Each leg of the radiator is 46’ 10”. Use 14ga stranded. The matching section is 39’ 1.5” of 450 ohm ladder line. What you use for insulators is up to you.
Thank you, for doing this excellent presentation on the ZSBKW antenna! Not only did you build one for us, you went to the trouble of doing a video, too - and, that extra effort is greatly appreciated! I would like to make a couple of observations for consideration: Remember, ALL antennas represent some kind of compromise and this one is no exception. Despite its benefits, it may not be the best antenna for you. For one thing, it requires two sturdy supports for the ends that are also at a decent height (at least 40 feet to keep the ladder line from lying on the ground). If you have a couple of tall trees available, that's not a problem - but, operating in an open field or on a beach may present a significant challenge that you may not be able to overcome. Secondly, if you have only one support available to you, it will need to be erected in an inverted V configuration that may compromise the match it presents on the various bands. Furthermore, in a portable operation scenario with only one support that is less than 40 feet tall (common limitation), this antenna may not be the best option. Thanks, again, for presenting this as a viable option in many situations! 73 AI4IJ
I just finished the build and the tuning on mine. Got all of 40, 20, 17, 12 and the BOTTOM 2/3 of 10 meters. Tomorrow my elmer is loaning me a rig and I'll be calling CQ. Maybe I'll catch some of you having your night cap.
Hey Brad! Long time, no see! I was searching for ideas for a fanned dipole for 160, 80, and 40, which took me to a Reddit post, and someone posted a link to this video. Cool concept, and I might just build it! I already have a 160m horizontal loop up, but I wanted something better for 40m, in particular. It was bittersweet to see Marc in the video with you. Anyways, thanks for posting!
@kf4hoq it has been a while! I hope you are doing well. This is the antenna that Marc got me back active in the hobby and DXCC. It’s a great antenna and easy to build! There is a modification or a twist that Brian came up with and we did a video on that along with an interview.
I love wire antennas. I have an inverted L with an extensive radial field, a Half Square ( excellent performer), Ocf, and resonate dipoles. Still my ZS6BKW is my workhorse! It out hears and gives me more contacts. Period. Build them, they will come.
I built my own ladder line as its made of unobtainium here in S. Africa. So far it was one of the most fun parts of this project. Hope to have the tower up soon and test my first ever home brew antenna in a couple days.
Tim, thanks to your video, I’m going to built this antenna with home made ladder line as well. By adjusting the spacers, one can achieve customized impedance on the ladder line.
A good source of antenna insulators is your local farm store. Electric fence insulators are the same thing. It would have been more helpful if you included the SWR readings upon completion. The apparent wardrobe malfunction was a nice touch!
I build ALL my own antennas & want to thank you boys for a very informative video. The antenna is common bits & pieces, & the balanced line can be made easily (I make my own) but I realise that for the cost of window line, it is not worth the effort in your case. Great video boys. Cheers! VE6XX
Thanks for the video. First hf antenna I built was the g5rv, the second was the g7fek, finally I just bought a 404-ul antenna that works amazing for my setup. Hard to know what to do in the beginning but videos like these are really helpful!
I use a commercially made heavy duty version of this antenna with a balun at the 450/coax junction and it works very well at 45 feet off the ground. I can also use it on 75, but it is below my full size 75 meter dipole in performance. This is the best multiband wire antenna I have used in my 49 years on HF. I highly recommend you try one.
Great presentation guys! Yours is the first antenna video that I have seen that poo pooed the end insulators! I have never used end insulators. I have always use the same rope that you talked about and I do not know the name of the knot that I use at the end but it was taught to me by my father-in-law to secure ropes. Again great job and thanks for sharing!
Just got mine up today and SWR is 1.2-1.4 on 40, 20,17,12 got it 25 feet up inverted V. Made contacts in Ukraine, UK, and a few US stations over 1000 miles away !! great antenna !!
Interesting. However, unless I really missed something, the only difference between the two antenna types is the ZB6BKW is a little shorter than the G5Rv?
