RadioBanter - View Single Post

June 11th 06, 10:28 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave

wrote:
For years I have been using a Hustler vertical antenna which I have
never been able to get working right. I paid about $100 for it. I
kept adjusting and adjusting it, but the damn thing was no better then
hanging a wire out of a window.

I wonder if you had the ground plane for the Hustler set up properly.
The Hustlers are pretty good, especially for long-distance when they
are
tuned. The absolute minimum ground plane for a vertical is three or
four
1/4 wave radials drooping down from the base of the antenna when
mounted on the roof.
A commercial radio station has 180 quarter-wave radials buried at
2-degree
intervals. Hams have had reasonable success with eight or twelve
radials
on a ground-mounted vertical. Verticals also work well when mounted on
cars,
which provide a good ground plane. Because they are a high-Q antenna,
verticals
are not very good for multi-band short-wave listening as their gain
falls off
rapidly beyond their tuned frequency. They also tend to pick up more
noise
than a dipole. I wouldn't give up on the Huster but I would make sure
the
radials were tuned to some frequency of interest and use it for
long-distance
listening where its low angle would make it superior to the low
dipole. The
length of the radial and the tuned frequency of the Hustler coil must
agree.