Portneuf ARES Forum

I do have a G5RV and will be using that antenna. I'm thinking, though, that I'll go to lower Ross Park the same place as last time so that the difference is the antenna, not the antenna and the location. I think I've got everything ready to set up the antenna. I'll also be using my new Arrow 2meter Yagi.

i have Sat off and as of 2:18 am sat. morning nothing has occurred to stop me from going to OK ward park.

Thanks for all that came to our 2nd mini-FD. It was an enjoyable and educational time. Roland and Brett had a G5RV and a home brew dipole (40m?) at Ross Park. Dave, Gregg, Glen, and Ryan had a G5RV at OK Ward. I believe both G5RVs were mounted similarly... something like 20ft in the center and @12 feet at the ends. At OK Ward we also had a Hamstick mounted vertically with the feed point about 10 or 12 ft high. We had 75m, 40m, and 20m hamsticks. And a Vantenna HFp, which is essentially a short vertical, mounted at ground level with three radials.

Regardless of antenna, on 80m, the signal was barely above the noise floor. At OK Ward, the noise floor was about S9. I believe it was a bit lower at Ross... something like S7, but the received signal level was lower there too. How much of that was due to S meter calibration, I don't know.

40m was the "suite spot" for the day. G5RV to G5RV resulted in an S9 signal at OK Ward, with noise floor being around S5 to S6. I believe they received us at Ross with about S3. When we switched to the 40m Hamstick at OK Ward, the received signal from Ross's G5RV was a bit lower... about S7 to S8, but still good copy. If my notes are right, they actually got us a bit better at Ross... about S5. Performance at Ross with the home brew dipole was about the same as with their G5RV.

We then tried 20m. We couldn't communicate with the G5RVs, and OK Ward was unable to tune the 20m Hamstick... apparently it was defective. We used Ryan's Vantenna HFp and were able to communicate with Roland's G5RV... but it was about S8 with S7 noise. We also retried 75m with the HFp and in that case, we has S9 signal and S8 noise floor at OK Ward. It was apparently a bit better at Ross with S8 signal over S3 noise.

Dave also attached an NMO (aka Motorola) antenna mount to 3/8-24 adapter to his car roof and screwed in a 40m Hamstick. That also worked fine, though not quite as well as when the Hamstick was mounted at 12 ft.

Bottom line... at least at this time of day, for the modest distance between OK Ward and Ross Park, 40m vertical seems to work the best. Any of the vertical antenna types worked... Hamstick at 12ft on a mast/tripod, Hamstick on a car roof, or Vantenna HFp. The Hamstick on the car roof has the advantage of being quick and cheap ($14.95 for MFJ 40m stick and $9 for adapter), but disadvantage of not being quite as good of performer as the other two.

The Hamstick on a mast/tripod appeared to operate similarly to the Vantenna HFp, is a bit cheaper, and arguably more intuitive to setup. On the other hand, the HFp fits in a very small package for the entire 80m through 6m. Ryan had a nice padded case with his FT-817 (5W, with internal battery, covers HF/6m/2m/70cm all mode), spare batteries, and misc other items. With that case in one hand and the HFp case in the other hand, you can easily take all that you need to operate in one handful.

Antenna theory indicates that a 40m horizontal antenna (G5RV or dipole) mounted at practical heights radiates upward ("NVIS") more than toward the horizon. A vertical antenna, on the other hand, doesn't radiate much upward, and radiates mostly to the horizon. What that would seem to indicate is that for short distances like we did Saturday, the vertical will work better because you are in ground wave range and want the signal radiating directly to the other station. Our recent experience seems to bare that out. With a bit more distance (Arco to Pocatello?), you may be too far for ground wave, and too close for long distance DX, so you would want your signal going UP to bounce off the ionosphere. We'll test this scenario out at our next mini-FD.

That is a quick summary as I recall the events and interpretted them. As always, we invite the observations and experience of others.

