Hi!
A little while back, I ordered the crossed dipole sold on the AMSAT-UK web site. It arrived just before I left for Dayton, so I have not had a chance to work with it until this weekend - a holiday weekend here in the States. After mounting the antenna on a tripod and mast I had for another antenna, I was able to try it out in my back yard. Nice antenna!
This was an eastern pass, with maximum elevation of 33 degrees, so I placed the tripod along the back wall on the eastern edge of my property. The antenna was up approximately 10 feet/3m, and connected to my FUNcube Dongle Pro+ with 10 feet/3m of coax.
During this pass, I successfully copied and uploaded 56 data packets to the FUNcube data warehouse, and copied portions of 64 additional packets.
The total is in line with what I had been copying with my Elk log periodic, but it is a lot easier to use the omnidirectional antenna. :-)
This is a nice antenna, and with the FUNcube Dongle Pro+ makes a nice station to receive AO-73 telemetry (and other satellites with VHF downlinks). The cost of the antenna, including shipping from the UK to the USA, is not unreasonable. The antenna is well made, and was easy to assemble even without an instruction sheet with the antenna. AMSAT-UK supplies a length of coax with a PL-259 connector on one end and an SMA connector on the other, to go directly to the FUNcube Dongle, and a USB extension cable to go between the dongle and computer.
I just posted a YouTube video of this pass, showing the FUNcube Dashboard copying the telemetry from the crossed dipole and FUNcube Dongle Pro+. You can see it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S6_f59Pchw
73!