A very comprehensive video on this antenna. I appreciate all the details that you included. Especially the use of the rig expert to show where the dips were on the various bands.
Used a ZS6BKW as my main antenna for well over 10 years. It was homebrew and installed flat top with the end wires drooping down a bit. I run CW primarily so things seemed to match better. 80 was fairly narrow and needed a tuner when moving to SSB. Moving I needed to change because my feed point situation changed. Good antenna. 73,JP, K8AG
I am thinking about using this for my first antenna, I am concerned about how the ladder line would hold up in winter/high winds supporting the coax. I am thinking a small cord ran parallel with the ladder line would help for strain relief. How high should the center be? would 20-30 feet height be enough?
Great Video I have used this antenna for a few years now Steve Hunt G3TXQ sk wrote to make a ZS6BKW cut a dipole resonant at 5 mhz. Fed with coax then remove the coax and put 41 feet of ladder line on it and trim the ladder line for lowest swr at 24.950 and it will be good.
Hey Steve, great video. I made one of these earlier this summer. My first contact was a VK3 on 25 watts FT8, so it’s a keeper! I look forward to a video of you testing it in the field. Rich KM4TLR
Steve, you are much too humble! I have bookmarked the ZS6BKW RUclips videos and yours is, by a wide margin, the best of the breed Why? Because you took us to your driveway and showed us the wire cuts, the dimensions of the elements, and the window line. The other videos just show us a completed antenna and the ways they hung it from trees, push-up masts, etc. I was surprised at your telling us that you had to trim more than 2' from each leg for resonance in each band. Question 1...Would you conclude that this is typical for all ZS6BKW antennas, or peculiar to your location? I've got rocks, sand and clay at my QTH! Really poor soil. Question 2... Do you think that a "reflector wire", about 6" off the ground, directly under the ZS6BKW, the length of the antenna, might help? My take off angle should be quite good, but I am trying to squeeze every bit of RF from both my rig and my antenna. I have ordered the center insulator from the ebay link you provided. Thank you! Going to order some 450 Ohm window line, the balun and the 14 gauge wire. Would a 12 gauge wire offer a bit more bandwidth? Will shop for some nylon hardware. Last question...since you posted your video do you have any remarks, or updates that you have discovered in the 6 weeks or so since? Again, yours is the best of the videos out there and I think you for taking the time to respond to my post! Vry 73 de
Thanks for the kind words. Yes different types of soil and location will have an effect. I see this as I go portable to different locations. Most of the time it's very slight. But I'm here in GA. I would not worry about a "reflector wire" at the start. Just hang it high as you can. I plan on giving this antenna a good test at Winter Field Day 2021 in a couple weeks with some video to report back with. Thanks for watching. Steve Ad4xt
Short the window line with a 50 ohm resistor just before connecting it to the 1:1 choke balun and it will bring the VSWR on 80 meters down to less than 2:1 across the band.
When you attached the ladder line to the center mount, I believe, that the intent was to possibly trim out one section of ladder window then bend the ladder line and pass it through the two larger center holes then bend them out and solder them to the antenna wire and not bolt them in at the holes. This would let the ladder line openings match up with the raised portion to more secure the ladder line to the center insulator. Then with the side wires you can solder them to the leads from the ladder and not need the bolts or ring connectors, one less place to have corrosion. If you leave a small loop you can solder the wires and slip over some sealing heat shrink to seal it all up. Just my observation as the EBay listing for the insulator does not give any specifications or instructions.
This may be a silly question but things I have read about the ZS6BKW antenna suggests that the length on each side be exactly 46' 8 1/2" long. Does anyone know if this includes the amount of wire needed at both ends to loop thru the insulators and tie/attach to insulators? Thanks.
You worried about metal screws in the two locations on the insulator disturbing the ladder line. At frequencies no higher than the 10 m band I don't think they would have much effect. I would use brass ones, though, not steel. But even steel screws shouldn't do much harm since if the antenna and feedline are well balanced the field halfway between the two feedline wires shouldn't be that large. The worst the screws would do would be to put a bit of capacitance across the feedline at that point which might affect the tuning a slight amount. I think the main reason people say not to bring ladder line near metal objects is that if it is done in a non-symmetrical way, with say a metal roof gutter nearer one wire than the other, balance will be affected and losses can occur. But your center insulator is nice and symmetrical. David VE7EZM and AF7BZ
I wonder how much a plastic cutting board is at the Dollar Store, could use that to make several centre insulators and possibly at the ends of the antenna too. Stay safe, 73, VE7KKQ
For what u pay at Fastenal for nut and bolts. You could buy the prebuilt antenna off Amazon........ LOL Would it work to just run my ladder line straight to my tuner wire lugs? Thank u for this in depth video!