Dave

Ya, It sure looks like if a person had a G5RV and some sort of multi-band verticle, you would be able to cover MOST of the scenarios we are lible to encounter.
I'm not sure I personally agree with the thought that Gregg's hamstick were any more or less intuitive to set up than Ryan's HFp antenna. The only advantage I saw in those was that if you didn't mess with the ground plane parts, then it was just a matter of screwing on a different ham stick. While the HFp is more expensive up front at $260'ish for the main kit and 80 M coil, (with another $70 option to make it into a dipole) it kind of looks to me that by the time you buy/build/make/steal a tripod mount, mast(s), clamps, HamSticks from MFJ at $15 each to cover the same bands, tape measures for ground radials, nuts, bolts, time, etc. etc. etc, you are going to be into the hamstick version just as much money as the HFp, plus, the HFp is a lot smaller and as Dave pointed out, a whole lot easier to transport in a small package than all the other stuff. Both seemed to yeild good results, but for the time and money investment, I'm personally going to get the HFp and eventually the HFp dipole kit for it.
Another option I'm looking into and want to explore some is the Bubbipole Deluxe , which seems to be quite popular among the portable HF community. But, at $400 bucks, it is going to have to impress me quite a bit before I'm going to buy one. I think Brett was using one of these this last weekend but I'm not sure. Does anyone own one or know anyone who owns one? I'd sure like to try it out if possible.

At any rate, I think we learned some things and had some fun doing it. Part of what we maybe ought to do is work on consolidating our go kits a little too to try and make them as compact as possible. I know I sure could stand to do that.

So, until next time.......
73's

The only reason I said one MIGHT consider the hamstick more intuitive is that all you have to do if you want to operate on 40m is screw the stick labeled 40m into the hole. Then, like most other antennas, if it isn't tuned close enough, you make it longer or shorter as needed. Most hams wouldn't need to look at the instructions (I didn't!).

On the other hand, the HFp seems simple enough... but it DOES require you to have the chart handy on which piece screws into which for a given band. Not brain surgery, but it doesn't meet the definition of "intuitive".

As for cost comparisons, that involves a number of things like whether you already have a tripod, chose to buy one ($90 for MFJ "heavy duty"), or dont' use one at all! Then there is whether you use radials (we tested last Saturday and it didn't seem to make a difference in that scenario), and if so, how many, how long, and of what type. Those measuring tapes were brand new for this last Saturday... before that Greg was just using some short pieces of wire. And, with the hamstick, you get to chose whether you will buy a stick for only ONE band... or two... or the whole HF band. I believe with the HFp, you are going to be buying 40m through 6m all at once... your choice being whether to add the coil for 60m through 80m.

But... cost isn't the only factor... and neither is that expensive as ham stuff goes. And as we all seem to have crib sheets of some sort to operate our radios, it doesn't seem to big a deal to have one for assembling an antenna. Having something that fits in a small package and is just...sexy?... (got to be a ham I guess!) counts for something and some of us are willing and able to pay a small price premium for that.

Also, though it wasn't apparent on Saturday, I suspect that in certain operational scenarios, the fact that the errected HFp is 11ft high vs less than 7ft for the MFJ would make a difference. There is no free lunch and there is a performance penalty for taking a 40m antenna that "wants to be" 10 meters high and forcing it to operate in a 2 meter high package. We have seen that other things being equal, the G5RV or a 40m dipole simply work much better than a Hamstick in dipole configuration (or Buddipole for that matter). Same principal applies for vertical. So it stands to reason that with the HFp being taller, that in some scenarious you'll see a noticable improvement over the shorter Hamstick.

If I knew a year ago what I know now, I'd probably buy the HFp. Given my current finances, I'll probably just invest $15 for a 40m stick and mount it to my car when I need HF... can't get much cheaper or quicker than that! I already have the HFp on my "someday wish list"!

Dave

Dave, the hamstick as a vertical antenna definitely worked better than the hamsticks set up as a dipole. I don't understand why, but the evidence was in the hearing!

I had the G5RV up about 24' at the center. It would be pretty easy to put a hamstick up there, in a vertical orientation, instead of the G5RV (or in addition to?). It would probably need some kind of a radial set at the bottom, though. Any thoughts on that kind of a configuration?

I've got the mount on the back of my car for a hamstick. Swapping them out for 75m, 40m, or 20m is pretty easy, and marking them for various fequencies isn't very hard, either (red paint seems to work). Maybe next time I'll try those antennas as well, as the car frame itself makes for a pretty good ground plane. It'd sure be a lot easier than putting up the G5RV.

Thanks for your data!