From a performance point of view I think all these antennas are pretty much a wash for what you want to do, so then it comes down to practical installation. So decide if you're going to ground mount or roof mount.  That will thin the herd here a bit. 

Elevated mounting of HF verticals is difficult except for the likes of the "ground independent" ones.  So for the butternut you would need resonant radials for each band which results in a messy roof and a tuning chore.  So it would seem if you're bent on roof mounting the Cushcraft and Hy gain would be your option, ground mounting would be the zero five or the butternut. 

The zero five style antenna requires a tuner.  Not sure if you anticipated or budgeted for that.  I think it's a PITA to retune every QSY and that would be a non-starter for me but that's a personal preference thing.  The butternut does not require a tuner and my personally biased opinion is the butternut is a more practical ground mounted antenna than the zero five is.

I think having an antenna like these can be a very useful thing even as you advance through the hobby.  I wouldn't think of this as a "starter" or "compromise" antenna but rather a general purpose one you can keep around and use in concert with more specialized ones you may add as you move forward.  It's convenient to have a known performance, omni antenna you can take a quick spin through the bands with, and use for general purpose operating.  I've had my butternut for about 25 years now and use it for one band or another every time I'm in the shack, even with a selection of other wire and beam antennas in the yard.

Mark K5LXP
Albuquerque, NM

That's what I've been doing with the dipper, and BTW the dip is more pronounced when the slugs are all the way in (maximum inductance).


As you know, I'm not ganging them, I'm using two separate triple gangs with the gangs wired in parallel and acting as single capacitors. That way, there's no need to mess around with trimmers to make sure the two tuning circuits track. I can adjust the two caps manually instead. In fact it's an idea I got from you, about a year ago, before I got blindsided by heavy professional commitments and took a multi-month break from radio.



Good, you've answered my original question for which I started this thread. Judging from the dipper experiments, the passband is indeed quite narrow: the dips only last for a small portion of the bands, requiring frequent re-tuning of the variable cap. Thanks to your answer, I now know that far from being a problem, this is actually an advantage. I am happy to retune frequently if that reduces images and other interference.

Plus, "zipping through the band" is not what I had in mind since I want to hang out in fairly specific places, at least at the beginning, as I struggle with my first CW QSOs. To my surprise, the Morse studying that I did last year was not in vain even after the six-month break: it seems to be coming back quite fast. I'm up to 18 characters in Koch, at 20WPM, so that's more than halfway through the learning process. I'm reading bits and pieces of CW QSOs on the air with my little Ramsey 20M kit direct-conversion RX.

73 de Martin, KB1WSY

Thanks Bob!  Almost but no cigar.

Sheesh, ur always watching over me!    BTW, can you run a KW thru the rat shack special relay?

See you on the bands this weekend. Maybe get YY in there tow and have a party WOOT!

73  Dave KD8GEH

I'm glad I recently made my first (and, so far, only) Maldives QSO. http://travel.aol.com/off-the-beaten-path/maldive-islands-disappearing/?icid=maing-grid7|main5|dl6|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D315981

Why not simply disable/bypass internal tuner?

I am trying (3rd try  ) to install my Icom IC-880h in my Toyota RAV4.  My latest challenge is the separation cable between the radio body and the radio's head.

I purchased Icom's longer separation cable (OPC1154A) and it is too short. 

I called Icom and a very nice technician explained that the cables are made in Japan and there are no spec sheets that provide the type of cable.  Icom did provide that the cable connectors are RJ11 connectors and they are straight-through type, not cross-overs.

Does anyone have the specifications for the cable or have any ideas on who might be able to build a ~22 foot cable?

Thanks!

Thanks guys.  That puts me at ease.    Its a lovely amp.

Not for reasons you think. They can modify and tweak Debian code for their needs and not windows and they have ability to write custom apps for it. This is far beyond average user ability.

Easy enough to contact. This was on W4RT's site in the contact area:

 W4RT Electronics is a Division of the PanTechne Corporation

Googling PanTechne returns the following:

Pantechne Corp
W4rt Electronics, Pantechne Corporation
3077 Leeman Ferry Road SW
Huntsville, AL   35801-5614 map
Phone: (256) 880-8207   

I would stay far away from Dell. The founder is in the process of going private and dropping desktop and laptop computers so support will be going from questionable to even worse soon. Simple get 64bit Win7 or 8 (which will soon be upgraded to 8.1 for free) and at least 6 gig or ram not 4. A AMD processor with quad core or Intel I-3 core third generation. The I-3 is entry level for the I core series but is twice as fast as dual core G series Pentiums. They are both dual core but "I" series also supports hyper threading which gives you 4 virtual cores in task manager. It also has better built in Video as the G series is a cheap entry level CPU. AMD does not support Hyper threading and why you want four core model and AMD owns ATI and has good built in video options. While a bit slower than Intel you will not miss it with quad core one. As far as off the shelve brands check out HP as they build a quality and excellent tech support.