag mount and a ground spike with 8 16 foot radials to complete the set. Use with my IC-7300 and a Redodo 50Ah battery for camping and POTA.

I purchased this Shark Hamstick set to use with my homebrew 3D printed octopus quad band dipole. I can pull in many more stations from regions that I could not previously with my inverted V antenna at the same height and location. Easy 1.1 SWR as a dipole with a 1.5:1 Balun. From Northern California, on good propagation days, stations from all around the country are S9+. I am also now able hear stations for Australia, South America, Canada, South Africa. I am very happy with the results so far. https://i-machina.com/hamstick.jpg

These work pretty good. I use them on a fender mount NMO “L” bracket in a 2023 F150. I had to add some ground straps from the mountain to the fenders and hood that helped with swr. They so far hold up going down the road mobile at 30-35 mph. I think a heavy duty spring will be needed for highway speeds. I will add to this after I try it.

I use these Shark Antennas in a dipole configuration with an Intellitron AA-1602 Dipole Antenna Mounting Bracket (available from GigaParts) when I go mobile in my RV. They are mounted on a 20 foot collapsible carbon fiber mast (GigaParts SKU: ZGP-TFA20-CF) that I zip-tie to the ladder on the back of my camper once I'm parked.
This makes for a fast and simple mobile setup for everything from 10 to 80 meters!
In the lower frequencies (40 & 80 meters), these Shark Antennas have a mighty narrow band width but they are very easy to adjust to whatever section of the band you are working by adjusting the steel "stinger" rod. If you have a RigExpert AA-55 ZOOM Antenna Analyzer (GigaParts SKU: ZRE-AA-55-ZOOM) it is simple to make a chart showing rod length to frequency so frequency changes on these Shark Antennas are quick & simple.
Regardless of their somewhat narrow bandwidth the SWR is great across the board. At 80 meters where small antennas suffer most I can get an SWR of 1.22 at 3.830 MHz. and it only gets better from there as you go into the higher frequencies.
No they can't compete with a multi element beam on a 150 foot tower, but it you're in an HOA or an RV and have a tight budget I wholeheartedly recommend giving these Shark Antennas a try.

I purchased these Shark hamsticks to set up my ham station in mobile places such parks, ham events or any place mobile. Nothing is better than wire but for a quick setup that doesn't take much time or room, this is a great alternative. I have been able to get 1.1-1.9 SWR on 10, 20 and 40 meters. 80 meters is a little harder to get a good SWR but that is expected. They can be used with a mag mount on car roof or a portable tripod like I usually do. Although they come with a recommended length to set the rods, use a good antenna analyzer such as Rig Expert to tune these in advance at home, then mark the tuning rods with a marker. It will make setup quicker when you get out in the field. I gave these 5 stars because they perform better than I expected from a hamstick.

no instructions and no allen wrenches. no starting point for the whips. and I've been told by others to replace the set screws with stainless. but everyone tells me they work great.