I think I have decided to install a ground mounted vertical.  I can install radials from 28' up to about 40' and as many as I want.

Talking w/ a guy from DX Engineering he pointed out that the Butternut's have a higher wind rating and since I will not be installing any guy wires that's kinda' important.  

Is there a quality/performance difference between the three?  I'm not worried about aesthetics, function is much more important.

Right now I'm looking at the antennas that handle about six bands.

I just bought the two band model from DXE, the Butternut HF2V. It does 40 and 80 meters, with radials.
The Hustlers are out of stock until late next month.

DX Engineering now owns Butternut, and they're in stock or they were 2 weeks ago.

I haven't installed it yet, it came just before the weather got miserable here.

A lot of hams have their 6 or 9 band models, and most of them like them. Radials are the key for any vertical antenna. Unless you can put some above the ground, then you can get away with less from what I read.

DXE does recommend one set of guy ropes about 8-10' above the ground in windy areas. Where I'm at we get wind, but mine will be protected by a line of scrubby trees and a 6' vinyl fence. I'm still going to add the guy ropes, since I did have my Gap Challenger come down 10 years ago with 3 guys. It now has 4 guys.

If you can't guy it, the Butternut is probably a better option if it's in your budget. I know several people who've had very good luck with them. On 80 the bandwidth is pretty thin, and performance isn't great unless you have a good radial field. Approx 40 feet is the right length for a full size 80m radial on the ground, if you have at least a few of those in the mix it will help on 80.

I have heard nothing but rave reviews for the ZeroFive Antennas 43ft Vert.

10m-160m free standing. No traps, coils.

Uses a 4:1 unun, able to handle full legal limit.

$470

https://zerofive-antennas.com/product/43-foot-10-160-meter-multiband-foldover-vertical-antenna-with-unun/

I am very tempted to buy one myself.

I have had a Hustler BTV5 up since early summer.  I was folding it down in winds hitting 30mph.  I did not like to see the flex above that.  I finally put the guys on in the fall.   I wouldn’t have wanted to see it take the 80mph winds if I was away from home.  DXE sells a heavy duty bottom section for it but I don’t have that.    Guying beats running out in the dark in a blowing hard rain to fold the antenna down.

that is my tidbit of personal experience.  New ham, I have not run the others.

Nuts.



It's a untuned length that you have to provide a tuner for, and it's too long for low angle signal at anything above 30 meters.

If you want to do that, get some tower sections or a telescoping mast or something and buy a remote tuner, should be a lot less expensive.

I may be a bit prejudice about this topic. Don Newcomb designed the Butternut while I was learning Morse Code from him in a mini class at Mankato State College where he taught.  I was lucky enough to hear conversations about design and performance changes as they happened in the early 1970s when I was being educated to pass my novice ham radio license and the Butternut Antenna was being designed and tested before going into.production.  The Butternut electrical performance is the best of the six vertical commercially available antennas that I have personally owned and tried. Living in southern Minnesota where wet snow happens somewhat regularly can be death to a vertical antenna when accompanied with even light winds. The Butternut Vertical has faired better than other makes, BUT, I am recommending at least one set of guy ropes in these conditions. Additionally, using ground radials will be very helpful no matter whose vertical antenna you end up using. Someone else mentioed the 80 meter bandwidth is sort of narrow and this is true. It is also true of 160 meters.  The Butternut Vertical is as good as it gets and has been for over forty years!

Good luck with your ham radio endevours!

Butternuts are great antennas- once you get them tuned, and the 6 or 9 can be interesting to tune.


Don't believe the hustler delivery dates, just an FYI.

ETA, pull up the manuals online for all that you are looking at, DXE has them right on the product page. You can see exactly what you are getting into.

I forgot to mention, the bottom two sections of the Butternut are double walled. Pipe inside of pipe, which should help with surviving wind.

I will still guy mine as DXE recommends, about 8-9' above ground.

They sell guy ring sets for around $9 that have 5 different size rings for different diameter antenna sections.

I wish I could get a day of suitable weather, on a day off work, to get mine set up. I bought the 6 band Butternut from DXE. Either I have to work, or the weather is crap.

And one of those rings fits perfectly at the joint just above the coils at about 8'.  That's where I guyed mine and it has survived some really rough thunderstorm winds.

Installing antennas in bad weather gives you 3db gain.


...it's true

.

A NanoVNA made tuning my HF6V so much easier.

My original 75-ohm matching cable needed replacing.  Rather than spend $50+ for a new one, I made my own for about $11.  The NanoVNA helped get that cut/tuned to the right length.

The inverse temperature law of antenna performance. The colder and more miserable it is when you put the antenna up, the better it will perform.

This. With tuner at feedpoint.

You're both full of shit. I'll wait for better weather. I have my tripod mounted portable in case of emergency.

!

I'm pretty happy with mine, there is a pretty outspoken voice here that seems to have a hatred for them that I don't understand.
Tom at zero-Five is pretty straightforward on the limitations of the 0-5 but my experience with the recommended Palstar at2k is 0 swr pretty much across the spectrum with little loss.
I'm not going to argue physics but I have worked voice ssb and FT8 in South Africa, McMurdo and frequently Australia and New Zealand. I seem to have a shadow in eastern Europe but I can get most of the middle east. (80 in all to date). But I'm no expert.
What it won't do is regional, I work a couple nets within 500 miles on 75 meters and I had to put up an inverted vee dipole for those. The vertical is quieter than my end fed, the easiest antenna I have to maintain and reaches out over 10,000 miles frequently. I know there are better performing antenna's out there but at the price point it works great.