Hustler btv5 revisited. Again

I bought a silent keys shack and included was a hustler btv5 antenna. I tried it when I first got it and was not impressed. It’s been hanging around on the shed roof and I thought maybe I didn’t give it a fair shake. So I put it up again today.

This time i thought I’d follow all the directions. I drove a stake in the ground and mounted the feed point an inch off the ground and ran a set of radials for each band. Tuned it for swr and sat down to check it against my ocfd.

I’m still not impressed. Overall for a single stick in the air it’s ok. It’s for sure better than a dummy load. Keep in mind what I’m comparing it to, 135’ wire 60’ in the air. So I suppose all things in mind, it’s not bad.

I wouldn’t order one unless I just had to have one to fit in a small space however, the longest ground radial is 64’ each direction so there’s that to keep in mind. I’ll play with it some more but it’ll come down I’m sure sometime tomorrow.

BJ radionut said:

https://static.dxengineering.com/global/images/instructions/dxe-hsr-4btv-p3.pdf?_gl=1*2lzwdq*_gcl_au*MTE1MTQyNDg4LjE3MjUxOTcyMzg.*_ga*MTA1NjcxNTI5Ny4xNzI1MTk3MjM4*_ga_NZB590FMHY*MTcyNTMxOTY2OC4yLjEuMTcyNTMxOTg1NS4xLjAuMA..

Crazy link but works...These guys make those antennas "Sing"...Many big gun DX'ers Transmit on low band verticals/RX on low height horizontal antennas.

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Damn that’s some wire

Captain Kilowatt said:

When I bought my 5BTV I followed the instructions in that link. The resonant points were centred much better in the bands and overall performance was not too bad considering what the antenna is. I took it down last year but now with NO antennas at all up I am considering putting it back up for the winter. Hopefully I will get the tower converted to a tilt over next year and make all my antenna erection issues go away.

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I’m not saying it didn’t work. It actually did good on 15 and 20. 10 and 40 was not as good. But I’m comparing it to an ocfd and ground plane. Put it up man