HI How did you determine that the ladder line should be 39' 1 1/2"? I've seen other builds of this antenna where they measured the velocity factor of the ladder line first and came up with 38 1/2 ". Would have liked to see the tuning process. Did you alter the original length of the ladder line, or just the dipole arms? Good video. Thanks. Brent VA7HUM
What would be a minimal height to hang this. One end would be no issue. I have a 100 foot tower. The other end is the issue can it slope and still be effective
Great vid thanks fellas. Just got mine delivered to Australia from US took 5 weeks ! It's my first ham antenna and I hope I made a good choice. I'm hoping I can get is set up well. Can I extend the coax to shack and if so what is best to use ?
When you tie or fold the wire at the end of the antenna, does that extra wire count in the length? Or, does the end measurement go to the furthest point of the fold or knot?
It gets counted, but an extra inch or so is negligible. You don’t want an extra foot of wire. Remember, it’s a lot easier to make the wire shorter than longer.
I am a huge proponent of this antenna. I’ve worked on 100 W literally 8000 miles east to west using it at 48 feet high with the ends at least 35 feet high. This is the best wire antenna very few talk about. Would like to use part of this video for my channel that helps to teach hamRadio as well as the importance of a quality Antenna. I’ll be sure to credit your channel in the description section as well as show the locations of the contacts that you made. Great job on this one guys! Larry de K7HN
Modifed my G5RV to the specs you gents provided. I happened to have a roll of 450 ohm ladder about so down it came, trim, trim add, up again. Viola ! tunes up all over the place with minimal effort, havent made any contacts yet but the waterfall has more features in it now, especially on the 12,15 & 17M bands.. And now tunes all over 10M ZS6BKW for the win, 73 VK2JFK
I was just going to add that for anyone who has a G5RV laying about you could modify it to the dimensions given for the ZS6BKW. This is already written by others here. I have always made my own antennas or modernized others to suit my requirements. I am an Ex class A1 Combat Radioman by trade. 16 years in the R. Signals. I would normally go to the stores and drew out copper wire, insulators and halyards. Coax usually came 50 or 100 ft lengths terminated with plugs on. If you wanted a antenna for a set of frequencies, you measured and cut the wire with insulators in between for different frequencies. With a jumper wire in-between to join up or shorten the total length. Any frequencies different to the ones already cut and made you would have to make up out in the field. Preferably in daylight. We normally did security frequency changes at midnight. All good stuff to give you the know-how to do it and get it write first time. Have fun everyone. The more you do it the easier it becomes. de John - G0WXU.
Saludos hermano estoy muy interesado en hacer la antena ZS6BKW tengo todo el materia solo me falta hacer la escalerita que separacion tengo que colocar para que me de los 450 ohms ---yv4fzf desde venezuela 73
Thank you guys for the video. You got me out of the house and made me order some ladder line, and build something again. Here are some real world results from a careful builder. “If you have a G5RV, you should probably take it down…..” I listened to you guys with interest and took down my venerable G5RV that had served me well (of course, with a MFJ antenna tuner) for about 3 years. Anxious to cut the tuner out of the equation, I carefully built according to your instructions measuring 3x and cutting once, being careful to leave a extra foot on each end for possible trimming issues. I had the G5RV mounted at 35’ between 2 trees in the back yard with ample spacing, so I put the ZS6BKW in it’s place, hanging it with the same paracord. The ZS6BKW’s ladder line is longer, so for initial testing I left the extra ladder running across the deck about 10’ off the ground in the back yard. Using an antenna analyzer, the SWR results are fantastic on 40M with the SWR across the entire band less than 2.0!!! I can only use about half of 20M without the tuner, 30M, 15M, 60M are totally off of the scale. 12M and 17M are between 3 and 4 SWR. I did pickup the lower part of 10M, which I didn’t have with the G5RV. I spent a day shortening and lengthening the wire to trim, sliding back and forth hoping for some magic positioning. Your original lengths are about the best at 46’6” per side and 39’3” for ladder line. I raised the antenna to put the ZS6BKW’s ladder line at full length, but this made very little measureable SWR difference. RESULT? Hanging in MY trees at MY house, the G5RV SWR results are better on 80M and 20M (overall). The ZS6BKW is better on 40M and part of 20M. 17 and 12 are tuneable with my radio’s built-in tuner (but, alas…. little if any activity there). I do gain part of 10M. My results… yours, of course, are different. It would be great to see SWR across individual bands with your setup to compare to mine. I only see you testing 40M and 20M with a radio, which are the best on my setup as well.
