Hello everyone Another $0.02 I agree with Rich. I use a G5RV at 45 ft. in a crowded neighborhood. It has 450 ohm ladder line coming straight down from the center. I use coax into the shack and a home made balun where the feed lines meet. I use it with my Drake transceivers. I can work anything I can hear barefoot and tune it to almost unity with either of my Drake tuners. Real sweet on 20m. One thing I found important is a good ground to everything. It is neighbor friendly as it has darker wire and dark nylon support lines so it blends right into the background of trees and such. Like Rich said, inexpensive and easy to erect.
I plotted tuner settings for different bands and noticed that it tunes a little different depending on the weather but nothing significant. Lots of rain out here in Oregon. Regards Steve WA7EZB > "Richard Arland, W3OSS" made an utterance to the > drakelist gang > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Gang: > > Gotta put my $0.02 in. > > I have known Jim Thompson owner of The Radio Works, since he first started > the business in the early 1980s. I have reviewed a number of his antennas > over the years. The number ONE thing about t The Radio Works and Jim > Thompson: consistency. He builds quality products AFTER he researches the > topic. There is NOTHING magic about his antennas; just solid antenna > physics, quality components, and excellent quality control. He can back up > his claims with data taken from antenna modeling and actual on-air use. > > In 1987 I had the unique opportunity to test one of his standard G5RVs > against a full size 40M dipole, both erected at the same height (about 45 > ft) of the ground.. Hands down, the winner was the G5RV! Absolutely the > best antenna when compared to the dipole. There was no formal test bed, just > on-air testing and the G5RV easily outperformed the dipole. > > Six years earlier, at the RSGB HF Convention at Oxford (UK), I was able to > get 20 minutes of one-on-one face time with Lou Varney, G5RV. We discussed > his mystical antenna and I got quite an education. First of all Lou > designed the antenna as a single band (20M) gain antenna TO BE USED WITH AN > ANTENNA TUNER!! The fact that it worked on other bands was a definatet > "plus", but Lou was specific when he talked about the antena that bears his > callsign: it was a single band wire gain antenna! > > Having said all this: if I was limited to only ONE antenna for HF work, it > would be the G5RV, no question. Even at low heights this antenna works > great. They are inexpensive, easy to erect (just like a diople) and since > the feedline terminates in a piece of coaxial cable routing the feedline > into the shack is not a challenge. REMEMBER to use a tuner!!! The antenna, > while being multi-band, will tune most, if not all the HF ham bands (160 > might be a little tough, but mine would do it) howver, a TUNER is > MANDATORY. If you go with an altered feedline configuration (300 or 450 ohm > ladder line all the way in from the antnna feedpoint to the transmitter) you > can achieve true multiband performance. Just remember, it won't be a gain > antenna on all bands. > > 73 Rich W3OS >
