GRV5?

[AD5XK]

I may not have the exact name correct, but I am sure someone will know. Anyway, how good of antenna is this, I have one, but until now have not had the proper room to dispay it. I live on 3.5 acres now, with some trees, most close to the ham shack ...of course....and was wondering if anyone with some experience with this antenna might tell me...how they have it up, how it works and so forth.....dont really want to go back to the big ole bulky beams ...(for HF by the way), I had one one time was a huge tribander with 40 meter kit added, too big...
anyway i think they say you can invert vee this thing or straight out as a t shape, what would be good height, so forth and so on.....i don't talk this much on the radio......thanks for input guys.....
Ted http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

It's G5RV.

Use the forum search feature or google. You'll find plenty of information, both factual and otherwise.

[KI4MNC]

I have a G5RV and like you have limited room but I have found the antenna to be very hight with SWR well over 5.0 on most Freq. I would not get this antenna again knowing that.

[WA4ABM]

I use a G5RV. Mine is 102 feel long fed with 30 feet of twin lead. I have it in an inverted Vee position at about 120 degrees. It is up 30 feet fastened to a tree limb. Each end is 15 feet off the ground. The twin lead falls down away from the antenna to the ground where I have 75 feet of RG8 coax connected to it through a 4:1 balun. The coax runs to the shack underground in PVC pipe. I can work 10 - 80 meters using a Dentron tuner. You have to have a tuner with this antenna, but I find that it works well. I usually run 100 watts although I can put 300 out. I think the G5RV is good for 1 KW. For a compromise antenna, I think it's great....not like the beams I used to have, but still good. Of course, higher the better. Get a tuner and it should work well. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[WA5KRP]

Quote[/b] (WA4ABM @ May 09 2006,09:09)]I use a G5RV. #Mine is 102 feel long fed with 30 feet of twin lead. #
Me too. Mine is suspended 40' high between two pecan trees. With a Heathkit 2060 tuner I can load it up 80M through 6M and I've got a log full of contacts.

Heck ya there's better antennas out there. But for my situation, it gets me on all HF bands but 160 and I enjoy its flexibility. Someday I'll be able to save up for a tower, but for now it allows me to have an awful lot of fun.

You must have a good tuner to make it work on all bands but 20M. Without a tuner, the G5RV doesn't work worth a bleep.


WA5KRP
Texas

[G0GQK]

The G5RV was designed as an antenna for radio amateurs with valve rigs not state of the art 2006 rigs. It should be used with an ATU and should not be fed with co-axial cable. It is what is termed as a compromise antenna, but with an ATU a properly made G5RV will enable you to use most amateur bands, but it is extremely difficult to load it on 15 metres. a much better wire antenna is a double zepp which also needs an ATU.

G0GQK

[AB8MA]

Google a Carolina Windom. You will probably have much better results.

My G5RV is dead. Still up though. But worthless, absolutely dead. But I did once make a contact on 160 with it. That is what probably killed it though.

[K5RCD]

Since #you have 3 & 1/2 acres to work with, consider putting up a horizontal loop. With a tuner you will be able to work all the HF bands. You have enough room to put up a 160 meter loop. It is inexpensive, easy, and incredibly effective. For a description and building directions check my website.

http://k5rcd.airweb.net/

[AD5XK]

Thanks Randy I will do that...

Ted
KB5HQB

[K5RCD]

Good Luck with your project Ted. Drop me an e-mail if I can be of any help, and let me know how it works out for you.

[MM3XXW]

The info from G0GQK, Melvin, is 100% the G5RV is only as good as your tuner:p

It was never designed with todays' modern rigs in mind however it functions perfectly adequately with rigs that have the usual built-in tuners.
For instance .... my Icom 703 trips along really well with it and I have it horizontal about 10m asl (my house is about 50m from the sea!)

At an average price of $60 ... you get what you pay for guys!:rock: http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[W4HWD]

If you have the room, and it sounds like you do, I'd avoid the G5RV all together and go with a multiband loop or full size dipoles. The G5RV is designed to be a small-lot compromise...there are better choices out there for people with room to play.

[KZ9G]

Try a carolina windom. I had one up when I had my g5rv up and it blew the g5 out of the water. Radioworks has a awesome set of windoms you may want to give them a look. Ps. I have no affilation with radioworks just a very very happy customer.

[WA6DXI]

Generally bigger and higher are better.

