I have been running a Butternut HF9V. I recently retuned it after adding the
160 meter mod, and obtained the same results I did when I first installed it.
Basically it appears to be a couple of feet short on 10 meters with minimum
SWR at 28.9 MHz and long on 17 meters with SWR not falling below 2.8. I am
considering buying a 72" 3/8" tube to extend it for 10 meters, but I'm stumped
on 17 meters. Has anyone encountered this and found a fix? I have a good
ground system with plenty of 30' radials, and the antenna works very well, but
I would like to get the SWR down.

73,

Phil - N1KI

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Hi Phil

My antenna tuned perfectly until I added the 160 coil, then I had to
retune the whole thing and had lots of woes until I finally found that
sweet spot on each band where the SWR was down where it belonged.

It has been a long while and I don't remember, but I did have to make
a NEW feed coil in place of that enameled wire one that was more than
twice as many turns, same diameter, before anything came close to
tuning up right. I used the same gauge wire as the original, just
made it with twice as many turns, spacing was closer also. I did find
it's best to leave this new coil on a tube because it gets bumped
easily. What I did was cut the bottom out of a plastic cylinder about
14 inches in diameter and placed that around the antenna base. A
little round-up inside the container from time to time and a box of
salt kept the weeds out.

TTUL
Gary

Thanks Gary, I initially tried tuning with the original coil in place and
received a 5-1-9 report from 122 miles away. The lower three bands tuned
well, but I figured I must be passing 160 right into the ground system. I
totally removed the enameled coil and only 80 would not come below 1.7. 40
and 160 matched very well, so I think I can get by with that. Leaving the
coil off has resulted in 5-9-9's from everyone I called so far on 160, so
perhaps I was right about radiating into the ground.So far, it seems to be
doing a great job.

The problem with 10 and 17 meters has been with me since the antenna was new
and before I put the 160 kit on it. I have had more pressing issues and had
forgotten about it until I retuned the antenna after adding the 160 coil. I
have heard other comments made about not getting a good match on 17 meters.

I was hoping someone out here had found a simple fix because the antenna works
so well as is that I can't see putting a lot of effort into fixing something
so minor.

73,

Phil - N1KI


In article , am
wrote:
Hi Phil

My antenna tuned perfectly until I added the 160 coil, then I had to
retune the whole thing and had lots of woes until I finally found that
sweet spot on each band where the SWR was down where it belonged.

It has been a long while and I don't remember, but I did have to make
a NEW feed coil in place of that enameled wire one that was more than
twice as many turns, same diameter, before anything came close to
tuning up right. I used the same gauge wire as the original, just
made it with twice as many turns, spacing was closer also. I did find
it's best to leave this new coil on a tube because it gets bumped
easily. What I did was cut the bottom out of a plastic cylinder about
14 inches in diameter and placed that around the antenna base. A
little round-up inside the container from time to time and a box of
salt kept the weeds out.

TTUL
Gary


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Hi Phil

I guess I was one of the few that didn't have any problems with 17
tuning up either before or after the 160 coil. But if I recall, I
have it scrunched up real tight too. Like I said, been awhile, but I
hope to be back at it again before winter sets in. I just moved to a
new house in a new state and know I'll have to retune that thing after
moving it.

Good Luck with it!

TTUL
Gary

Ok Gary, thanks for the info. I may get ambitious enough to retune the thing
using the right equipment. So far I have just used the exciter output. I
suppose realistically speaking, 17 through 10 will not matter much in the next
few years. The thing is impressive on 160, though, and that was the main
idea.

73,

Phil - N1KI


In article , am
wrote:
Hi Phil

I guess I was one of the few that didn't have any problems with 17
tuning up either before or after the 160 coil. But if I recall, I
have it scrunched up real tight too. Like I said, been awhile, but I
hope to be back at it again before winter sets in. I just moved to a
new house in a new state and know I'll have to retune that thing after
moving it.

Good Luck with it!

TTUL
Gary


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Hi Phil

The bandwidth on 160 was so narrow it was basically only good on one
single frequency for me. Which was OK, I set it for a specific
frequency I used twice a week.

All of my other 160 work was done on that Linear Loaded Inverted Vee
that I put up. I had pigtails on it and set each leg at a different
frequency and it still worked OK for me.

As far as the HF9V I was and am still very impressed with how well
this antenna has worked for me. Especially in the confines of my
suburban yard with antenna restrictions up the wazoo.

But FINALLY I moved to a new state, I live in a valley between the
Cumberland Plateau and the Smoky Mountains, due to the hill behind my
house, sunup isn't until around 9AM. But it is a very high hill and
THAT is where I plan on building my antenna farm.
I've made many calculations and studied the lay of the land several
times, it looks like the ideal spot for this area.
My only concern will be the coax loss in running over 600 feet of coax
up the side of the hill. I would need 9913 for the upper bands.

I'm also looking into the possibly of using perhaps a 6 inch wide
ladder line. But I'm not savvy enough to know if I can run coax out
of the shack to ladder line for 500 feet then back to coax to feed the
antenna towers. This is something I will have to study up on again
before attempting it.

I may try a trick a neighbor about a mile away has done. We have
extremely tall poplar trees here. He cleaned the branches and topped
one of these poplars and then installed a 25 foot tall mast at the top
of one of them for his VHF/UHF antennas. He said it's been up there
for over 5 years and the new branches that sprouted have not come
close to the antenna yet. So that might be one alternative for me to
try also.

The HF9V will be ground mounted at the dividing line between my front
lot and my back lot, which is only partially up the back hill in a
flat clearing where I have plenty of room to run my overkill radials.
At my last home in St. Louis, I had over 3,500 feet of radials, some
extending through neighbors yards until they reached the streets on
the other side of their houses.
And, where backyards meet, many had those stockade fences and they
allowed me to run dipoles across their backyards about 10 feet above
the fence lines by installing 25 foot poles affixed to the fence
posts. POed the telephone and cable TV people who had to watch for my
lines when working on the utility pole mounted services within their
easements. I was not within their easement so they couldn't just
knock them down and leave them laying on the ground, hi hi.....

It was so long ago, I don't remember which bands these apply to, but
those horizontal metal strips on the antenna. On the upper one (after
installing the 160 coil) I took a pair of alligator clips and a piece
of wire about 4 inches long (2 inches each side) and experimented by
making this top bar a little wider. I do remember it worked for
whatever reason I was doing it. So I drilled two small holes in each
end and laced a new copper wire through this allowing about 1-3/4 inch
extending beyond the natural length of this horizontal antenna member.
But I believe this may have been to use an out of ham band frequency
for our emergency communications. The antenna was up for several
years, so you tend to forget things you had to do when it was
initially installed.
I never had problems with it, so I never messed with it.

It seems there are some photos on my web page somewhere, but I don't
know if they include the HF9V or not.
The URL is http://archimedes.galilei.com/raiar if you want to have a
look around and see. I'm quite lax on updating my web page, and it
seems I never remove anything, just add from time to time. So there's
no telling what you may find there.

TTUL - 73+ de Gary - KGØZP