HF Vertical Antenna Suggestions

[WB9YBM]

Being happy with something doesn't mean that it works well, it just means he got away with putting up an antenna without getting arrested. That is something to be happy about but the no radial verticals are a huge compromise and you can do much better and still have a stealthy antenna.

Or: "Happy" = "performance he likes"

 

[Yagi]

Jerry - have fun with your new FT-450D. Several friends have those and are pretty happy with the rig.

The Hustler 4 BTV is a good solid antenna. Is it ground mounted? Or do you have it elevated up on a pole?

One suggestion is that you can get it tuned and "working" with no radials. But it would be well worth the time to fun a few radials.
For a ground mounted system running some short radials in even a few directions will help the performance. I helped a friend install a 6 BTV and we started with 6 radials going in only two directions. The radials were random lengths of 20 to 25 foot and were mostly invisible when we used wire turf staples to pin the radials to the ground.

 

[WB9YBM]

The Hustler 4 BTV is a good solid antenna. Is it ground mounted? Or do you have it elevated up on a pole?

I just wanted to add a bit of info regarding elevated mounting & radials: I heard about an op that mounted the antenna in the middle of the roof to get it above the "ground clutter", then put chicken wire on in the attic directly under the roof, making sure all pieces of the chicken wire were connected electrically, and grounding that. Haven't tried it myself so this is only a second-hand report; the op that told me this said he had good luck with that approach. Either way, good luck.