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eHam Forums / Antennas and Towers and more / RE: Hustler 4BTV Overhaul
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on: December 03, 2012, 06:50:48 AM
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Hi Kyle, sorry it took so long to get back with you.
Your traps may have corrosion inside due to the screws
that secure the coil wire, tubing and insulator together.
Mine were so bad, I had to replace one coil with new
aluminum wire. I also replaced the screws with stainless
screws to help prevent it from happening again.
If your traps have corrosion, they can act like diodes.
Did you measure the resistance of the traps? It should
be zero ohms.
My traps had three screws that connected the outer tube
to the inner tube, I used aluminum screws to replace those
screws. If your traps have the tapered end, then you don't
have those screws.
If your insulators are cracked and broken, you can use
lexan/plexiglass to replace them.
When I disassembled my traps, I used a sharpie marker
to mark the position of the outer tube.
The fact that you are picking up more noise with the
vertical may be a sign it is working. How is the overall
reception of the vertical VS the wire antenna?
I notice the same situation with my 40 M wire antenna
and vertical, and the horizontal wire shows directivity
while the vertical hears signals the horizontal can't
hear off the ends of the wire...
Thanks. I get less noise on 40m on a simple dipole I had for 20m. The antenna was up only about 8 feet and not being a 40m antenna probably help cut down on the noise since it wasn't made for 40m. I may have to look at the traps. I did notice that the plastic trap covers had small cracks so corrosion could be an issue. I am also wondering if grounding the coax shielding may help. There is a ground rod for the power in the house that is right against the house. Should I hook up to that to ground the shielding of the coax? |
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eHam Forums / Antennas and Towers and more / RE: Hustler 4BTV Overhaul
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on: November 30, 2012, 07:43:41 AM
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Ok, I took down the Hustler 4BTV antenna, dismantaled the antenna, minus the trap covers as I didn't want to mess up the tuning of the traps, cleaned all the tubing and reassembled the antenna. I also cleaned all the coax connections. I am still getting a lot of noise, s7 to s9, on 20m and 40m that is worse on 40m. I then shut down all the power in my house and ran the radio off a battery and still heard the noise. I took an AM radio and walked around the neighborhood and didn't pick up anything. When I put up a simple 20m dipole, I get very little to no noise. I even ran a different coax to the vertical and it didn't help. When I use the attenuator on my Icom IC-735, most of the noise goes away (and so does the weak signals from distant stations). I would really like to get this vertical working better on 20 and 40 so I am looking for ideas. Could there be something wrong with the 20m trap? It has great SWR. BTW, this is an old antenna I bought years ago from a guy who was selling off his dad's gear since he had passed away.
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eHam Forums / Misc / RE: Looking at getting a new HF radio
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on: November 12, 2012, 08:52:49 AM
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Well if the IC 735 has a good receiver, then can anyone help me with te noise I am hearing? I am running a Hustler 4BTV vertical that I just overhauled and added radials so now I have 16. It is ground mounted as well. All power lines in my area are underground. I don't recall having this much noise in the past. I just figured the radio was getting old. I have read that some people have had issues with poor solder connections in the IC 735. Over all I like the radio. I just thought it might be time for a newer one with all the noise I am hearing. It registers around S5.
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eHam Forums / Misc / Looking at getting a new HF radio
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on: November 12, 2012, 07:35:09 AM
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I am thinking about getting a new/ good used HF radio to replace my Icom IC 735. I don't want to spend a ton of money but would like some of the advantages of the newer rigs (like DSP). My current radio seems to have a noisy receive so it makes it hard to hear other people at time so a quieter receive would be nice. I have looked at the Icom 718 which seems to be similar but I don't know if would be much, if any, better. I was also thinking about getting the IC 746.
I am looking for peoples thoughts. I am for the most part a casual operator but have thought about getting into contesting at some point (maybe). I am kinda partial to Icom but am open to any radio.