+Kenneth Bell it is true to expect different results with different installations you may want to take a look at the G0GSF antenna if you have the height as it takes half the space of the zs6bkw. I’m glad that got you out of the house and experiencing the essence of the hobby! Remember, a resonant antenna doesn’t always mean a 1:1 swr.
@@AE4VJ Okay - then it is not a problem. I had forgotten that the ZS6BKW resonates on different frequency bands. Big losses on the coax cables only arise if you go into the coax cable after the chicken conductor in the case of non-resonant antennas and the whole system has to be tuned with a tuner. tnx for the Video and always "good propagations"....
I have a ZS6BKW that was made by W8AMZ. It worked well on all the bands you mentioned but, I found it to be very noisy and took it down in favor of dipoles and even verticals with less noise. Could be the way I had it strung up in the trees. Did you guys notice increased noise?
AE4HZ the only time I notice elevated noise is when the wire insulation is chafed and sorting again a branch. This will eventually happen after some time in the sun and friction, no matter the antenna. With mine, this is the only time I’ll notice a lot of noise.
Yes, noise does increase on any ladder or open feedline as the vertical wire pick up the noise. Actually both ZS6BKW & G5RV are back to back L-antennas. That says it all.
Unbraid the shield and use some heat shrink or tape the hell out of it and put a ring terminal on it. The. You can use a center insulator and some brass screws. That may be a good video to do...prepping the coax for that.
I was unable to see how you connected the 450 ladder line to the coax. I would certainly like to see or hear about that. You have convinced me to build one since last week’s storm broke my G5RV. Tommy. N4KBM.
Just curious, how far in the air were you able to string the antenna. I wasn't able to clearly see the height or tell if it was an inverted antenna from the video.
Marc and I received an email from G0GSF (ex ZS6BKW). The following is part of his email: Just this morning a friend of mine, Keith G4OKT, alerted me to your video on the ZS6BKW, the antenna I designed way back in the early 1980s. I had a look at it and enjoyed it very much. Congratulations on such a lucid explanation of how the antenna performs and also how you went about constructing it. I noticed a number of comments from others, too, so you're certainly generating some interest. You may be interested in a shortened version of the antenna (there was at least query along those lines in the comments section). I designed it around a year ago and after subjecting it to the usual computer simulations with EZNEC6, my local amateur radio club (Chester & District Radio Society) built the antenna and specifically the matching section for it. There is an optimum impedance for L2, the 'series-section matching transformer', to give it its fancy name, which is somewhat lower than 450 ohms but the antenna is very tolerant as you demonstrated so will probably work with 450 ohms too. We were aiming for 380 ohms and Bruce M0CVP achieved 388 ohms at his first pass. That was absolutely fine. Of course the velocity factor is important and so we measured that too and found it to be very close to 0.9 for the open-wire line he built. Maybe you'd like to try the compact version of this multiband antenna but call it the G0GSF since that's my call these days, as it has been for the past thirty years? 73 Brian G0GSF (ex ZS6BKW). Marc and I plan on building one soon to give it a go and a video on it as well so stay tuned. The weather isn’t looking good for this weekend so it probably won’t be the next video published, but I expect it to be after the next one.
Looking for options to put in the attic. So I am interested in this shorter version and don't mind trying something new! Please send me dimensions and if you have a video of it it would help.
One very well done video. Been looking for a general purpose antenna for my Drake TR4 T4XB collection to transmit on from Las Vegas. I have a 60 foot width small back yard.
I am wondering if 15 meters could not be added to ZS6BKW by using the fan fold like principal. Just adding second element with each leg being 11 feet 2 inches or as tuned with its interaction with the normal ZS6BKW.
How high is it? will it work as a inverted V? Is the dipole section flat? Do you need the ladder line to drop straight down? Is the radiation pattern similar to a dipole or both depending on the band?
