Manager


Manager - NA4M
Manager Notes

Reviews For: Hy-Gain AV-18HT Hy-Tower

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

eMail Subscription

Registered users are allowed to subscribe to specific review topics and receive eMail notifications when new reviews are posted.
Review Summary For : Hy-Gain AV-18HT Hy-Tower
Reviews: 36MSRP: 999.95
Description:
53-foot vertical antenna - been reintroduced
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.hy-gain.com/Product.php?productid=AV-18HT
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00364.8
KC5MNA Rating: 2012-11-01
Fantastic Reports Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The antenna has been up for 2 years.I have nothing but good reports. Many times people think I have the amp on. Ground radials are less than optimal but a big help for DX. Want to talk closer disconnect the radials. I added the 160 inverted L kit from HyGain.Swr is good and banwidth is suitable for my uses about 65 kc under 2:1. Still a cloud burner on 160 with a little better range.
One other note. Not RFI or radio related.
A disgruntled neighbor removed the bolts on the bottom and the tower fell over. The only damage was to the mounting brackets. Installed new ones stood it back up and works fine. No damage to the antenna.
As to the neighbor,the antenna looked better after it was stood back up than he did. HiHi
KW6G Rating: 2012-09-01
Fantastic antenna - well worth the wait Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I had this antenna in storage for 17 years - waiting for the right time a place to erect it...I indicated how long its been on the air under time owned as I felt it more appropriate that way...

I put it up at my summer home in the Sierra Nevada foothills this summer...Great performance - despite some challenges getting it erected between some trees on a sloping lot...I find it to be superior to my Butternut HF9V at the home QTH in the SF Bay Area...

Antenna tunes on 75, 40, 20, 15, 11, and 10..Have the 160/80 coil, but not installed it yet. Contemplating purchasing the 17 meter mod...

First real attempt to operate with the antenna resulted in working 59++ stations in Asia, Oceania, North and South America, and Europe..All within an hour on 20 meter SSB!! A definite improvement over shortened verticals...Antenna does everything advertised and a bit more (11 meter band without mods)...

I will post more info after I have had more time operating with the antenna.
VK5LB Rating: 2010-02-02
Very good vertical if you can provide a decent ground plane. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought the unit second hand. I installed in an above ground elevated situation on a large solid farm building iron roof which was used as ground. Had the 160 coil. Used an RF common mode choke at the base. I noted the 3 fibre glass insulators were OK but I encased them each in a pot of fibre glass resin for extra strength. The tower went up without a hitch. Compared to the Butternut HF2V the bandwidth is amazing on 160 and 80m. The SWR was excellent on the other bands. As others have said it is a large antenna and needs some thought prior to installation. If the whole setup is properly thought out it is one of the most effective big signal, broad bandwidth, multi band verticals money can buy. Man it looks good.
W7DBR Rating: 2009-12-23
Outstanding Vertical! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My new High Tower is only up for a few weeks and I only have 18 radials down (too much snow and mud at the moment), but the performance is already outstanding! Strong, great s/n on receive and I immediately got "big signal 5 and 9 +!" reports from stations I contacted 1000 miles away with only 100W. I can hear stations now on the other side of the world (i.e., Argentina) on 80M that I could never hear before on a G5RV or OCF Dipole at 50 feet. The 18HT "lights up" the SDR-1000 spectrum display with huge, low noise signals! It is also a great pleasure to have a nearly perfect antenna match on 20M, 40M, and 80M simultaneously with no tuner, no stepper motors, and no traps. Background noise is surprising low. I am feeding the High Tower with 150 feet of underground 9913 coax through a DX Engineering feedline current choke.

The performance does come at a cost....$$$, time, and back breaking effort! It requires digging a huge hole in the ground and 4500 lbs of concrete. Assembly of the antenna itself was straightforward. I found the instructions and diagrams to be very clear and the main antenna parts fit together extremely well. I thought it was almost too good to be true until I got to the antenna stubs which were a disaster! The 40M, 15M, and 10M stubs had missing parts and many hardware items with incorrect dimensions. I had to drill out and hand file many parts to assemble and attach the stubs to the antenna. MFJ's "Stub Department" failed while all others are doing a great job.

I am looking forward to getting down all sixty 64 and 128 foot radials, installing a new 1kW amplifier, and putting up the 160M inverted-L wire and trap.

73's
W7DBR
KE5YGR Rating: 2009-05-16
Great vertical, does an amazing job Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Had up for about a month now, alot of work to put one in. Running 30 radials, buried about 2-3 inches under ground. Have probably contacted over 50 countries so far just playing around. Can usually get over the top of the pile-ups with my IC-7700 and IC-PW1 running 1KW....

