[Antennas] Butternut HF6V 15 mtr Wire

[John Kuklewicz N7ZN]

Sandor, I have a Butternut HF6V. Without going
out and taking the thing down, I can make the
following observations to answer your questions.
Bencher's Website page about he HF6V:
http://www.bencher.com/hf6vx.html

KG4FET@aol.com wrote:
> Good Day to all,
> I am looking for some info on just the wire portion of the Butternut HF6V.  I 
> was given one, but it does not have the 15 mtr portion on it.  What I was 
> wondering is there anything special on the 15 mtr wire making it hard to 
> duplicate myself.  

No, it is just an insulated wire. The top-most bracket
supports the wire at the proper distance from the antenna
and also shorts the wire to the tubing at that point.

This wire is simply a 1/4 wave decoupling stub to force
only the lower 1/4 wave of the antenna to radiate on 15
meters.

The brackets lower on the mast merely serve to keep the
wire properly spaced from the antenna.

You can download a manual pdf at:
http://www.bencher.com/pdf_download.html#vert_ant

Also on that page is a parts list for the antenna.

> Basically what I need to know is the bottom of the wire is 
> "loaded," or needs anything special besides the bracket, and is the wire insulated 
> from the bracket and wire loaded by capacitance, or is it hot?  

There is no loading at the bottom of the wire.
Butternut recommends that any excess wire be
wrapped back onto itself for tuning purposes.

Be aware that when/if you improve your radial field,
the tuning will change.

I have found that the 30m and 20m tuning adjustments
do interact. Also some slight interaction with the 40m
tuning.

I strongly suggest you use an antenna analyzer to tune
this thing - Following the manual procedure with the
analyzer is pretty straight forward. Remember to tune
for RESONANCE, not necessarily minimum SWR.(i.e. X-0)
With a good radial field the impedance at resonance will
not be 50 ohms.

> I hope I have 
> made some sense here and any help would be appreciated.
> Take Care, God Bless and 73
> DE KG4FET Sandor
> BTW Antenna resonate on all bands but 15 with no grounds attached at this 
> point.
> 

Again, be aware that when/if you improve the radial
field, the tuning will change. ANd, the antenna will
not play very well unless you are able to get a good
near-field radial screen set up. The Bencher web site
has some very good technical articles about the care
and feeding of this sort of antenna.
url:
http://www.bencher.com/pdf_download.html#tech_notes

One downside of a good radial field, is that on the
lower bands - especially 80 meters- the tuning becomes
very sharp. My setup uses 63 radials, each 52 feet long
laid on tip of the sod and tied to a perimeter wire.

On 80 meters my 2:1 SWR range is about 15kHz and about
150kHz on 40 meters. This is measured at the end of
the antenna's 20 meter matching section. Back at my
shack, the tuning ranges appear broader because of
attenuation in my rather long feedline (about 250 ft
of RG-213).

I hope this helps.

vy 73;

John N7ZN

> ....