June 5, 2019 - Vernon, British Columbia, Canada
Lots of fun was had today finishing up the tune on Brad VE7WBM's new HF vertical antenna, a Hustler 5-BTV.
The 5-BTV is a 5 band vertical HF fixed station antenna workable on 10, 15, 20, 40 and 80 metres.
Mike VE7KPZ joined Brad and son Byron to check each band and finally tune up the 80m element.
Scans with Mike's RigExpert AA230-Zoom antenna analyzer showed that all of the previously tuned higher-band sections were still where they needed to be (after Brad's recent trimming of the antenna mounting post).
Brad and Byron then adjusted the length of the 80m whip to get the tune for that band centered around 3.745 MHz. The 3:1 - 3:1 span of good SWR is only 80kHz wide for 80m with this antenna, so this tune will allow Brad to use 3.729 for the BSPSN as well as 3.775 for the Northern Net.
Now to find the source of the S9+10 noise that Brad picks up on 80m...
It was a fun morning,
Mike VE7KPZ