Installation of my new HF antenna
by trixter on Oct.07, 2009, under Radio
I bought a butternut HF9v from Bencher and the Ground radial kit and tilt base from DX Engineering and am installing them. This is not a trivial project, it seemed like it would be a little easier than it actually turned out to be.
In order to secure the antenna I made some guy stakes out of rebar. I got 2 10 foot 1/2 inch bars and cut them into 5 foot lengths. I wanted to bury them 3 feet leaving 2 feet above the surface to make lawn maintenance easier. This also means that they can be slightly closer to the antenna lowering the overall above ground footprint.
I used a lead pipe to bend the end, finishing it off with a 20 pound sledge hammer. This will allow for them to hold the guy wire even if they spin in the ground.
I also made an “ugly balun” by winding 21 feet of rg-213 around an old planter bucket. I cut the bucket so that it is not that much larger than the coax. I also drilled holes into the bucket and used zip ties to secure the coax to the bucket. I specifically ordered extra feedline to make this “ugly balun” so that I did not have as many splices out in the weather.

