On Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:49:05 +0100, "826" wrote:

Hi, Thanks for all your input. Hustler recommended using 5-6 foot of coax in
there manual. This I did follow and the antenna tuned very nice.

I more than just suspect the length recommendation has a lot to do
with the effect of your body closer to the antenna and nothing to do
with the varying length of the coax as a matching network.

When I
connected the 75 ft buried coax it threw me because the resonance frequency
on each band went higher. I do not have a balun at the base of the antenna.
I thought that after connecting the buried coax the frequency would go down
because of the capacitance of the longer coax. After rethinking this I can
see that adding a balun may help. Thanks for your help and will let you know
how things turn out.
Vern M0WQR

You're welcome. Yes, I would be interested in hearing how it turns
out for you. Works well for me.

BTW, my coax lays on top of the ground. Shouldn't matter with the
choke at the feed point.

73, Jim KB3PU


"Jim Higgins" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:44:46 +0100, "826" wrote:

Hi. Have a new Hustler 6 band vertical. Installed the radials and
also buried 75 foot of RG213 coax between shack and antenna.
I used a 6 foot peace of coax connected to adjust the antenna
with a MFJ-259. Every band was tuned to the middle and SWR
was lower than 1.7:1 at the edges. After the adjustments, I
reconnected the buried coax to the antenna and on all bands
everything had shift up by any where from 200 to 400 khz.
Now the rig is seeing greater than 2:1 SWR.
Should I retune the antenna with the MFJ 259 in the shack?
Thanks Vern M0WQR

I have a 5BTV with buried radials. Works and tunes like crap without
the radials. Tune the antenna with the 259 connected to it with the
shortest piece of coax you can work with, like 1 foot. If you're a
purist - which I advise - lie down so you're as much out of the
antenna field as possible when taking readings. Or back way off and
read with binoculars. (Just don't let your body affect the antenna
tuning.) When that's done, coil the main coax or use a common mode
choke where the coax connects to the antenna to prevent the coax
shield from acting like a radial. Forget that nonsense of adjusting
SWR by adjusting coax length unless you're prepared to use a different
length for every band.

The MFJ 259 reads SWR with respect to it's own 50-ohm nominal
impedance so if you can adjust to a very low SWR (and you can with a
5BTV or 6BTV), it should read the same at the radio end of a longer
50-ohm coax.