Going straight to a tuner would turn this antenna into a non-resident doublet. Which are good antennas. It just requires another piece of equipment. Thanks for watching.
Is it true the coax cable going from the ladder line to the antenna tuner must be very short? I was told 5' to 10 feet max. If that is the case, this may be a deal breaker for me. i can't set up the station that close to the backyard facing walls in my house. I need around 50' of coax to make it to the room I use. What do you think?
I'd be really curious how this antenna would work with a 4:1 balun instead of (or in addition to) the 1:1 balun. I'm planning to design something using a 300-ohm antenna wire for POTA and SOTA. I planned to use a 4:1 to get a closer match to the coax.
The ladder line is the matching element for this antenna "system", which allows the antenna to have a 50 ohm impedance at the coax connector of the 1:1 current balun. If you used a 4:1 balun it would NOT WORK, because it would defeat the purpose of the ladder line matching element. With a 4:1 balun and the matching ladder line section connected to the dipole, you would wind up with an impedance of 12.5 ohms at the coax connector. This would result in a mismatch with the 50 ohm coax and you'd have all sorts of signal loss at the desired frequencies.
The ladder line is for impedance matching. The ZS6BKW is designed to give you 50 ohms at the end of the matching section of ladder line on most HF HAM bands. So there is no need for a 4:1 balun, only a 1:1 current balun.
I have a g5rv that I never liked because of so much feedback of CMC so I'm thinking of cutting it to this size, you did not mention 15 meters or even 12, curious what they did? Good job on the video etc Thanks
I plan on a big test with the antenna at Winter Field Day 2021 very soon. This will be our main SSB station antenna. I should have some video to share. Steve
I'm not sure on 30m band as I'm on ssb most of the time. I do use an EFHW 10-40 most every time portable. I use the zs6 for our club field day and winter field day. More room and taller trees. I may have to do a comparison at WFD coming soon. Thanks for asking. Steve
@@hamradioportable1630 Yes I have room for a loop. Don't get on 80 m all that much or 75. I work a lot On 40 m. the feed the loop you the corner or 1/4 wave from the from the corner
The ladder line is part of the antenna design and it is for impedance matching. The ZS6BKW is designed to give you 50 ohms at the end of the matching section of ladder line on most HF HAM bands. So there is no need for a 4:1 balun, only a 1:1 current balun.
Ken, I would expect it to be about the same. The advantage here is the multiband performance without an external tuner. It worked great for our club on winter Field Day this year. Steve Ad4xt
@@hamradioportable1630 Thanks, I once built a off center fed antenna and even though it offered a lower SWR on certain bands it didn't out perform the same length of wire fed with 450 ohm balance line going into my MFJ-993 auto tuner. The off center antenna still needed my antenna tuner to get the SWR below 1.4 so my IC-746 would output full power. I might one day try and build ZS6BKW antenna for testing. Thanks, Ken
Nice Video. Thanks for taking great care when shooting the video. Perfect
A very comprehensive video on this antenna. I appreciate all the details that you included. Especially the use of the rig expert to show where the dips were on the various bands.
Used a ZS6BKW as my main antenna for well over 10 years. It was homebrew and installed flat top with the end wires drooping down a bit. I run CW primarily so things seemed to match better. 80 was fairly narrow and needed a tuner when moving to SSB. Moving I needed to change because my feed point situation changed. Good antenna. 73,JP, K8AG
I am thinking about using this for my first antenna, I am concerned about how the ladder line would hold up in winter/high winds supporting the coax. I am thinking a small cord ran parallel with the ladder line would help for strain relief. How high should the center be? would 20-30 feet height be enough?
We plan to use this antenna again for Field Day 2021 with my club. We had excellent results with it at Winter Field Day.
Great Video I have used this antenna for a few years now Steve Hunt G3TXQ sk wrote to make a ZS6BKW cut a dipole resonant at 5 mhz. Fed with coax then remove the coax and put 41 feet of ladder line on it and trim the ladder line for lowest swr at 24.950 and it will be good.
Good info.
Beautifully built, Steve. 💯👌
You really need to clean and re-tin that soldering iron tip. Nice video. Thank you.
