| TI3LRR |
Rating:  |
2023-10-24 | |
| Problemas con el ajuste del tramo de 15m (B1-B2) |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
Saludos. He bajado mi 5btv y no logro ajustar el tramo de los 15m, (B1-B2), solo ajusta el primer extremo de la frecuencia, unos 30 khz, y el resto de la frecuencia, se mantiene en mas de 4 swr. No logro bajar los extremos de la frecuencia por igual o a un valor de roe razonable.
De momento la estoy ajustando en el suelo con cuatro radiales para luego subirla al techo. Estoy utilizando el manual mejorado de DX Engineering. Agradezco sus consejos, estoy frustrado ya que tengo varios fines de semana de estarlo intentando, cabe decir, que el tramo de 10m (A1-A2), quedó mejor ajustado de lo que esperaba, quedando una roe de 1.1 para los 28 mhz y 1.5 en los 29.7, no comprendo porqué los 15m no ajustan si el primer tramo quedó muy bien. Saludos 73!! |
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| KA8YWB |
Rating: |
2023-10-07 | |
| Works great on the ground Works excellent in the air |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| At the old QTH I had it 20 feet to the bottom with 4 tuned radials per band sloped down and WOW At the new QTH I have it ground mounted with 12 radials per band pinned Took a bit of work and time but well worth it Used it on a short post no radials while creating the radial field I would not recommend use without radials Quality wise they should use better clamps or that may be me I believe in tight connections All said and done With 500w it will reach out there and has decent receive to match |
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| WB4DW |
Rating: |
2023-05-10 | |
| exactly what you should expect from a vertical |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Installed my Hustler 5BTV in June, 2021 and in less than two years have 149 confirmed DXCC contacts and WAS on three bands running 100 watts. To be fair, I also have a ZeroFive vertical that I use for the WARC bands. The 5BTV is a trapped vertical monopole. Don't expect miracles. It will tune broadly on 10-40 meters, but the 80 meter tuning is very narrow. Ground radials are essential. Don't believe anyone who says different. I have 30 ground radials between 20 and 30' long, and I'm going to install more. DX Engineering sells several accessories that make this antenna better, the best being their ground radial plate. I would also never install another 5BTV without their reinforced lower tube.
This is a tuned HF antenna so you aren't going to have to worry much about coax loss with 100' or less of good coax. The 80 meter coil is beefy, and IMO, makes the 5BTV top heavy and thus necessary to install three guy ropes. I don't believe the 4BTV would require guy ropes.
I would gladly buy another of these. It's a tried and true design that works.
73 de WB4DW |
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| OE5RBO |
Rating: |
2023-05-02 | |
| Okay for 40m, but unusable on lower bands |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Bought the 5BTV as 80m Version because it was described to work without radials with limited performance.
The price was acceptable and my expectations on performance were limited on low level.
The manual is not very chilling (it misses any clear pictures which would be easier to understand than several written pages) but the shown sketches are helpful, but anyway: The antenna is not that complicated to assemble, all items were there and fit together very well.
I do not expected wide bandwidth from design, just wanted to adjust it to ONE fixed frequency per band.
At the end: It does not work or perform (in the meaning of the words) on 80m without radials, not even a little bit. If you add radials you might hear strong stations on 80 but cant be sure to make a contact, this might be variable depending on your ground-conductiivity? Well i gave it try to place the mounting-pole into a small lake: Does not change anything at my site.
The antenna is starting to perform on bands higher 7MHz and shows good SWR on 40m/20m getting a little bit worse on 15/10m but still acceptable. (Also without a tuner if you accept the limits of band-coverage).
After all: The book of physics still remains valid:-) |
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| WW8X |
Rating: |
2023-04-23 | |
| True performer |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I've had my 5BTV HF vertical antenna up for over 5 years. I normally can work any station I can hear, including many DX. My location is a small city lot, so I have few alternatives for antennas. My 5BTV is roof mounted at the peak of my house on a tripod with 2 radials for each band fanned out and secured to the shingles. It's fed with RG8 and I've put a 12 turn coffee-can sized coil in the coax at the feed point. It has decent SWR on all 5 bands and with a tuner I get the SWR down to under 1.5. It's guyed with lawyer mower starter rope at 4 points and has gone through many wind storms and is still standing straight and tall.
UPDATE: As you can see from my previous review I'm a big fan of the 5BTV antenna from Hustler. I recently needed to put a new shingle roof on my house, so I wanted to replace my older 5BTV with a brand-spanking new one. I was giving the older one to my son who wanted a vertical. Well here's the problem: The new antenna's aluminum tube sections don't telescope together very well at all. In fact, the section gets horribly stuck halfway down the trap tube, and then is nearly 'impossible' to pull them back apart. The inside diameter of the two 20" aluminum tube sections seem to be slightly undersized creating this disaster. What a huge mess this creates! I used an electric hand sander to reduce the thickness of all the trap tubes to enable them to be inserted into the 20" tubes. Bottom line: Great antenna. Poor quality control in regards to the 20" aluminum tube sections. Come on Hustler this is ridiculous!! |
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| WU9F |
Rating: |
2022-01-31 | |
| Amazing results |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I obtained my 5BTV used in a trade. I installed it on a metal post 61/2' in the ground. I do NOT have any ground radials on my antenna. I have been amazed at how well it works. It tuned easily with a low swr on all bands. I have received great reports of strong signals all over the world. I only run 100 watts but cut through many pileups with those using mega watts. I would not hesitate buying another.
