View Full Version : Butternut HF9V vs Gap Challenger
K9UDX
08-24-2009, 03:04 PM
Anyone had both antennas and can give a comparison between the two? I am trying to decide which would be the best investment.
Performance, ease of assembly and installation, and durability are some of the factors in which I am interested.
(One immediate downside for the Gap for me is apparently it must be shipped by motor freight and the common carriers have trouble getting over the 3-ton limit bridge to get to my QTH. I have to make arrangements to meet the driver somewhere and off load the shipment to my van)
I have the Butternut HF9V and find it to be a quality antenna. I have not used the Challenger so I will not compare them or say one is better.
Couple questions though:
Do you plan to ground mount or elevated mount?
Do you have the ability and space to put in a substantial radial field if ground mounted?
What lot size are you placing the antenna? (how much room around antenna?)
K9UDX
08-24-2009, 06:44 PM
1. Ground mount
2. Yes
3. 86 acres (well, probably closer to 2 acres without having to maneuver around too many trees).
One of the "pluses" for the Gap (if one can believe the manufacturer's literature) is that it only requires three counterpoises; not all the radials Butternut writes about. That of course probably influences the relative performance when comparing the two.
I have the Butternut HF9V and find it to be a quality antenna. I have not used the Challenger so I will not compare them or say one is better.
Couple questions though:
Do you plan to ground mount or elevated mount?
Do you have the ability and space to put in a substantial radial field if ground mounted?
What lot size are you placing the antenna? (how much room around antenna?)
WB2WIK
08-24-2009, 10:05 PM
1. Ground mount
2. Yes
3. 86 acres (well, probably closer to 2 acres without having to maneuver around too many trees).
One of the "pluses" for the Gap (if one can believe the manufacturer's literature) is that it only requires three counterpoises; not all the radials Butternut writes about. That of course probably influences the relative performance when comparing the two.
The three 25' wires attached to the bottom of the Gap are not ground plane radials or any sort of real counterpoise: They are base loading to make the lower assembly element appear longer than it is. In the top of the antenna is a capacitor that does essentially the same thing for the upper element.
With that much space I don't think you need to go with the more compromised Challenger. You can have all the radials you need.
BTW the HF9V is very well made. The assembly took me about 4 hours total. I heard some horror stories about how bad it was, but I didn't really run into any snags.
The performance is as I would expect from a vertical antenna. I've gotten plenty of good signal reports, but you can get a good signal report from anything. The HF9V is all about the radials. You need at least 16 and if you can get 24 you will be doing well, as you increase toward 120 or so you will move toward a perfect ground. Read the writeup on the Bencher website about the antenna. It has a lot of useful information.
I've had one of these up since they first came out many years ago. The counterpoise just does not cut the mustard like the ground radials did so...i'll be putting them back on mine when i move to the new location. I can't compair it to the other gap antenna but my experiance with verticles says ya gotta have radials. Butternut sales some made from 300 ohm twin lead that you can make yourself and those cover 10-40m pretty good, add a few for 75 meters and you'll be in business.
The gap version may smoke the butternut but i've worked the world on phone and cw with my butternut and a good radial system for it to work against.
If you don't have the room go with the gap...the counterpoise on the butternut sucks!
73, John WR8D;)
the counterpoise on the butternut sucks!
Yeah, I wouldn't use the Butternut counterpoise either unless you had no choice. They'll tell you themselves that it is really only available for people as a last resort. Just use regular radials.
N0LYI
08-26-2009, 04:45 PM
May want to look into the cushcraft r 6000 or find a used r-5 r7000 etc
I say this because they do not require radials that you have to bury in the ground. I've owned the r-5 and currently have an r6000 as part of my antenna "farm". It gets out ok for what it is--a compromise antenna ..and a pricey compromise at that.
If you have the room, I'd simply go with a dipole fed with 450 ohm ladder line and attached to a tuner. Make each wire equal in length and make them as long as will fit on your lot. Use a plexi glass t insulator at the center of the dipole to relieve stress. Cheap and will work as good as any commercial antenna on the mkt IMHO. You can use a balun to attach the ladder line to if you want to have a coax connection entering your shack.
