[TowerTalk] G5RV vs 40M dipole

[Patrick Greenlee]

My neighbor, a fairly new ham and the only other ham in this zipcode 
uses two G5RV at right angles to each other in inverted V configurations 
with centers about a foot apart.  He uses a coax switch in the shack to 
pick the best one for a particular contact. He runs 5 watts and works 
contacts all over the world.  Sure, he works at it harder than I do but 
he makes easily 10  DX contacts for every one of mine.   I run 100 W 
barefoot and up to a gallon with the linear on.  I have a HyGain Hytower 
multi-band vertical and a 270 ft OCF dipole, Carolina Windom.  The 
Hytower and Windom are fairly well matched with one favored over the 
other sometimes and the reverse at others. As I haven't installed the 
160 kit on the Hytower yet I can't compare it to the 160 performance of 
the Windom.  Except on 160 he racks up more DX than I do by a wide 
margin.  He also has a homebrew hex beam that he doesn't like much as he 
claims it is just too noisy compared to the G5RV antennas.

There is nothing wrong with my antennas they just don't outperform his 
G5RV's with one set NS and the other EW when it comes to verified 
contacts.  I may have some theoretical superiority but it doesn't show much.

Patrick

On 4/26/2015 12:43 PM, Don W7WLL wrote:
> I've also used a G5RV at various times.  My first use was as a 
> temporary compromise antenna (all all-band antennas are a compromise 
> of course) when we moved to the coast. Worked great, considering, at 
> around 50 feet, but I've also burned up the connection between the 
> antenna wires and the feedline and at the coax/feedline junction with 
> an amp in the mix. Rebuilt it a couple of times and now just use it as 
> a portable antenna for my trips to lighthouses and other special event 
> operations. Works OK with the 1000D, 990 or 900 and is an easy package 
> to put up. I've used it in about every conceivable configuration you 
> can think of, including laying on the ground. Autotuners in the rigs 
> handled it well and I always have made a reasonable number of 
> contacts, albeit the reception reports sometimes lacked of course. 
> Grants comments re the choke used on the commercially available one I 
> used I agree with. Are there better compromise wire antennas, 
> probably, I've certainly not tried them all.
>
> Don W7WLL
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Tom Osborne
> Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2015 9:07 AM
> To: towertalk at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] G5RV vs 40M dipole
>
> I put up a G5RV once to try to use as an 'all band' antenna for my 2nd
> radio.  After comparing it to regular antennas, it came right back
> down.  On 80 it really sucked compared to a dipole, 40 was mediocre and
> not much better on other bands.
>
> If I had the choice of using a G5RV or not having any antenna, though,
> I'd sure use the G5RV.  RF gotta go somewhere :-)  73
> Tom W7WHY
>
>
> I could get it to load and that is about all I could say good about it.
>>
>> On 25/04/2015 23:27, Bry Carling wrote:
>>> My experience has been entirely different. Fan dipoles are extremely 
>>> heavy and difficult to get to behave. A G5RV will take full legal 
>>> power. It does not mysteriously generate noise as claimed. Many 
>>> people use them on all bands with great success.
>>> I'm not worried about supposed patterns. They just work.
>>
>
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