After more than 4 month (!!!) I received the ordered 12 element Yagi for 144 MHz (see the full story here). It’s a DK7ZB design, manufactured by “VPA-Systems” in Poland.

Transportation from Poland to Germany by DPD was within 2 days, the parcel was abt. 2m long, good wrapped and received without any damage.

At first look the antenna seems well made. Boom and support are of square-aluminium 20 x 20 x 2 mm, dipole 12 x 1 mm and elements of aluminium 10 x 2 mm. Mastclamp is for 50 mm tubes, no options. All holes are drilled correct and elements and boom parts are numbered. The box for balun and N-connector is made of hard plastic. Screws, nuts (self locked) and bolts seems V2A but not sure – we will see. Two packs with mounting material are included and assembling could be done within less than one hour.

The balun is made of two 75 Ohm teflon cables Type RG 187 (diameter 2.6 mm). The cable is specified for a power handling of 1.400 W at 400 MHz.

To be continued …

Beside some other commitments I found time to give some points during todays 144 MHz Alpe Adria Contest. Conditions seems quite normal and beside others, several S5 stations were worked. Just missing all the OK2/OK3 stations, not worked one!

The final results are 31 QSO’s with abt. 15.700 points, average 491 km/QSO and todays ODX HG6Z (787 km).

The recent 144 Mhz antenna, rear half of my old 16 el F9FT, was just a compromize and I decided to replace. After studying endless reports in the Internet a 12 element DK7ZB  was my choice:  good gain vs lenght ratio (8m / 14.4 dBd). Building or buying was the question. So I decided for buying and found VPA-Systems from Poland as an interresting source with reasonable prices. Just the balun of the antennas could manage only 200 Watts, not state of the art when thinking of modern SSPA amplifier.

Now the e-mail-traffic with VPA-Systems:

March 28: I asked for high-power balun and delivery of antenna
March 28 – fast  answer: 1.500 W balun costs 10,- € more, delivery 7-10 days
March 28: I send my order
March 29: Order confirmed by VPA and I payed via PayPal
4 weeks later …
April 22: Asked about status – no response
April 24: Asked again about status – answer: “Order is under preparing but almost ready. Shipping soon”
another 3 weeks later …
May 15: Asked again about status
May 16: Answer: “The status of order No: 422 has been changed – Order ready to send”
another 3 weeks later …
June 05: Asked again about status – no response
June 08: Asked again about status – no response
June 14: Asked again about status – no response
June 15: Called on phone – no response
June 16: Send complaint / buyers protection to PayPal
Now 12 weeks are over since confirmed order
June 27: Information from PayPal: Money will return and booked same day on my bank account.
June 27: Wrote this post and sent link to VPA-Systems …
June 27: Surprise – Got an E-Mail from VPA saying that he had health-problems and excuses for delays. Also got a tracking code, parcel should be on the way. Let’s see ..
Another 5 weeks later …
July 31: No surprise – the parcel did not arrive!

August 04: What a surprise!! Antenna arrived today after more than 4 month. Parcel was sent (by tracking code) August 02, 2017 // 16:11 local time.

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Resume: If a dealer has problems with manufacturing, shipping or or whatever, then he must inform the customer. To consoluate again and again, make false statements and not react to mails and phonecalls is not a good and fair behavior and could not be accepted in any way!

There is absolutely NO recommendation to buy anything from VPA-Systems!

In the meantime I heard from other amateurs around Europe that VPA-Systems, owned by Lucjan Niewiedział SQ9VPA, always going the same way: promising delivery, sendig faked tracking codes aso. What an unbelievable behavior for a seller and radio amateur!