I live in a 40' motorhome and use the G5RV jr (51') with the feed point @ 30' feet and the ends @ about 12' and except for 12 & 30 meters my TS570 DG tunes it fine and for some reason I don't need the tuner on 10 meters and it also works on 2 meters.

I also have a home brew Vertical that goes from 10 - 20 Meters and sometime the G5RV will work better depending on band conditions.

The G5RV works great for me, but as you see my situation is opposite of yours.

73s and good luck

Don WA6DXI d.dresser@att.net

[VK2VEL]

G5RV works well for those of us in suburbia. I run a 1/2 size version which is 15.5 metres long and east coast VK to UK and Norway is no problem even at this point in the solar cycle, 100W.

I love the term 'compromise aerial' - most aerials are compromises - money, height etc etc . http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif I suppose it refers to the fact that the G5RV is a non-resonant multiband array. It works well for me as my only HF aerial, for the space that I have, as a multiband system. I have heard many good reports about the Carolina windom also.

I made my own aerial and I'm happy with it, although if I had the space, I would have dipoles up.

[2E0DTO]

The G5RV is a basic wire antenna, and as such gives its best performance with a balun between the coax feeder and the ribbon. It also needs an ATU at the shack end of the coax.
Mine is a bent up inverted vee, the apex is about six feet above the chimney stack, on a wooden pole,which puts it about 30' agl, with the ends on bamboo poles at about 10' agl, then bent back at 90' due to lack of space. It seems to work well like this, although I haven't tried any big beams for a comparison,but as I only have a modest hf rx anyway -.
It is important to remember that the ribbon feed forms part of the antenna at some frequencies, so needs to be out in the open, and hanging straight down, or it will not work.
Also, in common with any ribbon feed, if it runs near to a structure, including a metal, or wet wood, mast, it deforms the magnetic field that forms around the ribbon, and funny things happen!

[KE7CPB]

My brother and I have the G5RV, we like it. Our radio does do 160m, but we didn't think that the antena tuner would be able to tune the G5RV on 160m. It is the only antena and it works great!http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[MI0JVI]

My experience with the G5RV is that it is good for Receive, but not very good for Transmit, unless you have plenty of room and are prepared to take RF into the shack in the form of 300Ohm Ribbon feeder.

It was designed back in the days when SWR or #wasnt really given much thought. #I have a modified one which works reasonably well and is fed with RG58U- I took the 300Ohm feeder from it and put it on a shelf where it has stayed since. #A good tuner of course is necessary! I didnt like the thought of bringind the 300 Ohm feeder into the shack becasue we already have a problem with stray RF which is really puzzling and we didnt need any more being brought in.

That's just my view and my experience of them. everybody's situation is different and as a result experiences with them are different.

[VO1JA]

After hurricaine Gabriel wrecked my Butternut "butterfly" beam, I put up a G5RV. The center is at 10 metres, and the ends at 5m. It is fed with 300 ohm ladderline to a 1:1 balun, and from there either through an mfj 949 tuner or, more recently, via an LDG at200pro. It does not require a tuner on 20 metres. It performs well. Not as good as the beam, of course, but it can take the gales that are fairly common here on the South coast of Newfoundland. If wx is an issue, I recommend a G5RV. If you have the room, an end fed Zepp is better, but not all of us have that kind of space available. Finally, remember that whatever you put up in the air, there ought to be some sort of ground/ counterpoise system.
73, de vo1ja, ex-vo2hp

[G3VZM]

The true G5RV is used with a hybrid of 300 Ohm and co-ax feed and can be hit & miss.

Using the 102ft top with a balanced feeder (450 Ohm commercial line works ok) gives lower noise pick up.
As said by others - it won't work without an atu, preferably a balanced atu rather than unbalanced with a balun ( lossy things at best ) and can give dx contacts all over.

Fed this way it's just another doublet so try any convenient length of centre fed top and see what happens. Check "doublets" in the handbooks.

If balanced line is a problem to get into the shack try feeding with 2 parallel coax cables. Centre conductors used as feeder and outers strapped together at base only and earthed. (Old tip from G-QRP Club) Relatively expensive but it works and overcomes problems of getting balanced line through walls etc.

