ARROW Communications Association

Oct. 31, 2007
The weekend passed, with the contest going on somewhere up there in the ether, and Sunday afternoon I finally got around to putting up the first antenna - my old HF9v multi-band vertical.

I found a good spot hidden by trees about 50' from the house and drove a 5' TV mast about 3 feet. Then I replaced several corroded screws and decoupling wires on the HF9v, assembled it, and carried it out to it's new home, shoving my way through the pine and thornapple trees (ouch) to get it there. Holding up a 31' piece of coil-laden aluminum tubing in the breeze as you try to drop the bottom end through a couple of U-bolts is a real challenge, but I eventually did it, and without a heart attack or anything similar. Then I attached the feedline-impedance transformer (an 11' 3" length of RG-11 75 ohm coax which transforms the 100+ Ohm impedance this antenna has on 20m down closer to 50 Ohms). Next I found 60+' of RG-8 and connected it to the impedance transformer with a PL-259 barrel, and ran the other end through the new cable entry into the shack.

Lastly I took some black 14 gauge THNN hookup wire (bought at Home Depot or Lowes for 8 cents/foot) and cut four 30' lengths of it. I put a 2-piece brass ground clamp around the base of the antenna, shoved the stripped ends of the 14 gauge pieces into it and clamped them down. Then I stretched the 14 gauge radials out through the pines and thornapples, trying to keep them straight and on the ground.

With everything now in place (except a ground rod at the base of the vertical - still need to do that) I put the station on the air and checked the SWR on 20, 40, and 80. The contest was raging around me as I dialed the power down as low as would still provide an SWR reading and checked it. 20m was about 3.3:1 at the bottom of the band, trending to 2.6:1 at the top of the band -- much adjustment would be needed there. 40m was pretty much dead on, where the vertical is almost a perfect quarter wavelength, and covered the whole band below 2.5:1. 80 meters was narrow, as expected, and centered on about 3.6 mHz or a bit higher - not great for a CW buff like me. Bandwidth on 80 is narrow, as would be expected for a 1/8th wavelength vertical, but it does work.

Then I decided to try a bit of contesting, with 45 minutes left in the contest, at my usual 5 watt power level. Once I got the logging software fired up I started shouting my callsign into the mic. In 45 minutes I got 3 stations (Saskatchewan, Quebec, and somewhere in New England) to hear me, and several others (including the West Indies and Mexico) to ask me to repeat my call and then lose me amidst the QRM.

So ... the HF9v is working, but needs some serious tuning-help. Now I have to find my MFJ-259 analyzer (somewhere still boxed from the move). Boy, do I wish I had bought the tilt-over mount for that HF9v ... Maybe I will still order one and put it on before I get too far into the tuning. The HF9v is a great all around HF antenna, but is Known to be tricky to tune, and I can attest to that.

Maybe I need another antenna? No maybe about it! And I have been thinking about a fan dipole for 80-40-20 ... and already have a rope up at least 80 feet in one of the trees in the back yard ... hmmmmm

Onward and upward!
73 de kt8k - Tim