Others have thought about trying it as an inverted V, but it’s designed as a flat top. This doesn’t mean it will not work. It was up somewhere around 50’. Ladder line doesn’t have to come straight down and the pattern varies per band.
Helo @AE4VJ Just one question, there is a difference using wire cable insulated? It is necessary to use an insulated cable or we need to peal the cooper wire cable? Thanks from Costa Rica TI2GBB Greg
VERY NICE. Is it like having one wire to the left, one to the right and at the center point continue to the rig the left and right wires with a spacing of 3.5 inches so no need for an insulator at the top or a connection with a coax ? you have two wires that comes in the shack to an external tuner and use the balanced line connector. Am I on the right track or in nowhere land. 73 VA2SOB Claude
+Claude M. P. The vertical line is 450ohm ladder line that is the matching section. There is a center insulator at the top and bottom of the matching section to provide strain relief to the connections and to keep them from getting twisted and shorting.
Hello from KC4HNS in Columbia SC. Hope to be able to build this antenna soon. Am physically handicapped but hopefully I will be able to get some help from some Columbia hams.
I am going to make this but will on,y be able to get it about 28-30 feet high in the middle. The two ends will be about 12 feet high. Is that going to make it a poor setup.
I enjoyed your video - I have a question for you - I operate an icom 751A - at present I am using a sg239 tuner - I operate afair bit on 80m but as I listened to your comments it appears that it needs to be tuned on 80m - so here is the question - can I attach the coax to my antenna tuner and use my tuner to tune when 80 m and when operating on the other bands ie 20, 40 and 10 just bypass the tuner. Your thoughts are much appreciated Burt
I had a ZS6BKW up for several years. It was a commercial one I bought and it flat out worked well. Sadly it broke in a Tropical Storm and I bought another one but have not put it back up. Do not have the room or trees where I am now.
Buenas noches desde Chile, Por estos lados sólo disponemos de cable 300 ohms. Qué largo recomiendan? Acabo de terminar una de 14.20 metros de largo por lado y 11.10 metros de cinta 300 ohms. No siontaniza en 7 MHZ eb mi IC 7300. Agradezco alguna sugerencia. Good evening from Chile, On these sides we only have 300 ohm cable. What length do you recommend? I just finished one 14.20 meters long per side and 11.10 meters of 300 ohm tape. My IC 7300 does not tune in 7 MHZ. I appreciate any suggestion.
You don’t want the ladder line right up against the tower anyway as it could react with it. You can pull the ladder line back in an arc opposite of the tower. It doesn’t need to be perfectly straight, but you don’t want it laying on the ground.
Look at that ham radio Heaven. You have Enough land and high trees to make a project like this a snap and a success. In The Tristate area we have lots generally 50 feet wide and 100 ft deep max and challenges at every turn.. Wow would love to have a place like that!
Can the antenna be scaled down by a factor of two? I don't have any 45' trees. Hopefully scaling by two would result in a 20 meter and up multi band antenna with some use on 40 meters maybe with a tuner.
Robert Jackson you’ll loose a couple of other bands if you do. Most likely 17 & 12. There are a lot of articles online so feel free to experiment. That’s part of the hobby
It can be scaled down. If you reduce the flat top to 45’11” and shorten the matching section to 19’8”, you should wind up with an antenna that has low SWR on 20m, 10m and the bottom of 6m and 2m. There are much better ways to get out on 2m, but the antenna could be a lot of fun to use during an Es opening on 6m. 73 N4UFP
Excellent video I am making one of these this week. The pdfs I read online have a 1:1 choke balun with ferrite at the bottom of the ladder line, what's the difference between that and the loop you made out of coax?
DX Commander goes into some detail about using a ferrite core in a choke, so you may want to check out some of his vids. I've always used just a choke with about 6 turns of 6" diameter and had very good luck with it. If you got the ferrite, feel free to use it, but if not I wouldn't worry too much about it.