1-30-2022
I used the antenna I reviewed above for about 8years. It had been heavily used when I got it along with a Kenwood TS 430s and a Pyramid power supply ina trade for 4fishing poles. The original antenna lasted until 2 1/2 years ago and I replaced it with a new Hustler 5Btv. I was extremely pleased with my original old and used one. Pleased enough to get the same one only brand new. It was reasonably easy to assemble and get up. It has the tip over base and I put 20 radials down. It works every bit as good as the old one. I can work Australia long path and it is a great DX antenna. My daughter got me the 17 meter add on kit for Christmas and I got it installed a few days ago. I have made numerous contacts on 17 meters so I can have more fun when I play radio. There are a lot of high priced antennas that do not perform like my $200 antenna. Low SWR, and low noise. I would rather put what few dollars I can use for radio in things that actually I prove my performance than have bragging rights with a high dollar antenna that can’t lperform as well. You can certainly spend a lot more on antennas, but you will spend a lot more money per contact Thani did with my $200 antenna. |
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| AB4PP |
Rating: |
2021-06-08 | |
| Satisfied. |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Purchased used from another ham. I purchased the ground plate and the swiveling mounting bracket and the 80 meter add on. I mounted on the ground as per instructions with 16 ground radials so far. It performs well, receives well but not as good as a windom on 80 within 800 miles. Several S units lower. I took it apart before I put it up and put new penatrox at each section for a better connection, put in a new run of coax to the station. Very satisfied so far and hopefully will work some DX as time goes on. Satisfied so far. Since putting the antenna up I have added another 24 radials, and spiked them to the ground. I added several longer 60 foot radials for the 80 meter band and they helped for that band. Satisfied with the vertical but now planning to add a 160 meter loops and see the difference.de John Paul // AB4PP |
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| K9NUD |
Rating: |
2021-04-04 | |
| So far so good |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Truth be told, someone gave this antenna to me 15+ years ago. It has been in my garage attic the whole time - disassembled. In the interim, I have used every imaginable wire antenna I could fit on my property. Horizontal delta loop, G5RV, End-Fed Half Wave, etc. I even struck a deal with a neighbor to use their pine tree to get a full 132' EFHW in the air. I noticed the 5BTV as I was gearing up for that adventure and wondered if it would work. I've been experimenting with verticals for POTA and have had good success. I thought "what the heck" and I set it up temporarily in my back yard with 4 radials (two 32', two 16') using a surveyor's tripod. I started tuning it and was amazed at the good SWR. 15M was erratic, though, so I figured it had a bad trap. I took it down and realized that the 15M trap sleeve was not attached to the cast aluminum bottom piece. Someone had taped it together with old cloth tape which had deteriorated. I re-taped it and solved the problem.
My tuner has two inputs, so it's easy to switch between the 40M EFHW and the 5BTV. Everything seems to come in better on the Hustler. I realize that A/B tests are often tainted by proximity and NVIS, but this thing really works better. It's a good thing that I'm very flexible, as I have been kicking myself in the rear all afternoon.
I'm going to get the 30M trap, the beefier pole, and some new trap caps. I'll rig up my own tilt-over and radial plate. This thing is getting a permanent home in the back yard. |
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| N2ZD |
Rating: |
2019-04-27 | |
| Got me back on HF! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I gave this a “5” which means great, is it great? If you consider that it got me back on the air and my first contact was 1300 miles and my second was Italy, I’m quite pleased. I recently moved into an apt in a private house, the Landlord is off premises but I secured exclusive use of the yard. I drove a 6 foot pipe into the ground and assembled this antenna and was on the air in two hours or so. I didn’t lay radials down yet, but proceeded to try it anyway until I could do so. I’ve worked quite a few stations with it and for what I have, what I paid and the fact that the install is not finished yet, I’m glad I bought it. It’s exceptional on 20 so far, pretty good on 40 and then try to center it for use on 80 Where you expect to be hanging out. Considering it’s a compromise, it’s a pretty good alternative to having nothing at all and quite the surprise. I’ll play around with a radial system, adjustments etc. and report back later on. But so far I’m very happy, I’m sure I’ll be happier with more ground radials and as I tweak this thing. If you have the space for it and have no other alternative but a vertical, go for it!!
Best regards. DE Richy N2ZD |
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| K3TS |
Rating: |
2017-07-14 | |
| Great value, solid performance. |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I initially purchased the Hustler 4BTV to use on my camper, for Field Day and other portable campsite operation. It is easy to set up, built very well, and offers performance equal to or better than a dipole when installed over a good ground system. I have been using the aluminum roof of my camper for a ground plane and it works amazingly well.
Just prior to Field Day 2017, I purchased the 80 meter add-on kit from DX Engineering. This kit offers decent performance over a 50 kHz wide segment of the 80 meter band. Using the excellent instruction sheet from DX engineering, I tuned the antenna for resonance at 3525 kHz, which effectively gave me coverage of most of the CW portion of the band, giving me an additional band/mode for FD without the need to raise a second antenna.
Overall, I was quite surprised and pleased with the performance of this antenna during Field Day, especially on 80 CW. On just about any band I could call CQ no more than two or three times and get a nice pileup of callers in return. I am not sure that any of the various wires I have put up for FD have ever worked quite as well, and certainly none of them delivered 5 band coverage.
I am confident that this antenna can serve me well as my primary antenna for portable operation. It can be assembled and deployed atop my camper in about 15 minutes, and I don't need to stretch wires all over the campground. Additionally, when I am not camping, I can use this antenna at my home QTH to supplement my tri-band beam and 80/40 dipoles. I have driven a six foot galvanized pipe into the ground in the backyard with 25 random length radials around it, and it works well there also.
For around $200, this antenna represents a great value, and works quite well. I am therefore giving it a rating of 5 out of 5. If I could only have one HF antenna, and was on a limited budget, I could function very nicely with the Hustler 5BTV. I highly recommend this antenna for any fixed or portable station application.
73 Tony, WA2FZB |
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