Hustler 5BTV

[N2RJ]

I know people here have used it.

What do you guys think about it?

KB3JGU on the 'zed swears by it but he's soaking wet behind the ears.

I might want to get one.

I have a HF6V from Butternut. It is wonderful. But you know what else? I have stuck up vertical elements of conduit and copper pipe with great results (especially DX).

Verticals have a knack of generating low angles of radiation with good radials.

Keep a vertical maintained, and you have a good antenna in my books. I never had another commercial vertical before.

That being said, the better antennas do not have traps. Traps are typically lossy. Keep that in mind.

[wd0ct]

The 5 will probably suck on 75/80 because it is short and the top coil is lossy compared to say butternut.
But they are cheap and rugged and have decent traps.

I owned the 4 model 30 years ago. Elevated with resonant radials. I thought highly of it.

[K1OU]

The 5 will probably suck on 75/80 because it is short and the top coil is lossy compared to say butternut.
But they are cheap and rugged and have decent traps.

I owned the 4 model 30 years ago. Elevated with resonant radials. I thought highly of it.

And your 2:1 Bandwidth will suck as well on 75/80. The key is lots and lots and lots and lots of radials. Several years ago, I used a Cushcraft RV3 for 10, 15, and 20, with at least 40 radials for each band. While I was hardly the king pileup buster, I had no problem working a lot of DX...

[kd7msc]

I have the 6BTV mounted at 10' with 6 radials per band also at 10'. The antenna works great on 10 - 20 meters, fair on 30 and 40 meters. It just plain sucks for 75/80. This will get me by until I can buy this house and put up a tower. GL Ryan. 73, Sean :)

Yeah. With my Butternut, I get pretty decent radiation on even 160M. I did a 160M contest a few years back and surprised myself by working TX and ME from Chicago and about 50W.

I thought it was pretty good.

[kf0rt]

I have the 6BTV mounted at 10' with 6 radials per band also at 10'. The antenna works great on 10 - 20 meters, fair on 30 and 40 meters. It just plain sucks for 75/80. This will get me by until I can buy this house and put up a tower. GL Ryan. 73, Sean :)

This is pretty much my experience, too. I've got a ground-mounted 6BTV and I'm using the neighborhood's chain-link fence for my radial system. Can't break the big DXpedition pileups, but "normal" DX isn't bad. For 40 and 80 especially, might as well tune it for the CW part of the band.

Not much of a tower option here due to high winds and sloping back yard, but I keep threatening to put up a roof tower or move to someplace with an acre or two.

[N2RJ]

Well I've decided against, and I'll just stick to wire, and of course my MonstIR when it goes up.

[AF6BV]

I know people here have used it.

What do you guys think about it?

KB3JGU on the 'zed swears by it but he's soaking wet behind the ears.

I might want to get one.

IF the below reprinted 73 article is to be believed (quoting ARRL antenna book), a garden-variety 1/4 wave vertical with 15(!) quarter-wave radials may have an efficiency as low as 50%:

One solution (as given in the URL below) is to supply a whole 1/2 wave antenna, which can then be used as a vertical, a sloper, or a flat-top, fed at the END:

http://www.njqrp.org/n2cxantennas/halfer/index.html

To summarize the article, only a minimal counterpoise is needed because the current flow to ground to balance the feedpoint current is very low due to being fed at about a 5K impedance point instead of 50-75 ohms at the center.

Of course, that means a fairly good matching network is required, you're limited to moderate power levels (no QRO) due to the insanely high voltages at the ends of a halfwave, and you can't depend on input impedance to be low enough to shunt the majority of current to the resonant section when connecting multiple wire sections together, like you can for a fan dipole, for example. Resonance is required to avoid substantial feedline radiation, so you can't just use a tuner, so you're looking at some kind of relay and coil and matching network switching contraption for multi-band use.

Or one antenna per band and multiple coax runs or a remote antenna bandswitch :)
T

Maybe all things considered, it's OK to lose 50% of your power and buy a leenyer ;)

Or go with something like Force 12 SIgma XK, which is center-fed top-and-bottom-capacity-barred 1/2 wave dipole that bandwitches the loading coils via a remote tuning box. They've figured out all the nasties of relays and control. I'd pick one up if there wasn't like a ten year waiting list for them ;P

[M0GLO]

I know people here have used it.

What do you guys think about it?

KB3JGU on the 'zed swears by it but he's soaking wet behind the ears.

I might want to get one.

It's what I have.

