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It’s antenna farm time.
5 March 2024 | by Before I purchased my Hustler 4BTV vertical antenna I was using a 45 foot End-fed antenna. I have kept the End-fed antenna coiled up and ready to go along with the coax still attached. The Hustler vertical only gives me 40, 20, 15 and 10m which is great for contesting BUT if I wanted to venture on to other bands it would mean using the End-fed antenna. Also during high wind storms or freezing rain, I have taken the Hustler vertical down and left with no antenna. I have been thinking of bringing the End-fed antenna back to life and using it when the Hustler is down due to weather and to venture on the bands the Hustler does not cover.
I rehung the End-fed antenna recently to run it through the paces with my antenna analyzer to make sure after sitting unused for so long there were no issues. It checked out just fine and the SWR was decent and where it was a bit high my trusty LDG AT-200pro II would look after it. The main obstetrical for me is the proximity of the two antennas when they are both up at the same time. My next test was to connect my End-fed antenna to my Daiwa CN-901 antenna port and a 50-ohm dummy load to the radio port. I then wanted to transmit 100 watts into my Hustler 4BTV antenna and see what type of reflected power the Daiwa CN-901 SWR meter was showing. Below are the results for 40, 20, 15 and 20m on the 20 watts scale.
40 Meters 
20 Meters 
15 Meters 
10 Meters
The reflected power was not significant and 10m was the highest. I plan to disconnect whichever antenna I am not using and connect it to a 50-ohm dummy load. In the future, I may prefab a 12-volt relay to switch between each antenna and use the relay contacts as the isolation point. For now, it is going to be the dummy load solution.
6 Responses to “It’s antenna farm time.”
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Mike, take the cap off of the top of the hustler and use a 1/4 20 all thread to attach a 75M or 80M resonator. Now you have a instant 5BTV with little cost or work!
Mike KB5UKT
Good morning Mike and very nice to hear from you. I have looked into and gave adding the resonator great thought. My draw back was I have a very small lot and once the resonator is put on the antenna should be guyed. To be honest I have no room to run lines to secure the antenna.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
I was wondering what bands you get on the 45′ end-fed? Thanks
Good morning Monty, I get the WARC bands and 80m as well. These bands allow me to chase some DXpeditions that seem are using the WARC bands more often.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
I’m curious why you connect an unused antenna to a dummy load? The logical choice would be to have both of your antennas connected to the Antenna Tuner – yours has a two-position antenna switch built-in…
Good morning Ken and yes that is a very good question and one I did ask myself. To me it seems like the best and easy way to go about things. The only question I had was what is the port isolation between Ant 1 and Ant 2 on the LDG 200 PROII? I have read the manual and gone to LDG’s site and have not found the answer. I don’t want any RF from the unused antenna to carry RF to my 7610. I did just purchase a Nanovna and once the test leads come in I am going to test the dB isolation between the two antenna ports on the LDG tuner. If things work out then your suggestion is the route I am going to take.
Have a great what is left of the weekend Ken.
73,
Mike
VE9KK