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eHam Forums / RFI / EMI / RE: Smoke detector chirping
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on: November 12, 2012, 07:24:16 AM
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I think I found the problem. It was the carbon monoxide detectors not smoke detectors that were chirping (they are near each other). They just plug into the wall so when I want to work 15 or 20 meters (the only bands that make them chirp), I just unplug them. It is nice when it's an easy fix. Haven't used the radio much since I figured it out but it seems to work so far  |
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eHam Forums / Antennas and Towers and more / RE: Hustler 4BTV Overhaul
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on: November 07, 2012, 06:19:13 PM
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So I think I will leave the traps alone. I just thought since I was cleaning up the antenna, I would ask. It was loading up well before I started to work on it. There was just a ton of rust on the terminals and all the hardware on the base was rusted. I replaced it all with stainless steel. I also had to redo the coax connections. I have it all ready to go back up so we will see tomorrow (as it is dark now) how it all goes back up. I hope the SWR will be like it was before. I can't wait to get back onto HF. It has been a long time.
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eHam Forums / Antennas and Towers and more / Hustler 4BTV Overhaul
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on: November 07, 2012, 09:56:31 AM
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I am overhauling a 4BTV vertical that I bought used several years ago. I know the traps are tuned and I am not sure how to retune them. What I am wondering is would it be a bad idea to remove the pipe that goes into the trap and clean them up and add grease. I was thinking I could put a hose clamp on the pipe to mark the spot so when I reassembled it, it would be right back at the same spot it was prior to dismantling.
Of course I was wondering if it is even nessessary to do it. I would think they would have put some sort of anti corrosion grease at the factory.
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eHam Forums / RFI / EMI / RE: Smoke detector chirping
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on: November 05, 2012, 09:41:58 AM
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Sounds good. replacing the battery is easy (and I like easy fixes) so I will start with that. Kinda makes sense as none of the other smoke detectors are giving me any trouble. I hope it is just a battery issue. Guess I will find out tonight when I get home.
If anyone else has ideas, please post them just in case this doesn't solve it.
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eHam Forums / RFI / EMI / RE: Smoke detector chirping
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on: November 04, 2012, 06:20:41 PM
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So if the battery in the detector is weak and I transmit on my HF radio, that could cause the chirp? It doesn't chirp when I am not transmitting like it would when the battery is getting low.
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11
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eHam Forums / RFI / EMI / Smoke detector chirping
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on: November 04, 2012, 02:32:24 PM
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I am getting back into ham radio after being way for a few years. I set up my Hustler 4BTV ground mounted with 16 radials that are 20 feet long. I was able to get the SWR down to about 1.5 to one on 10 and 15 meters (haven't tuned for 20 or 40 meters yet). I made an attempt to call CQ on 15 and caused one of my smoke dectectors to start chirping. The detector is about 30 to 35 feet from the antenna and is at the same level as the antenna. It did not trigger any other detector and they all wired so if one goes off, they all go off so I am assuming the RF is getting into the detector but not the whole system. What should I do to stop it from chirping?
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eHam Forums / Station Building / Icom IC718 rig
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on: August 11, 2008, 08:54:24 PM
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Thanks for all the help. Sounds like adding radials to my antenna would be a great help. Also going to a 718 would do nothing for me as my antenna is not the best and I know the best radio would be nothing if the antenna is average. Maybe I will wait until I add radials and can afford something with IF filters like a 746.
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14
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eHam Forums / Antennas and Towers and more / Hustler 6btv radials
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on: August 01, 2008, 07:01:20 PM
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So it sounds like 20 to 25 radials and I should notice a real difference. I found 2 broken radials so right now I have 6 working radials and the bands are real quiet. Adding 15 to 20 more radials and the bands should get a bit busier I hope. I just need to get a metal detector now to figure out exactly where the radials I have are located.
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eHam Forums / Station Building / Icom IC718 rig
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on: July 31, 2008, 10:20:37 AM
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Is the IC746 a good idea? I currently have a Hustler BTV-4 with only 6 or 8 random length radials and it is ground mounted. I am limited as to what I can put up for an antenna and I know I could use a few more radials. Would I be wasting my money on a better rig? Also how many radials on the vertical minimum before I see a real difference? Would adding a pre-amp help with what I am lacking in antenna?
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