N0AZZ
09-01-2009, 11:18 PM
I use a Hy Gain Hy Tower for10-160m with 60 radials it is the best vertical that I have used so far. I use it for the low take off angle for DX on the low bands. My beams only go down to 40m and I have wire antennes for the rest of the others and a full wave loop for 160m that I can tune for all bands. I find that many times I may only hear a dx station on the vertical and not on any of the others. Good luck on your choice but use as many radials as you can get down.
It doesn't seem as though you are getting any A/B comparisons between the two antennas. I'm not able to give you one either, but I think I can contribute to the discussion.
I moved from South Carolina a bit over a year ago. There I had two different Carolina Windoms each supported between 50 and 60 feet in the air by Carolina Pines. I've lived all over the country and this was hands down the best antenna system I have had in 44 years on the air. I had tried a vertical before but did not have the radial system that was really needed.
I moved to Sun City Arizona last year. The one biggest disappointment was there are no trees to speak of. I do have a twenty some foot Saguaro cactus in my front yard, but I don't think the landlord wants me to use it as a sky-hook.
I bought a well used Butternut HF-6V from a local ham. We have desert landscaping; no grass, all gravel. I did a lot of research before buying the antenna, much llike you I was tempted with all these no or minimal radial designs until I read a very common sense solution to good radials. Chicken Wire.
I went to Home Depot and bought two rolls of Chicken Wire (Poultry Netting). I scraped back the gravel and laid out an X centered on the vertical location. The wire is about 35' long, so about 17.5' in each direction. I scraped the gravel back to cover the chicken wire and tuned the vertical.
I must admit I thought of this as a compromise antenna but no longer do I think that way. I have discovered a previously unknown degree of DX. I was initially using the same radio I had in South Carolina (IC-7000) and with the exception of 80 meters, I believe I hear more now than I did with the windoms. I exclude 80 meters because it is so darned noisy, I can barely hear anything that isn't s7 or greater. I've read that verticals in general are more prone to picking up local noise, and I must say it seems true on 80 meters. It's even worse on 160, but I never operate that band.
My point is to recommend the Butternut, or any ground mounted vertical that uses radials and try the chicken wire. It gives very good results and is much less tedious than stringing al those radials. I did it as an experiment, to see if the vertical was going to work at all, thinking I would put down a bunch of radials if it seemed worth it. That was over a year ago and I have stayed with the chicken wire.
BTW, I recently switched radios to an Elecraft K3, the 10 watt version and I now routinely work Australia and New Zealand on 40 meter CW in the early mornings with 10 watts. I'm still using the Butternut HF-6 and chicken wire radials.
Best of luck on your decision de:rolleyes: Chuck K4SC
I have both. I like the challenger better. xmits better and receives much better. easy to install. rugged.
W9LVM
09-10-2009, 03:01 PM
Have the Butternut right now and it beats the Gap I had by a mile! Would never use a Gap again!:)
Unless you erect both, and a/b with a switch, I don't know if you will ever know for sure.
At the old QTH, I had a tribander that most of the time would beat the R7000 vertical, but not always. I also had the HF-2V 30' vertical up, and it really wasn't much different on 40 then the R-7000. On 80 and 40 with closer stations, the horizontal doublet worked better.
I would think that you choice should be on quality of construction, and how the antenna looks to the XYL. :)
Either is going to work well as a vertical. Any difference will amount to a fraction of an s-unit. Marketing is great, but it doesn't change the laws of physics. You are not going to get a huge difference with either, if the installation is correct. I realize that GAP advertises that the challenger is 1 s-unit over a 40M vertical, but I just don't buy it. That is 6DB, and goes a bit against all the antenna theory I learned. If that CQ magazine test did see a 6DB difference, then the 1/4 wave 40M vertical had a ground plane problem. Magic? Hardly.
What I like about the R-7000, is that it works well without any ground radials.