Yea, I know . This is an old iron I used back in the day with the slot car hobby.
GREAT SIMPLE ANTENNA !!!
Hey Steve, great video. I made one of these earlier this summer. My first contact was a VK3 on 25 watts FT8, so it’s a keeper! I look forward to a video of you testing it in the field. Rich KM4TLR
Testing it out in the field is on the to do list.
Steve Ad4xt
Great video Steve. It was very easy to follow the build up
Nice build sequence and testing, appreciate the detailed video. W4MSK
I love the out takes :)
Steve, you are much too humble! I have bookmarked the ZS6BKW RUclips videos and yours is, by a wide margin, the best of the breed Why? Because you took us to your driveway and showed us the wire cuts, the dimensions of the elements, and the window line. The other videos just show us a completed antenna and the ways they hung it from trees, push-up masts, etc. I was surprised at your telling us that you had to trim more than 2' from each leg for resonance in each band.
Question 1...Would you conclude that this is typical for all ZS6BKW antennas, or peculiar to your location? I've got rocks, sand and clay at my QTH! Really poor soil.
Question 2... Do you think that a "reflector wire", about 6" off the ground, directly under the ZS6BKW, the length of the antenna, might help? My take off angle should be quite good, but I am trying to squeeze every bit of RF from both my rig and my antenna. I have ordered the center insulator from the ebay link you provided. Thank you! Going to order some 450 Ohm window line, the balun and the 14 gauge wire. Would a 12 gauge wire offer a bit more bandwidth? Will shop for some nylon hardware.
Last question...since you posted your video do you have any remarks, or updates that you have discovered in the 6 weeks or so since?
Again, yours is the best of the videos out there and I think you for taking the time to respond to my post!
Vry 73 de
Thanks for the kind words.
Yes different types of soil and location will have an effect. I see this as I go portable to different locations. Most of the time it's very slight. But I'm here in GA.
I would not worry about a "reflector wire" at the start. Just hang it high as you can.
I plan on giving this antenna a good test at Winter Field Day 2021 in a couple weeks with some video to report back with.
Thanks for watching.
Steve
Ad4xt
THANK YOU FOR THE INFORMATION!
Thanks Steve I like it.
Education and humour all in one. Nice work.
Short the window line with a 50 ohm resistor just before connecting it to the 1:1 choke balun and it will bring the VSWR on 80 meters down to less than 2:1 across the band.
When you attached the ladder line to the center mount, I believe, that the intent was to possibly trim out one section of ladder window then bend the ladder line and pass it through the two larger center holes then bend them out and solder them to the antenna wire and not bolt them in at the holes. This would let the ladder line openings match up with the raised portion to more secure the ladder line to the center insulator. Then with the side wires you can solder them to the leads from the ladder and not need the bolts or ring connectors, one less place to have corrosion. If you leave a small loop you can solder the wires and slip over some sealing heat shrink to seal it all up. Just my observation as the EBay listing for the insulator does not give any specifications or instructions.
Good idea Fred. This only comes out to play for FD and WFD.
Steve
Ad4xt
Nice wire antennas. It's getting to be a lost art.
This may be a silly question but things I have read about the ZS6BKW antenna suggests that the length on each side be exactly 46' 8 1/2" long. Does anyone know if this includes the amount of wire needed at both ends to loop thru the insulators and tie/attach to insulators? Thanks.
Well done!
Thanks
thanks my friend nice job terrific 73 from kb2uew
Many thanks!
You worried about metal screws in the two locations on the insulator disturbing the ladder line. At frequencies no higher than the 10 m band I don't think they would have much effect. I would use brass ones, though, not steel. But even steel screws shouldn't do much harm since if the antenna and feedline are well balanced the field halfway between the two feedline wires shouldn't be that large. The worst the screws would do would be to put a bit of capacitance across the feedline at that point which might affect the tuning a slight amount.
I think the main reason people say not to bring ladder line near metal objects is that if it is done in a non-symmetrical way, with say a metal roof gutter nearer one wire than the other, balance will be affected and losses can occur. But your center insulator is nice and symmetrical.
David VE7EZM and AF7BZ
Thanks David for that detail explanation.
You a Pro. Cheers
Thanks, I’m getting ready to build one. Glad to hear you can trim it up the band. How does it preform 60 meters?
Not sure about 60M. I plan to use this antenna for Field Day and maybe WFD.