I was distracted with the open zipper fly. Sheesh! I would also simply solder those connections to the ladder line instead of trying to justify using different materials and argue which one gives the least amount of trouble. A good solder joint won't provide changing SWR readings due to corrosion or rust. It only consumes at the most 1/2 inch of lead material and you simply leave it alone. Of course, you can just do what you did in the field on the fly, but there doesn't seem to be enough "fly" experience here.
lol. Yeah well he is no longer with us. Marc was a phd in electrical engineering. I usually crimp then solder. This was simply a demonstration of the antenna. A good practice video may be a good idea.
Just about any antenna will work good if you put it up in trees that are a 100 feet in the air. Try using trees in Arizona where about 15 feet is as high as they get.
Ice build up will effect any antenna. However, I have had no problems with rain. Of course you want to weather proof any exposed parts of the coax to keep water out.
Thanks for making this video. I was going to build the G5RV, but saw this and was curious.... I built this antenna over the last few days. It performs great over my attic dipole. There was a 10-15 db rise in signal strength. The attic dipole used to perform "pretty good" until I had the solar cells installed on the rooftop. I'm sure those deflected the signal..... Anyway, I used 14ga stranded, coated wire and made the center insulator for it from a section of clear acrylic that I have (I'm a small sign maker) and used rope that I purchased from Rural King as the end pieces. One end is fastened to my house and the other end I shot up in a huge oak tree over a branch with a bow & arrow using thin rope as a leader. On its downside, I attached a 2.5 lb weight that hangs against the tree trunk and it keeps the line taught, but will give when the tree moves....which isn't often....it's a HUGE tree. I used 3" to 2" PVC pipe as the center support (I know, I know) and used one guy from the house for stability. Great little project. Maybe I'll catch you on. de KA3DON.
@@AE4VJ Great story! I have tons of bamboo in my yard, I may give that a try vs. the PVC. Great video and comments! Congrats on your antenna!!! How do you keep the PVC pipe in place?
Question about Radiating Wires. I seen you tied them around string at the ends and also looped/tied them at the center insulator. Did you measure it before you tie them or did you make that strait part in between the ties 46.8'? I thought tying the radiating wire like that would mess up something...Weather it be electrically or radiation pattern wise.
Hi I know this is an older video, I have a question. This will be my first antenna I ever built, I am wondering why the #14 THHN stranded wire you use has a sheathing? Would you want a bare wire? Please note, I don't know antennas well, just curious! Thanks Jon, W1JJN
Hi John! There are a couple of reasons for using insulated wire. First, the calculations Andre done with that (slightly different velocity factor) and the other is it will keep the radiator from shorting against trees and other things it may encounter.
I have a challenging lot I am putting up an off center fed dipole (because that is where the trees are) I am thinking of using a matching window line like this antenna.. thank you for the current balun idea.. wondering if using your lengths but off center at 20 (ish) % would work? Let the fun of testing begin 😀
+Bill Lamm I’m all for experimenting. You may want to take a look at the G0GSF antenna. It’s designed by the same guy and requires half the space. If you have y’all enough trees, it may be a good option. ruclips.net/video/EypzupYh3uw/видео.html
Does the ladder line have to be free hanging vertically or can some of it be laying on the ground? I'm not sure I can get the feed point 40+ feet in the air.
Hi, guys I had the zs6bkw for years and it worked well on all those bands you mentionned . It was up on a metal post of about 10 m or so up the roof. But I had to put it down as the post didn’t stand a strong wind and then went on a loop antenna for upper band and a g5rv/ junior for 30 and 40 and even some portion of 80m . I’d be very interested to try the shortened version of the zs6bkw ( I mean the G0GSF antenna). Vy 73 de 7X5AV
+DJAMAL BENDAOUD excellent post! the G0GSF video will go live tomorrow. Marc and I modified the ZS6BKW to test and shoot the footage. We also have an interview with G0GSF in that video. It’s about an hour long but there is a lot of info in it.
