Actually Larry, this is probably the best way to proceed; since opinions can vary all over the map, you can collate them and let everyone know what the concensus appears to be.
But if you want a few public comments... I should mention that years ago, when I worked in a (now defunct) ham store, I ended up corresponding quite a bit with Don Newcomb W0DN, the original owner of Butternut and the designer of the HF-V series verticals. He had quite a few opinions on radials and trap verticals... I really should dig those out and re-read them one of these days... I think of Don quite a bit, although I haven't heard from him since he sold Butternut to Bencher a few years back. He's one of the reasons I've had a small amount of success DX'ing. You see, one day, I sold someone a brand-new HF6V; that ham wanted to trade his Cushcraft vertical (AV4 or 5, I don't recall now) in on it. It was in pretty poor shape, so the store didn't take it on trade, but I bought it for myself on a side deal to supplement my wire. Well, later that day, I was talking to Don about an order and mentioned the transaction. He immediately offered to swap me, even, an HF6V for the Cushcraft -- supposedly the HF6V had been returned by an unhappy customer, tho when I got it, it sure looked brand new to me. Supposedly the swapped antenna went to the antenna farm for testing & comparison, but I think one of the real reasons was that he wanted me to tell everyone that I was using his antenna at home for myself. Futher, about a year later, I was having some trouble with a local ham -- real bad trouble, had a windshield busted, harrasing phone calls, and so on. At one point, the HF6V got turned into an aluminum pretzel. So I placed an order for replacement parts (the lower two sections had the most damage). Don got wind of it and refused to take any money for the parts. You don't find too many good guys like this around anymore! It's been through three moves and storage, and about 8 years ago KQ3DX and I took it apart and he got the alumninum cleaned up at his workplace, but other than that, it's performed courageously for me -- and I still use it almost every day (if you hear me on 75 phone, 30, 20, or 15, that's the antenna I'm using. 80 CW I use the HF2V, both antennas split 40 duty, and I have a chimney-mounted AR-99 for 10 that splits duty with the HF6 too, and gives me 12 & 17 thru a tuner. What the heck, it works for me!) 73, ron wn3vaw "Doc? You built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?" "The way I look at it, if you're going to build a time machine out of a car, you might as well do it with style!" -- Marty McFly & Dr. Emmet Brown, "Back to the Future" ----- Original Message ----- From: "K4WLS" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "[DX-Chat]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 4:45 PM Subject: [DX-CHAT] Ref: Verticals Hmmm......verticals must be pretty private !! Nobody gone public. Lots folks like the Butternut HF-9V. One vote for an R-7/R-8. GAPs are good for dummy loads and holding up tomatoe plants. Anybody using any Cushcrafts ??? C'mon folks - radiate equally poor in all directions ?? Properly installed verticals have very good low angle of radiation. My 10 yr old homebrew works better on LP than SP, but it is severely oxidized !! Larry Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org
