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Modified 6BTV antenna
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by VE3ELL on May 3, 2009
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Has anyone been able to modify the Hustler 6BTV antenna so it will also work on 75/80 160M bands.I would like to hear about your ideas on this. Russ VE3ELL
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RE: Modified 6BTV antenna
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by N5LRZ on May 4, 2009
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The 6 B model includes the 80 meeter band but not the 160 meter band.
HOWEVER, stick with the 4B model--10,15,20,40 meters. Unless you use a single frequency on 80 meters 100% of the time you ar going to find that the 80 meter coverage suck pond scum--toooooo damn narrow. The 80 meter section is nothing more than a big loading coil with a very short whip.
For 80 and 160 sick with the tried and true dipoles and inverted full quarter wave length L antennas.
One last thing, the instructions say you can install the antenna without ground radials. But DO NOT do this. This antenna will work a hell of a lot better if you install the two full quarter wave length ground radials for each band.
Cannot put in the require minimum ground filed ey? Then forget the 4B or any B and start to look at antennas that do not require ground plane ground fields.
Never compromise on an antenna installation. Put it up as instructions state or do not put that one up at all. Find the antenna that will fit your specific antenna environment installed properly and right per the manufacturer.
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RE: Modified 6BTV antenna
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by WB2GBF on May 9, 2009
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It already works on 80/75, but with only about 60KHz or so bandwidth. I'm also fairly sure it's not as efficient on this band as on the others. You could probably add another resonator for 160, but I wouldn't. I'd go with an inverted L for 160 instead.
Also, believe what people tell you about radials. I just threw it up as a ground mounted vertical when I first got it, just to play. It worked, but not nearly as well as after I added 40 radials.
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RE: Modified 6BTV antenna
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by K0BT on May 9, 2009
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I love my 6BTV, but it's very narrow on 80. I set it for a net frequency and use a dipole for any other contacts on 80. I wouldn't bother trying to make it resonant on 160. You might get a match across a few KHz with a network at the bottom, but it would still be a poor radiator.
I agree. Radials! I added 60 and it works like a dream. 30-32 seems to be the sweet spot.
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RE: Modified 6BTV antenna
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by VE3ELL on May 9, 2009
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I have used this antenna on the local net here (Ontars) 3.755 with no problem using 20- 25 ft radials .I will just use the Alpha Delta DXLB for 160M and also 80 and 40 depending on propagation.
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RE: Modified 6BTV antenna
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by VE3ELL on May 9, 2009
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I made a slight typo and wanted to find out how to modify it for only 160M as it already works on 80/75M.
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RE: Modified 6BTV antenna
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by WB6BYU on May 9, 2009
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Here is how I added 80m to the 4BTV: you can try adapting
it for 160m instead.
I took off the top hat (where the 80m radiator mounts) and
connected a horizontal wire long enough to bring it to
resonance (thus making an inverted L, but not very high.)
Actually if the added wire is exactly a half wave on 40m
the rest of the antenna may still work, but just in case
I added a 40m trap to the wire at the top of the antenna.
A conventional LC trap, or one made with coax, would be
the easiest, but I wanted to experiment. For the trap
I added another wire parallel to the first and about half
a metre away. The wires were shorted at one end a 50pf
capacitor was connected across the other end. With a
wire length of about 2.9m this trap was resonant on 40m.
The trap added relatively little inductance on 80m, but
the extension wire can be adjusted as is normal to
center the SWR curve where you want it in the band.
The trap is tuned by making the wire a bit long to start
with and adjusting the position of the shorting wire.
The capacitor has to be rated to handle the power you
are running - I think I used a large mica at 100 watts.
This isn't necessarily any better than other trap
designs, just something I wanted to try. Now I'd probably
make a coaxial trap just because I don't have a lot of
high voltage mica capacitors around.
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RE: Modified 6BTV antenna
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by KE7VUX on May 12, 2009
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A little research shows that there was a company selling a 160M mod for the BTV antennas. They appear to be defunct now.