[K1OU]

Quote[/b] (k5rcd @ May 20 2006,08:44)]Since #you have 3 & 1/2 acres to work with, consider putting up a horizontal loop. With a tuner you will be able to work all the HF bands. You have enough room to put up a 160 meter loop. It is inexpensive, easy, and incredibly effective. For a description and building directions check my website.

http://k5rcd.airweb.net/
This antenna design is a winner. One of the best antennas I ever used was a 270 foot delta loop with the apex at about fifty feet. I had a run of 450 ladder line to a 4:1 just outside a window, to a short run of coax into a tuner. Worked great!

[GM0SIM]

Basically the 5RV is nothing more than a dipole which is normally quite respected. The point being that if you operate 2 opposed bits of wire at half wave resonance you get a nice resistive 70 ohms but move away from resonance (like a different band) then you get wierd and wonderful input impedance. If you then measure that impedance a fraction of a wavelength away at the end of a length of twin feeder then you get totally another impedance. By picking the exact length of dipole wire, the length of twin line and impedance of the twin line (this of the trick of the 5RV) then you can arrange it that the weired and wonderful impedances on the bands of interest were not that far from an acceptable match that the o/p stage of a valve rig managed to feed it ok. I use a half size 5rv & am quite happy with it. I know of one amateur who had the clone standard FT757GX2, pump up mast and 3 ele tribander who was very upset when his friend along the road got a much better signal from some tasty DX with his TS820 & a full size 5RV tied from his house to a big tree in a field (I am not saying a 5RV is a better aerial than a tribander but given the right conditions it can certainly hold its own) .

2 things that can kill a 5rv... not using a balun & not keeping the feedline normal to the dipole part (it does not have to be vertical.. mine comes off horizontally to an upper widow). If you are not valve you will need an atu.

The difference in performance between a $50 aerial and a $500 one can be surprisingly little

[WA3ERQ]

I just setup my G5RV this afternoon and I'm getting great results. Due to space limitations on my property, I had to set it up as an inverted "v" but to make things more complicated, the top of the "v" is not directly overhead but on an angle. I basically have the top on my roof mounted on an 8' piece of PVC then both legs run out to their 51' lengths and the ends are tied off to different corners of my property. The corners are 82' apart so you can see that the "v" was my only real option. So far, I've gotten California and France via PSK31 and Indiana for voice.
My other antenna is a Titan-DX which works great, but I wanted to try a wire to see the difference. The G5RV seems to pull out the signals a little bit stronger.

Jim
WA3ERQ

[KC1BUD]

The G5RV was designed as an antenna for radio amateurs with valve rigs not state of the art 2006 rigs. It should be used with an ATU and should not be fed with co-axial cable. It is what is termed as a compromise antenna, but with an ATU a properly made G5RV will enable you to use most amateur bands, but it is extremely difficult to load it on 15 metres. a much better wire antenna is a double zepp which also needs an ATU.

G0GQK

I love the differences in our use of the english language. What you call valves we call vacuum tubes or tubes. As I always say a lift in England will get you to the next floor but a lift in the US can get you to the next town. :D

[N4BFD]

A good write up was posted on the G5RV this morning at eHam..

http://www.eham.net/articles/21682 (http://www.eham.net/articles/21682)

[VE3PTC]

yes, the good old g5rv. initially a monoband antenna, being 3 half waves on 20m. really, if you truly want multiband operation from this antenna then do yourself a favour, and feed the antenna with balanced line, all the way from your antenna tuner. your losses will be negligible, compared to using the balanced line/coax combo.
there will always be at least one, maybe two bands that will be difficult to tune with the original coax/bal line combo, and the performance will be mediocre at best. using bal line all the way,your antenna will perform very well. as an other poster suggests, you can also use parallel coax lines, as an alternative, if rf in the shack is a problem.
or just go with a carolina windom. this gives an acceptable match using coax feed.
good luck de bob. ve3ptc/gmoley

[NN4RH]

Is a GRV5 better than a G5RV? How does it compare to the GV5R?

[KB6HRT]

Have been using a G5RV for sometime now because of the great results I get with it both on Transmit & Receive, I use mine mostly on 75 meters so I have tuned my antenna so I have a low SWR there 1.2 to 1.5 from 3800 to 4000 don't need the tuner for 75 but do need it for 40-10 where the where SWR is around 3 to 1 most places. To tune a G5RV for a band like 75 or 40 start with a 100ft piece of RG8X and temporally tie it to the 33' matching stub on the G5RV and take SWR reading, then trim off a little coax, and take more reading till you et what your looking for in my case 75' worked great for 75 meters and 70' worked well for 40meters..............kb6hrt