Butternut HF2V Installation January 2005

Butternut HF2V Installation 1/7/05

For the 2005 ARRL RTTY Roundup, I installed a back-up antenna for 40 and 80 meters. I decided on a Butternut HF2V 40/80 meter vertical. I chose the HF2V based on my experience with the 6-band HF6VX model. I owned two HF6VX antennas previously and knew it was a good vertical antenna. I also knew the HF6VX took several hours to build. I was hoping the HF2V would be easier since it was only two bands. So I purchased a Butternut HF2V 40/80 meter vertical from HRO in Atlanta and it arrived at my office Thursday morning before the weekend of the Roundup. I constructed most of the antenna that day and found it quite simple compared to the HF6VX.

I took Friday off from work to install the new vertical. I wanted to install the vertical out about 300' into a swampy area directly behind my property. It's a low-lying area of mud and brush. I had never ventured out there in the 10 years I lived at this present QTH. When I walked out there Friday morning to scope out a location, I quickly found that the area past about a 100' was too thick in sticker-bush brush to even walk through. So I opted for a location only about 50 feet from the end of my back yard and about 100 feet from my other antennas.

Since the area is soft ground, I needed something to slip the base of the antenna over so that it would be more secure in the ground. I took an old broom wooden stick which was about 4 feet long and 3/4" in diameter and pushed it into the mud about half way before it met some resistance. I knew there was a layer of clay down there so it was necessary to hammer down the last two feet until about 4 inches remained above ground. I was careful to make sure the broom handle was vertically straight by checking it with a level. I then was able to push the base of the vertical into the ground over the broom stick without hammering. I went ahead and put the coil section and top section on to complete the actual antenna. I then took a 10' ground rod and pushed it into the ground right next to the base of the antenna. The ground rod, thankfully, went in easily by hand (this has to be one of the few places on earth where you can push a ten foot ground rod all the way in by hand!). I connected the ground rod to the ground section of the vertical with short piece of #10 solid copper wire with ground lugs on both the grounded base of the antenna and the ground rod.

I then turned my attention to installing radials. Because I live on the Mississippi River delta, I know from experience that this ground is probably the most fertile in the world and is very low-loss. So I planned on just eight 40' radials to start with. I had a spool of #14 stranded wire which I decided to use for the radials. It's not the best wire for radials but it would work for this weekend. One at a time, I cut 40' lengths of this wire and laid them out from the base of the antenna after having to clear small areas of brush. I connected 4 of the radials to the grounded base of the antenna and the remaining 4 radials to the ground lug on the ground rod.

I then had to run the feed line to the shack. I decided to go ahead and make a permanent installation of the feed line since I had the time. I had no more remaining penetrations into the attic from the outside, so I drilled a hole into the attic with a one inch hole saw and installed a plastic CGB which matched the other existing penetrations. My cable penetrations are located where my taller Rohn 25 tower is bracketed to the back of the house at a height about 15 feet above the ground. I set up a spool of RG-214 coax at the base of the tower and installed a PL-259 connector on the end. I then walked the end of the cable with the connector out into the swamp and connected it to the vertical. When I constructed the vertical on Thursday, I made a short "pigtail" coming off the feed point of the vertical with a PL259 connector. I then joined the pigtail with the feed line with a PL258 "barrel" adapter. This way I could insert a bird wattmeter if needed.

I estimated how much coax would be needed to complete the RF feed line through the attic and down the wall into the shack, spooled that cable off and cut the end. I then fed the end of the coax through the CGB and into the attic. I applied RTV sealant to the outside of the CGB and washer and tightened the CGB over the coax. The outside work was finished.

The new penetration is on the far left from the outside. From the inside the new penetration is on the far right.

The shack is located in a room at the very back corner of the house. To get to the cable penetrations, I have to walk from one corner of the house, from the entrance in the garage, to the far corner through the attic. When I first installed my tower and the penetrations many years ago, I had installed fluorescent lighting in the attic. And luckily my attic has a high ceiling, making it easier to maneuver through. In the attic, at the point of the penetration, it's only about 12' to get to the point where the cables go down the inside wall to a hole in the wall leading to the shack. Another smart thing I did when I first built the shack was to drill several one inch holes through the 2x4 in the attic leading to the inside walls. Through the years these holes keep getting used up by coax, phone lines, 220 volt line for the amps and rotor control cables. There was just enough room to put the feed coax from the vertical into one of the holes. If I add anything else, I'll need to drill more holes.

Cables running from the outside penetration in the attic. Cables through the holes in the 2x4 down the inside wall.

Now came what I thought would be the hardest part of the job - getting the coax from inside the wall into the shack. Inside the shack there is about a 4 inch hole drilled in the inside wall where all the cables come into the shack. From past experience, I know how hard it is to find the right cable and pull it through the hole, especially since there are already several cables occupying the hole. When I shined my flashlight into the hole, I immediately saw the new coax cable. It was slightly off to the side and only about 3 inches from the hole. This was a miracle.

I cut a metal coat hanger and bent a hook in the end. I then fished the coax to the opening but could not pull it through. The hole wasn't big enough so I cut it larger with a knife and pulled in the cable. I installed a PL259 connector on the end and connected to it my SixPak antenna switch. The installation took about 4 hours Friday up to this point. Now the antenna needed to be tuned.

The initial test showed the antenna had the lowest SWR on both 80 and 40 at the very high end of the band. After reading the tuning guide in the instructions, I realized I needed to compress both the 80 and 40 meter coils in order to lower the resonant frequency on both bands. I wanted to have the antenna resonate in the RTTY sub-bands. After several trips back to the antenna I was able to get the antennas tuned properly where I wanted them. I also had to expand the small feed-point coil to further lower the SWR on 80. According to the directions, this was due to the low loss I had between the base of the antenna and ground.

During the NCCC practice run Friday night, the vertical did not perform as well as my regular antennas for 40 and 80. But it did work pretty well and I was happy to have a good back-up antenna for the Roundup. During the contest, there were times when the vertical worked better than my regular antennas. And it gave me an antenna to use when on band combinations that caused interference between the two radios especially when on 20 and 40 meters at the same time. I'm glad I made the decision to install it.