Not bad considering I can't lay out any radials.
Supposed to be great if you can get the radials down.

Tuned up on all bands just fine. I've got go go do it again with a FSM soon though, low SWR is nice but I'm looking for max signal.
For the price you can't beat it, if you hate it what the hell, it was cheap anyway right?

[N8YX]

I've had a 5BTV up for years. Base @ 33ft; 4 radials per band.

Mechanically, the thing is rugged as can be. Has survived ice storms,
100+ MPH winds...you name it.

On 40-10 the antenna works great; anything I hear is easily worked with 100w.

75...well...go with the 'Super' resonator instead of the 'Standard'
unit and you'll get a bit more 2:1 VSWR bandwidth.

I've got several spare traps, a base unit and some odds and ends laying
around. One of my fall/winter projects is to build a 12/17/30/60M variant
and erect it near the first one.

Elevated...with radials, of course.

Hard to beat for the money.

Picked another complete 4BTV up at a hamfest last year for 40 whole
dollars. Converted it to 6BTV and use it for Field Day/portable activities.

Works FB in that role as well.

Are there better verticals available?

Yeah - get ahold of a Hygain Hy-Tower and put down the requisite set of
radials...

[M0GLO]

I'm a little late chiming in here but I do have one of these as well.

Mine is ground mounted without radials (I'm a renter and can't convince the landlord to let me bury wires) and works pretty good.
I've read other owners that have elevated radials of the trapped variety and swear it works great if you want to reduce the number of wires hanging off your house.

I have other factors limiting me, like the resonant fire escape at >1/8 wavelength distance that push's my lobe south west thus killing off any prospects of European contacts. But from Florida to West Texas and all points between the signals are screaming.

If I put down radials I'd probably get much better results, but you work with what you can.

And like someone else said love it or hate it, it's cheap as it gets.

[K8YS]

due to space restrictions, I was saddled with verticle antennas, my first was an 18AVT-WB, it sucked. The second was a Butternut, it did not such as bad, but it still sucked. I finally ended my upright condition with a GAP Challenger. Of all, the GAP was the superior dummy load.

My vote would be to locate a used GAP Challenger. If you are a 75/80M user, make sure you get the correct or both door knob capacitors - GAP uses a cap to determin the band width on 75/80M.

While GAP says you can get away without the three 25' counterpoise, you will need them for 75M.

I was extremely happy with mine.

[N2RJ]

I bought a 4BTV today at our hamfest. Will let you guys know how it performs.

[W5GA]

Using a 4-BTV and an 80m inverted vee, I've managed to win the OK section in the ARRL DX contest twice now. Big fish in a mud puddle I know, but it can't be all bad.

[N8YX]

Using a 4-BTV and an 80m inverted vee, I've managed to win the OK section in the ARRL DX contest twice now. Big fish in a mud puddle I know, but it can't be all bad.

Mounted in an elevated fashion with several tuned radials per band, it'll do a fair job. Not as admirable of one as, say, a 5-el widespaced Yagi but they DO work.

Or else my logbook has been lyin' to me all these years. ;)

[K1OU]

Using a 4-BTV and an 80m inverted vee, I've managed to win the OK section in the ARRL DX contest twice now. Big fish in a mud puddle I know, but it can't be all bad.

Mounted in an elevated fashion with several tuned radials per band, it'll do a fair job. Not as admirable of one as, say, a 5-el widespaced Yagi but they DO work.

Or else my logbook has been lyin' to me all these years. ;)

What would work even better is a pair of them fed 180 degrees out of phase and dedicated to one band.

[N8YX]

Using a 4-BTV and an 80m inverted vee, I've managed to win the OK section in the ARRL DX contest twice now. Big fish in a mud puddle I know, but it can't be all bad.

Mounted in an elevated fashion with several tuned radials per band, it'll do a fair job. Not as admirable of one as, say, a 5-el widespaced Yagi but they DO work.

Or else my logbook has been lyin' to me all these years. ;)

What would work even better is a pair of them fed 180 degrees out of phase and dedicated to one band.

Or an array consisting of one or more in conjunction with a set of monopoles, appropriately spaced. Selectively feed each portion of the array - depending on desired band - with a remote switch/relay/phasing harness arrangement...

[K1OU]

How about this?

http://www.arraysolutions.com/Products/2elmultibandverticals.htm#top%20of%20page

Along with a couple of these...

http://www.steppir.com/files/vertical%20brochure.pdf

If I couldn't put up a tower and I had some cash, it would be worth considering...