HF2V butternut : raising up, tuning and first trials !!!!!!!!!

Hi all,

Well, I could finally (and at last) raise the HF2V yesterday, and adjusted the SWR today.
That was quite straightforward, and everything went very well !

I started to tune 80m band
- original setting gave me a SWR min = 1.7:1 o 3.600MHZ, and I wanted a low SWR in the SSB DX portion..

I stretched the 80m coil to re-center the antenna on 3.78MHz.
I then stretch the "red transformer" coil to decrease this SWR from 1.7:1 to 1.2:1 !!!!!!

I now have less than 1.7:1 from 3.74 up to 3.8 MHz (60KHz), and I think I'll live with this, HI !!!!

I then continued with the 40m band
- original setting gave me a SWR min = 2.1:1, almost constant on all 40m band....The antenna was resonating on a much lower frequency !!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I stretched the 40m coil and now have a min SWR of 1:1 on 7.050 MHz, up to 1.3:1 o 7.1 MHz....A full quarter wave vertical has a broad-band on 40M !!!!

NOTE : I didn't use the strap to short-circuit the 40m coil !!!!!!

Now, my first tests on the air (compared to the 20-10m hexbeam I was using until now)

- 40m
Noise floor increased by 3 S-meter points.
Europe Stations increased in average by 4-5-meter points
DX stations increased by 6-7 S-meter points :
I QSO'd VE9OX last night. He was barely S-2 here on the hexbeam, and was a real S-8 on the HF2V !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I also heard HC2GF (!) S-2 on the hexbeam, S-7 on the vertical..

- 80m : Not tested yet, but noise floor increased by also 3 S-meter points !!!!!

Let's wait and see tonight, but my very first impression is VERY positive...What a pleasure to be active on the low bands with a well-matched and "nice" antenna !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ronan