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Field Day up North. Field Day down South. A Rockin Field Day out West. Cheap Old Field Day segment. An Apocalyptic Field day.

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Once the Hustler 4BTV was up it was time to see if laying the radials, burying the coax and putting the antenna mount in concrete was all worth it. The SWR checks are next, kinda the "where the rubber meets the road" In the Hustler manual as well as the DX Engineering manual basic setup measurements are given to get you started with the antenna. In the DX Engineering manual, you are informed that these measurements are based on a no radial setup. For this reason, don't be alarmed at the resonant frequency most likely will be where you don't want it.

This is not an issue as you can adjust the traps to remedy this situation. The Hustler manual informs owners that trap adjustment voids the warranty with Hustler, BUT if you purchase your Hustler vertical from DX Engineering they will still honour the warranty. I purchased my antenna in Canada and I decided to adjust the traps and take my chances. I did read the manual very carefully regarding trap adjustment and it's no big deal to do.
One BIG advantage in regards to checking and adjusting the SWR is to have an antenna analyzer. It will save you time and frustration. I have the MFJ 259B an older unit but it works great, it does not give me a sweep graphical view but I can easily plot the SWR by checking the SWR at certain frequencies. I do have the Funk Amateur FA-VA4 but for the life of me I just can't figure out how to work it.
With the antenna analyzer connected I was pleased with the rough results, below are the rough readings:

10 meters 

            28.000 1.1 to 28.900 SWR 1.2

For this reason, 10m was not touched. 

15 meters

             21.897 SWR 2.0
             21.426 SWR 1:3
             21.116 SWR 2.0 

From the above SWR numbers, the 15m trap has to be lengthened. 

20 meter 

            13.711 SWR 2.0
            13.997 SWR 1.3
            14.222 SWR 2.0

From the above SWR, the 20m trap also has to be lengthened. Before this is done the manual advises that first double check the 20m SWR after adjusting the 15m trap. 

40 meters

              6.982 SWR 2.0
              7.050 SWR 1.8
              7.168 SWR 2.0

 With the 4BTV there is no 40m trap to adjust but I can in this case make the final section of the antenna longer. Again I have to recheck this SWR when the 15m trap is adjusted and if the 20m trap still needs adjusting I have to check 40m again before any section adjustment is made.
Before any adjustments are made to any trap it is advised to mark on the tubing the factor position of the trap just in case you have to start all over again. With each of the 3 traps marked to the factor position, I proceeded to adjust the 15meter trap and make it longer. Longer meaning between 1/16 to 1/8 longer (or shorter if needed) I had to make 2 adjustments to the 15m trap to get my desired results.  I mainly use CW and and now and again FT8, therefore I wanted my best SWR results between 21.000-21.100. 

Below is the final results.

 21.000 SWR1.4 

 21.060 SWR 1.3

 21.100 SWR 1.4 

I then looked at 10 meters and it had not changed at all.

28.000 1.1 SWR

28.150 1.1 SWR

28.190 1.1 SWR

I then checked the 20m section of the band with the antenna analyzer and was very pleased to see that now no trap adjustment was needed. Below are the final results for 20 meters. 

14.000 SWR 1.1

14.030 SWR 1.3

14.100 SWR 1.4

I was not as fortunate with 40 meters the new SWR after adjusting the 15m trap was:

      6.976 SWR 2.0
      7.013 SWR 1.8
      7.219 SWR 2.0

The final section of the mast has to be made longer and one of my concerns was, is this going to mess around with the 10,15 and 20m SWR? I did not have too much extra length to play with in the final section. I ended up stopping when I had about 1.5 inches of tubing inside the lower mast section. I did not want to take any more out. Below are my final results for 40 meters. 

7.000 SWR 2.0

7.025 SWR 1.9

7.073 SWR 1.8

7.106 SWR 1.9

As always I was up early today, the house very quiet only to be interrupted by the coffee bean grinder swirling beans into a brew mixture. The temperature this morning was a nice 14C (57F) and rising to 30C (86) and then the humidity on top of that. According to the weatherman, this is going to be the trend for the next few weeks. The dog days of summer are here! 

With coffee in hand, I made my way down the hall to the radio room to look for life on the bands. Space weather indicated K index of 3 but the solar flux was topping out at 173, very nice to see this high flux numbers. I tried 20m looking for a faint sign of CW life but the only sign of life there was the Digi section of the band. As I write I will continue to glance to my right and see if the band scope shows any hope. 

Last evening I joined in the K1USN slow speed contest or SST for short. The contest is an hour long and the local time for it here in the Maritimes is 5-6 pm or 20:00-21:00 UTC. I was calling CQ SST between 16-18 WPM and made 13 contacts. Not bad for July when most are on holiday or the summer sunshine calls them to home projects or just relax outdoors.

Well it seems 20m is beginning to show some signs of life as I bring this post to an end. 

Hello and welcome to Episode 474 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this short-topics episode, the hosts discuss the utility of electrostatic discharge protection, the continued relevance of Field Day, the next QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo, Microsoft and its impact on Open Source, the Software Freedom Conservancy, WSJT-X and much more. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you have a great week.

73 de The LHS Crew

This past weekend the IARU world contest was in action and I planned to enter the CW category. The contest morning started just fine for me BUT in the corner of my radio room, a boxed Hustler 4BTV was calling my name. The weather outside was great, the mounting base was installed and the ground radials (all 30 of them) were also installed. As I was making CW contacts my mind at the same time was spinning. The weather here has been sunny and clear for very few days and the upcoming week looked once again rainy. The same little voice in my head was telling me " Mike a contest situation is great for testing a new antenna"
Well, a few hours into the contest I jumped off the operating chair and decided it was time to finish the 4BTV install! The little voice in my head had won out. Just the day before I had marked the antenna tubing with the rough measurements for length setup between sections. The only thing left was to put the section together and tighten things down with the provided screw clamps or as I call them hose clamps.

Copper paste

I did purchase copper paste to use on the pipe-to-pipe connection for good connectivity and help stop corrosion. In no time the antenna was together and ready to be mounted on the ground pipe. I was delighted with how light this antenna is, making it easy to lift and install.
The initial SWR was somewhat close to what was written in the DX Engineering manual, there was just some fine-tuning that needed to be done. I wanted my configuration to be in the CW area of the bands. Thank goodness I have an antenna analyzer, this made very short work of fine-tuning the antenna. I will make another post regarding the details of the SWR and adjustments.
Once the antenna was set up SWR-wise in the area of the bands it was

Marking the antenna sections

off to the contest again to see how it stacks up to the Endfed antenna I have been using for 2 1/2 years. Using the new antenna I started calling (CWing) "CQ CONTEST" and I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Now having said that this was the first time using the antenna so a fair comparison would be over the course of a month or so with varying propagation conditions. 

More to come regarding tuning, assembly and results.