Either will be fine. Or if you have room, put up a Carolina Windom. :)
KB6HRT
09-11-2009, 09:30 PM
I had a Gap Titan and have a R8 Cushcraft an had a R6000, there is no difference between the R6000 an the R8 except the R8 has 40 meters both receive signals were the same on A-B testing, which I can do easy. The GAP Titan worked almost as well as the R8 on 10 through 20 meter but was down a about 1 to 3db on 40 meter on most stations on receive. The Gap Titan was about 18 db down on 75 meters against a 102' G5RV, the R8 does not do 75 meters. On my testing I got the best results on the R8 an the R6000 ground mounting the antennas although Cushcraft recommends mounting the antennas at 18' to the base, which I did first but in direct comparison at 18' with the other ground mounted antenna the one on the ground outperformed the on at 18' in all cases except when using it to receive 11 meter ground wave which these two antennas are not made to do. I also tested an Hustler 4TB with radials at the same location and on 40 meters it was almost the same as the R8 on receive, did not elevate the Hustler 4TB. I concluded that from 20 meters up a vertical works great, an 30 on down through 160 meters I had the best results with wire antennas.
Sincerely, Walter Bryant KB6HRT
Anyone had both antennas and can give a comparison between the two? I am trying to decide which would be the best investment.
Performance, ease of assembly and installation, and durability are some of the factors in which I am interested.
(One immediate downside for the Gap for me is apparently it must be shipped by motor freight and the common carriers have trouble getting over the 3-ton limit bridge to get to my QTH. I have to make arrangements to meet the driver somewhere and off load the shipment to my van)
Talk to the GAP people. I did when HRO told me that same story.. The GAP I'm injterested inm (I think it's the Titon" is shipable vie UPS/ FedEX oreven USPS.
Lee
NI7I
Ok, so first, I can't offer any sort of comparison between the two antennas you're asking about. However, I was interested that you mentioned that you'd
[QUOTE=K9UDX;1677079]3. 86 acres (well, probably closer to 2 acres without having to maneuver around too many trees).
QUOTE]
With 86 acres (even two, without trees), I'd be very tempted to use horizontal wires rather than a vertical. On a 2.5 acre qth in PA, I had great dx results (40-10 m) with a pair of vee beams, about 230 feet each leg. The antenna wasn't very high, about 35' at the house and 24 feet at the far ends, with some sag inbetween, but it was a very competitive signal (having previously used a multiband vertical at another qth, I'm also familiar with what a non-competitive signal is like). Are wire antennas just out of the question?
73!
Dave
K9UDX
09-16-2009, 07:16 PM
I'm presently using a random wire with pretty good results. One of the options for another antenna is a second wire -- perhaps a Carolina Windom -- at right angles to the existing one. The challenge is to find the "right" trees. When they built the house, they removed most of the trees within fall distance of the house. Picture the house in the middle of a ~70-foot radius treeless circle. The paved driveway goes past two sides of the house and the shack is on one of those sides so routing the coax from a center-fed dipole requires some pondering.
If I go the Carolina Windom route, the dacron rope holding it up will be longer than the antenna itself.
I wish I had that much space! 70' on each leg is plenty for a 75/80 meter dipole. Use ladder line if you can (with a 4:1 balun), or good quality coax, and you've got it made!
K4SC: The chicken wire is a great idea! I may try that out later on.
KB6HRT: Thanks for the informative post.
N5TGL
10-11-2009, 03:33 PM
As other folks here have stated, you can't change the laws of physics. I would go the butternut route and radials because it simply makes sense in terms of how an antenna operates. Verticals can turn in some great DX because of the low angle of radiation. I've been working with a portable HF vertical here (Ohio) and I've worked 13 countries with a 8.5' vertical and 4 radials on the ground.
Let me offer a piece of advise if you decide to go with the Challenger. They highly suggest you guy the top section of the antenna because of it's height. I didn't bother to do it because I didn't feel it was necessary. One day during a wind storm I hear a crash out in my back yard and the antenna laying on the ground. The antenna snapped clear off at the base of the antenna from the wind forcing it back and forth.
I also owned a Butternut HF6V and that was the best vertical I ever owned. As a matter of fact I am considering buying one right now.
Good luck
Here is some interesting information concerning Vertical antennas:
http://www.bencher.com/pdf_download.html
73
George
K3UD