Nice Video Steve , thanks de KN4SWS
Thanks for the watching. I plan to test it out soon.
I wonder how much a plastic cutting board is at the Dollar Store, could use that to make several centre insulators and possibly at the ends of the antenna too. Stay safe, 73, VE7KKQ
For what u pay at Fastenal for nut and bolts. You could buy the prebuilt antenna off Amazon........ LOL
Would it work to just run my ladder line straight to my tuner wire lugs?
Thank u for this in depth video!
Going straight to a tuner would turn this antenna into a non-resident doublet. Which are good antennas. It just requires another piece of equipment. Thanks for watching.
Is it true the coax cable going from the ladder line to the antenna tuner must be very short? I was told 5' to 10 feet max. If that is the case, this may be a deal breaker for me. i can't set up the station that close to the backyard facing walls in my house. I need around 50' of coax to make it to the room I use. What do you think?
Use whatever length you need. It will work fine. I use this one at FD and WFD. Different coax, works well.
I'd be really curious how this antenna would work with a 4:1 balun instead of (or in addition to) the 1:1 balun. I'm planning to design something using a 300-ohm antenna wire for POTA and SOTA. I planned to use a 4:1 to get a closer match to the coax.
9:1 es lo correcto ya que la antena trabaja con 450 a 500 ohms.
The ladder line is the matching element for this antenna "system", which allows the antenna to have a 50 ohm impedance at the coax connector of the 1:1 current balun. If you used a 4:1 balun it would NOT WORK, because it would defeat the purpose of the ladder line matching element. With a 4:1 balun and the matching ladder line section connected to the dipole, you would wind up with an impedance of 12.5 ohms at the coax connector. This would result in a mismatch with the 50 ohm coax and you'd have all sorts of signal loss at the desired frequencies.
Thanks for sharing. Did you use a 4:1 balun? And do you run it through a tuner before the radio?
It's a 1:1 balun. Just a touch up with the internal tuner if needed.
This is my club's go to antenna for FD and WFD.
The ladder line is for impedance matching. The ZS6BKW is designed to give you 50 ohms at the end of the matching section of ladder line on most HF HAM bands. So there is no need for a 4:1 balun, only a 1:1 current balun.
I would cover the zip ties with electrical tape so UV rays don’t age them. Should be good for a long time after that.
Yep, you are correct about that. Thanks.
Try 47ft8in 80m should show a lower swr
I have a g5rv that I never liked because of so much feedback of CMC so I'm thinking of cutting it to this size, you did not mention 15 meters or even 12, curious what they did? Good job on the video etc Thanks
I plan on a big test with the antenna at Winter Field Day 2021 very soon. This will be our main SSB station antenna. I should have some video to share.
Steve
👍
How does the ant do on 30m? 40,30 and 20 are my go to for Cw. Have you compared it to efhw antenna with a 49:1 ?
I'm not sure on 30m band as I'm on ssb most of the time. I do use an EFHW 10-40 most every time portable. I use the zs6 for our club field day and winter field day. More room and taller trees. I may have to do a comparison at WFD coming soon. Thanks for asking.
Steve
thanks need give this one a try. what would be with 4-1 over 1-1. ladder line 450 ohms
The 1:1 works just fine. Save that 4:1 for a full wave loop if you have room. Thanks for watching.
@@hamradioportable1630 Yes I have room for a loop. Don't get on 80 m all that much or 75. I work a lot On 40 m. the feed the loop you the corner or 1/4 wave from the from the corner
The ladder line is part of the antenna design and it is for impedance matching. The ZS6BKW is designed to give you 50 ohms at the end of the matching section of ladder line on most HF HAM bands. So there is no need for a 4:1 balun, only a 1:1 current balun.
What about the performance compared to a dipole on a specific bands.
Ken,
I would expect it to be about the same. The advantage here is the multiband performance without an external tuner. It worked great for our club on winter Field Day this year.
Steve
Ad4xt
@@hamradioportable1630 Thanks, I once built a off center fed antenna and even though it offered a lower SWR on certain bands it didn't out perform the same length of wire fed with 450 ohm balance line going into my MFJ-993 auto tuner. The off center antenna still needed my antenna tuner to get the SWR below 1.4 so my IC-746 would output full power. I might one day try and build ZS6BKW antenna for testing. Thanks, Ken
There is a version of this antenna that is designed to fit in smaller areas. Video here ruclips.net/video/EypzupYh3uw/видео.html
I love strippers also