The antenna company SteppIR has announced that as of the 31st of August 2025, it will no longer be selling antennas to the 'consumer market' which I think we can take to mean the amateur radio market.
Most directional antennas for the HF bands have fixed length elements made of aluminium tubing. The SteppIR by contrast uses a flexible copper tape inside a fibreglass tube.
The control module at the centre of each element uses a stepper motor to wind and unwind the copper tape into the fibreglass tubing.
The lengths of the copper tape is adjusted so that the antenna behaves like a Yagi on a particular frequency. This then gives the antenna some degree of gain and directionality.
While this type of antenna was somewhat unique say a decade ago, other manufacturers now use a similar concept.
The SteppIR antennas were certainly not cheap as this sample of three element versions shows...
They also sell vertical ground plane versions for about $3000 which again is very expensive.
In conclusion... While it's unfortunate to see any company leaving the amateur radio market, products at this price point will always be of limited interest. Anyone wishing to buy an antenna with this type of performance has plenty of other alternatives.
