[Elecraft] K3 - G5RV vs ZS6BKW antenna

Dick Roth raroth7 at gmail.com
Sat Mar 10 10:03:39 EST 2012


Thanks for the info, Rich.  It's amazing what one can start with a
question to the folk on this Reflector!  Hams are truly a helpful lot.
With all the input that has been streaming in, I now have a lot to chew
on.

Thanks loads!!
-- 
73 de Dick, ka1oz
Elecraft K3/100
GAP Titan-DX Antenna



On Sat, 2012-03-10 at 09:01 -0500, Rich - K1HTV wrote:
> Dick,
>    Instead of the G5RV antenna, consider using a modified version of it, the
> ZS6BKW, with your K3. The ZS6BKW antenna has better impedance characteristics on
> more bands than the G5RV. The K3's ATU matches the antenna on all of the bands
> that it is designed to work on, 80, 40, 20, 17, 12 and 10 meters.  It will also
> work on 6 Meters, but its lowest SWR is at 51 MHz, not very helpful.  The ZS6BKW
> antenna has a slightly shorter flat top and slightly longer section of ladder
> line than the G5RV. I've installed two ZS6BKW antennas with a 45 degree
> difference in orientation and can switch between either of them. On 20 Meters,
> the results is that the 4 major nulls of one antenna can be covered by switching
> to the 4 major lobes of the other antenna.  
> 
> So, how do they work? Well, in the past 3 years since retiring from VOA and
> moving to a new VA QTH, I have worked 275 countries with 100 Watts. I recently
> added a borrowed 3 element tribander for most of the last 15 countries worked.
> Over 260 countries were worked using  ZS6BKW antennas. With the K3 and its ATU
> the ZS6BKW will work well on 80, 40, 20, 17, 12 and 10 Meters. On 160, 30 and
> 15M, the ZS6BKW does not work well at all, even though the ATU can produce a
> match for the K3 on some of those bands.
> 
> A ZS6BKW construction note, for one of the antennas I used a common mode RF
> choke made up of the 20 turns of the 50 Ohm RG58U coax feed line wound around a
> 6 inch diameter plastic COSTCO nut container. The second ZS6BKW antenna uses a
> choke made of the same type coax but wound on a pair of toroids, as described by
> Jim, K9YC on his website. In each case, the choke is installed where the ladder
> lead meets the coax and NOT at the shack end of the coax. If you are interested
> in the ZS6BKW antenna, check out the articles below. 
> 
> http://www.ab4oj.com/dl/sprat_zs6bkw.pdf
> 
> http://www.w5ddl.org/files/Zs6bkw_vs_G5rv_20100221b.pdf 
> 
> 73,
> Rich - K1HTV
> www.k1htv.us
> 
> = = =
>  
> -----Original Message-----
> From: raroth7 at comcast.net [mailto:raroth7 at comcast.net] 
> Sent: Friday, March 09, 2012 2:38 AM
> To: Elecraft Reflector
> Subject: [Elecraft] G5RV antenna experience on K3
> 
> Hi there-- 
> 
> Am considering putting up a g5rv antenna and was wondering what experiences K3
> users have with this antenna. Is an external tuner necessary? Is internal KAT3
> up to the task of taming this wire? 
> 
> Any hints will be helpful
> --
> 73 de Dick, ka1oz
> Elecraft K3/100
> GAP Titan-DX Antenna 
> 
> PS...Tried sending via my gmail account, but haven't seen it posted.  I
> appologize for any wasted bandwidth.
> 
> 



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