Dear Peter,
I don't have any experience with the GAP, but do have extensive experience
with the HF6V, the HF9V and the HF2V. I've installed and tuned probably 6 or
8 HF9's for various people, a few HF6's and at least 3 HF2's that I can
remember.
Recently when I moved, I had to make a choice about a multiband antenna that
would be a temporary solution until a tower, etc. could be installed. I chose
the HF6V to be roof mounted with the base at about 28 feet AGL. Why?
My experience was that with the Butternut antennas, I had the option of
optimizing the tuning on a band by band basis and found very little
interaction between bands that I could not eliminate. For example, my current
installation has a total of 5 radials. One is a non-resonant piece (50 feet
long) of 3 inch wide and 3 mil thick copper foil which runs for some 42 feet
along the ridge pole of the house, it then makes a right angle turn to go
down the roof for the remaining 8 feet. The other radials were "rough cut" to
be approximate 1/4 wavelengths on 40, 30, 20, and 10 meters. They are
arranged symmetrically around the base of the antenna.
The result, after tuning and adjusting the coils at the base of the HF6 was
that on all bands (except the extreme end of 10 meters) the SWR (measured at
the end of the series matching transformer with an MFJ 269, and by the SWR
meter in my FT1000D) was less than 2 to 1 and in most cases was less than 1.5
to 1. That allows me to run the setup without using the tuner in the "D" (or
in my FT990 for that matter).
Setup and tuning time once the antenna was assembled was less than 2 hours.
The antenna is mounted to a wooden chimney with Rat Shack wall mounts.
The HF6 and 9 do have a weak point which is the connection between the two
ends of the series matching transformer and the feedline and antenna
respectively. Butternut was kind enough to replace mine at no cost, but I
would suggest that you replace the PL259 on one end and the "stacons" or
other connectors on the other.
BTW, I bought an HF2V and took it with me to French Polynesia to use during
the 2001 CQ WPX CW contest. It was mounted directly in the lagoon in about 18
inches of water and fed with 150 feet of RG8X (1/3 of which laid in the water
for 10 days). Never have I had an antenna perform so well on 80 and 40.
Similarly, we took an HF2V to Puerto Rico for the recent effort in Field Day
as NP4A. It was beach mounted and had two elevated radials for 80 meters.
Similar results (although not as good as mounting in the water!) :>)
Hope these comments help a bit. As usual YMMV.
73 es GL de Bill, W1HIJ/6
--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
text/plain (text body -- kept)
text/html
---
|