Low SWR on all bands, needed a bit of adjustment when completed, but got everything tuned. Running the MK160 for 160m, still needs adjustment, will get to that one of these weekends. Antenna runs great on 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m (installed the 17m stub), 20m, 40m and 75m, even works well with an antenna tuner on 6m.
W2YM Rating: 2008-12-15
(GREAT Antenna) Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have been using this antenna now for 3 weeks and I can't say enough about it. I am talking all over the state's and WORLD. I can't believe the receive and transmit power that this antenna puts out. You can run lower power and people are hearing me 10 over on 10 watts. Put on the amp and well you can just imagine what happen's. The thing is I can't believe the RECEIVE it is JUST GREAT. I work 160-10 and they all work GREAT. I put this antenna together just as it is written in the instruction manual and I am good to go, know extra radial wire's. Big beams might work great but I think I would put this antenna aganist one.hihi.. I give this antenna a 10 wait, only can give it a 5 that is to bad for it works like a (10) Mark W2YM 73's.
WD4LUR Rating: 2008-10-31
Great antenna for lower bands Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had two Hy-Towers over the years. The one I have now has been up at two locations. The antenna works GREAT on 40, 80 and 160 (160 with the optional 1kw trap). It also works really well on 20 meters. But 15 and 10 meters leaves a lot to be desired.

On 40 m and down this antenna is a DX machine when installed properly. Which on those bands it is not so practical to have a yagi. On 20m you can still compete, but it is not a 3 or 4 element yagi. However, it did consistently out perform a full size dipole on 20 that I had up.

If you want a ground mounted vertical to be efficient you must put down a lot of ground radials. I currently have 8000 ft of wire down for radials. For what its worth, my experience over the years shows that you need to put at a minimum 60 radials 1/4 wave long at the lowest frequency you want to operate. But whatever your property situation is, just put down as much as you can.

Also, MFJ actually improved the antenna over the old Hy-Tower that I had. Now the bottom mounting plate and top plate are made from stainless steel. I personally like it much better.

I hope this review helps you in some way.

73’s
Dan
N7UVH Rating: 2008-09-08
Best vertical on market Time Owned: more than 12 months.
If I was only able to have one antenna, it would be it. I have 3000 feet of radials and if I can hear em, I can work em.. I did need to put up a cloud warmer for 40 and 80 meters for the close nets.
It is a keeper..
Murf
n7uvh
K7WK Rating: 2007-02-18
80 Meter Performance Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Essentially, I used this antenna in somewhat of an experimental mode.

I used an 18HT on 80 meters only (no other bands installed). A custom base (Heavy Duty 'L' brackets) was constructed for 'tip-up' roof mounting. The roof was internally braced to support additional weight, and the tower was guyed to the roof. (i.e. it was not 'free standing' in this installation).

An artifical ground plane was created with four radials, and slightly slanted down. I didn't have enough room to run them out fully lengthwise, so I wrapped them around wherever I could.

Aside from a terrible local static from power lines, this was the best performing 80 meter antenna I have ever used from a small city lot.

The guys at the DX club chuckeled at me when I told them what I put up, but when I started breaking the long path pile-ups, the chuckeling subsided.

It is the antenna that helped me to break 100 DXCC countries on 80.

Future considerations are for a 4-square array. The 18HT is a prime candidate for the vertical elements.
K5WR Rating: 2007-01-22
Great antenna on 40-80-160 Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had an 18HT up since 1985, used primarily on 40-80-160. I didn't install the stubs for the higher bands but instead added 10' to the mast length and shorted the mast to the tower. This results in a vertical nearly 1/2 wavelength on 40m, 1/4 wavelength on 80m, and 1/8 wavelength on 160m. About 40 random length radials and an L-network with a motor-driven capacitor at the antenna base worked great for years. Presently the antenna is direct coax-fed, and a tuner is used in the shack. This allows matching the antenna across all of 10-160 (I use it on 40-80-160), and it works like gangbusters. (All-band tuning is accomplished by finding the proper length coax using a Smith Chart.) Over the years I've worked DX almost at will with this setup, especially on 40m, where the ground plane isn't as important for a 1/2 wavelength vertical. One note, the proper coax length for all-band matching is more than needed to reach the antenna in my case, so the extra coax is wound into an RF choke at the feedpoint of the antenna... this does a great job keeping RF feedback out of the shack. If you're interested in using a city-lot vertical on the low-bands, this arrangement is hard to beat.