W4ISA Review: A Clean 20' Vertical Dipole Install | Greyline
The Signal Report › W4ISA: A Clean Install, Done Right
Customer Spotlight · W4ISA
“Outstanding Fit and Finish.” A 20-Foot Install Done Right.
See the 20’ flagpole Peter runs →
The Install
Assembled clean, grounded right, on the air fast
Some operators measure an antenna by the rare ones in the log. Others measure it the first afternoon, by whether the thing goes together without a fight and gets them transmitting before sundown. Peter Dehman, W4ISA, is the second kind, and his report is the one every new operator actually wants to read before they buy.
“Very pleased with the 20-foot antenna. Outstanding fit and finish of the highest quality. Went together like a charm. Absolutely no issues. Excellent instructions. My tuner is in the shack and the antenna performs very, very well with buried LMR-400. Great results working everything that I hear.”
— Peter Dehman, W4ISA
That phrase — working everything that I hear — is the one that matters. It is the quiet definition of an antenna that is not the weak link in the station. If you can hear it, you can work it. That is the whole job.
W4ISA’s 20-foot vertical dipole.
The Detail Worth Copying
Lightning protection is not optional — and Peter did it right
The part of Peter’s install most operators skip, he got right. He runs an OPEC LP-350A coaxial surge protector in a weatherproof box at the base, with a 3D-printed holder for the ladder-line-to-PL-259 transition. And he offered the single best piece of advice in the whole report:
Peter’s rule: when you are not on the air, unplug the coax and the AC from the radios, and ground them. A surge protector is a layer, not a substitute. The only antenna that cannot take a hit through the feedline is the one disconnected from the radio.
A few words on the rest of his setup, for the operators planning their own. A tuner in the shack works fine with this antenna; so does a remote tuner at the base. The vertical dipole presents a workable match across the bands either way, which is why Peter’s buried LMR-400 run and shack ATU gave him clean results without a base-mounted box. And because it is a vertical dipole, there is no radial field to bury — the second element does that work, which is the whole reason a clean lawn and a clean install are even possible. The full physics, with the W7SX and N6LF references, is here →
Read From the Source
Where operators compare grounding and feedline
Peter’s grounding discipline is not a Greyline opinion — it is the consensus of the operators who have lost a radio and the engineers who study why. To go deeper than any single review:
K9YC’s RFI, ferrite, and bonding guides
— the working operator’s reference on common-mode current and station grounding.
TopBand reflector archive
— where feedline, grounding, and low-band install questions get argued out by people who have tried it.
Chasing the band openings once the station is grounded and ready? The ARRL Propagation Forecast Bulletin is the operator’s weather report. It was carried for years by Tad Cook, K7RA, a Silent Key since April 2025; the ARRL continues it in his memory, and we tip the hat every time.
Your Station
A clean install is the whole point
A 20-foot flagpole that goes together in an afternoon, works 160–6M, takes a shack tuner or a remote ATU, and looks like a proper flagpole at the curb. That is what Peter put up, and what anyone can.
Goes together clean
Excellent instructions, no fight, on the air fast.
Shack or remote tuner
Works either way; Peter ran a shack ATU with buried LMR-400.
No radials to bury
A vertical dipole; the second element replaces the radial field.
Elegant by design
Clean lines, premium finish. A flagpole that happens to be a serious antenna.
Go Deeper
Best HF Vertical, No Radials — the physics →
The Bookshelf We Read From →
New to HF? Start Here →
How to order — the checklist →
73, Greyline Performance · 435-200-4902
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