DX Engineering sells their Hot Rodz kit, which is a big capacity hat, and from what I understand is very similar to the product that you can't get any more, there just isn't a slick roadmap available.
In the simplest form, you would remove the stainless steel whip from your RM-80(S) resonator, and add a capacity hat (Hot Rodz) to make it resonate on 160. If you read DX's literature, that's precisely what they talk about doing using the Hustler Mobile Resonators to use a 40M Resonator on 80M (with less loss), or the 80M resonator on 160, and so on.
Two other things that strike me.
DX Engineering sells a 60M add-on kit for the BTV antenna. It looks like it's a variation of Hustler's 3-1 adapter that lets you run a single mast, with 3 resonators on top to build a multi-band antenna (think: parallel dipole)
The 60M add-on leaves the 80M resonator in place, but adds a "Y" of sorts below it, and puts a 60M resonator on at a 90-deg angle to the rest of the antenna. You now get a 7BTV. 10/15/20/30/40/60/80.
With that in mind, part 2 (and there are a few variations)
I have a 6BTV, and used to consider it at about 50 or 60khz of bandwidth on 80M. It seems to have gotten a little broader banded since I started using my amplifier on it, and that concerns me a bit.. but anyhow..
How about mounting the 3-1 adapter on top of the antenna, under the RM-80. Now mount three RM-80 resonators, each tuned for a different segment of 80M. That might get you more bandwidth on 75/80M (maybe 150 if it's 50khz * 3)
That's fine, but what really got me thinking about it was the idea of using the RM-80 with a capacity hat for 160M - but I don't want to lose 80M.
So.. 4BTV (or 5/6), 3-1 adapter, sporting a 60M resonator, and two 80M resonators. One 80M tuned for your desired frequency on 80M, the other sporting a capacity hat for your very narrow slice of 160M.
(Or use three 80M resonators and skip 60).
Add in the home-brew 12M and 17M vertical wires and now you have an antenna that'll get you on the air on at least a narrow slice of every HF amateur band.
You'd need to guy it - I'm not sure how bad the wind load will be with three resonators and a capacity hat up top, but it'll be worse than without.
-Tom
KE7VUX
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RE: Modified 6BTV antenna
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by WX7G on May 14, 2009
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Yes the 6BTV will work on 160 meters. If you want to retain 80 meter operation here is a simple method:
Place a Hustler Triband mobile adapter on the vertical. Place the RM80S resonator. Place a second RM80S resonator. Add a 19' horizontal wire to the second resonator and tune for 160 meters.
Or place a DX Engineering HotRodz top hat with six 48" spokes rather than the 19' wire. Tune the spoke lengths for the 160 meter frequency you want. The bandwidth will be 15-20 kHz.
Radiation efficiency is about 7%. I use this and have fun with 500 W CW.
I was the one with the Nantenna company that originated the 4BTV top hat for 160 meters.
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RE: Modified 6BTV antenna
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by WB0CJB on May 14, 2009
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I have used a tuner with my 6BTV vertical and have had good results. I know many people will say that you cannot use a tuner with a vertical. I have used one with mine (an old SST T2 tuner) and it has worked fine on both 40 and 80 meters. I have gone from 6 to over 80 countries on 40 and from 2 to 25 countries on 80. I did have to make a sheet of what to set the tuner to depending on the frequency on both 40 & 80.
I will wholeheartedly agree that radials are a must. I have made quarter wave radials for 80 through 10 (2 each) and the SWR on 40 and 80 did not change at all when I tried lengthening and shortening them. The dimensions that Hustler gives for the radials puts resonance on 10 around 27 Mhz, 15 at 20.5 MHz, 20 at 14.26 Mhz, and 40 around 7.25 MHz. I checked the traps' physical settings against Hustler's info and none of them have been moved. I used the ground mount w/ radials dimensions when putting the antenna together so the only thing that would have an effect on the SWR appears to be the radial lengths. In the near future I will be overhauling the antenna and plan to do some playing around with different radial lengths and see how much resonance shifts on each band.
I used 14 ga. stranded insulated wire for the radials.
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