Recon40 II Review - By TAKI, JH1NKA

Editor’s Note

We love hearing how REZ equipment gets used in the real world. This article began as an unsolicited email from Taki, JH1NKA, sharing how he has adapted his Recon40 II for early-morning POTA activations in Japan. We enjoyed his story so much that, with his permission, we asked if we could share it here.

Thank you, Taki, for taking the time to tell us about your setup, your field experience, and the more than 200 U.S. parks you’ve worked along the way. Stories like this are one of our favorite parts of building equipment for the amateur radio community.

The article below is Taki’s account, lightly edited for formatting and clarity.

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On mornings when it’s not raining, I ride my bike to a nearby POTA park for an early activation, and the Recon40 II has become an indispensable part of my setup.

One of the things I like most about this antenna is that, even with my older 50-watt IC-7100M, I can operate from 20 through 10 meters with a full quarter-wave radiator and no tuner. And honestly, I also love the way the coil looks.

My home station is in an urban area with a high noise level, so hunting POTA stations in the continental U.S. has never been easy. I had worked fewer than 30 U.S. parks before I started doing early-morning activations with this antenna. Since then, that number has grown to more than 200.

Good morning propagation and a quieter location certainly help, but I believe the antenna has to perform well enough to take advantage of those conditions. I was even able to make a P2P contact with 3Y0K on Bouvet Island using this antenna.

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Adapting the Radial System for an Urban Park

I have made a few adjustments to suit the way I operate.

Because I usually operate from an urban park, there are plenty of people walking their dogs even early in the morning, so laying out a 10-meter (33 ft) radial is not very practical.

Instead, I use two approximately 2.5-meter (8.2 ft) Tunable Counterpoise Systems with variable inductors, plus one 3-meter (9.8 ft) radial for added stability.

Because I wind the TCS wires in a figure-eight pattern for storage, they naturally form a compact zigzag pattern when laid out, so the entire setup actually takes up less than two meters (6.6 ft) of space.

With the Recon40 II, this configuration works very well for me.

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Switching to the Z25 Whip

Possibly because of this somewhat unconventional radial setup, the 17-foot telescoping whip can sometimes be a little too short to tune to the frequency I want, especially on 40 meters.

I therefore switched from the 17-foot whip to the 25-foot Z25 and use it with the top four sections collapsed. This gives me plenty of room for adjustment, and keeping those top sections collapsed also makes the whip more resistant to wind.

In the end, I have actually found this setup easier to handle.

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Quick Band Changes Without a Tuner

I often change bands as propagation changes, so another major advantage is being able to QSY quickly by simply changing the length of the telescoping whip, without using a tuner.

For the relatively small frequency changes involved when switching between FT8, FT4, and CW, I can usually operate without even pulling out an antenna analyzer.

I plan to keep using my Recon40 II for many more POTA activations to come.