If you are only going to have one antenna up in the air, a ladder line fed loop or doublet is the best antenna you can build period. NOTHING will work more bands as reliably and with excellent results as either one of these antennas. You can easily build every piece of it yourself including the feedline and tuner if you choose. Make the antenna as long as the lowest band you plan to operate and it will work great on every band above that. With the right homemade tuner, I've even seen very short antennas work lower (than ant designed length) bands with excellent results. (ie 70 foot overall antenna length working 75 meters with Link-coupled--or inductively-coupled--antenna tuners with no obvious loss of signal strength)
Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems the only differences in this antenna and the G5RV is the radial length... where the G5RV is 102’ and the ZS6BKW is 94’...... Also the ladder line lengths differ where the ZS6BKW is 39’3” and the G5RV is 32’6” Both 450 Ohm......
I'm thinking about building one of these. I am height restricted, not by our neighborhood, but by my abilities. Can any part the ladder line be routed along the ground? Thanks so much.
so quick question, i see you have the height to be able to get that ladder line off the ground considerably. what if you can't get 40ft of ladder line in the "space provided" without it lying on the ground or say the roof of the house? could you shorten the ladder line to say 20 feet if you'r only interested in 40 and up?
The ladder line is the matching section so the length is critical. If you can’t get it vertical, you can pull it back at an angle. I wouldn’t run it in the house or against anything metallic for it to couple to.
All the great antenna ideas, but still need at least 45-50 vertical feet for the center line. How I wish I could put some of these great antenna ideas to work for me, but that center feed point height is a killer!
Ladder line doesn’t have to be straight. It’s a matching section. You can pull it back and allow it to slope. You don’t really want it touching the ground, but you can pull it back and lash it to the house or some other support.
Hi there, we are also advised to stay in here in Germany. As the last storm damaged my HF vertica I have now time to build and put up a ZS6BKW JUNIOR antenna. The horizontal length is 14.2m. I´m not sure if what I found out about the vertical feeding line. I read that it is 12,2m. To me it seems to be far too long. Do you have any information about the dimensions? Otherwise I´d go for a half size g5rv antenna. Thanks!
You can try it. It’s designed as a regular flat top dipole, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work. Most likely it will change the resonance some. It would still be better than no antenna
I would like to build this antenna as a Stealth ZS6BKW, using jacketed 26 AWG stranded copper clad steel (like from Wireman). Since the wire diameter is reduced, does anything change in the system as far as radiator length or ladder line length? Thanks!
I have a doublet that has 40 ft of latterline and the 51ft traditional each side, it will be simple enough to shorten. If this will resonate everywhere you say, it certainly will be great.
@@AE4VJ I have an MFJ 1:1 that has the pressure insert style wire hookup with coax so239 on the other side, should it work to lower the common current and also make the transition to coax?
Just got my General license and looking at this as my first antenna. If I attach the center to a metal mast on the house, is it okay to run the ladder line down the metal mast? I assume I may need standoffs to keep the ladder away from the pole. Will a 4" standoff be far enough?
+Gary Acker you’ll be a lot better off using something non metallic. Can you pull the ladder line off the pole at an angle? You don’t want the pole to couple to the matching section. I would say you’d need 2’ stand off
SWR is not a measure for performance or losses, it really is not. Just telling you the system is 50 Ohm like a dummyload. Resonance is mostly NOT 50 Ohm, it's uncommon it is with a multiband antenna. You take SWR as a performance reading and that is so incredibly wrong. Resonance has nothing to do with 50 Ohm or SWR, it has to do with the wavelength. And the ZS6BKW is too short to resonate on low bands, even when the SWR is 1:1 it will not radiate because the radiators are not in resonance with the frequency. Nothing more to it.
Nice video guys i have been using this antenna for several years now, the Great Steve Hunt G3TXQ SK once wrote just make a coax fed dipole resonant on 5 mhz. then remove the coax add 41 feet of ladder line to the feedpoint tune to 24.950 mhz. and trim the ladder line till lowest swr on 24.950 mhz. and it will work well on 40,20,17,12,10
Each leg of the radiator is 46’ 10”. Use 14ga stranded. The matching section is 39’ 1.5” of 450 ohm ladder line. What you use for insulators is up to you.
What bands will this cover with tuner?
With a tuner you should be able to get on all of the HF bands. An internal auto-tuner should easily handle it
AE4VJ thank you!
Are the measurements shown final cuts?
Obviously tieing and bending shortens things , do we need to compensate for this?
You do not need to compensate for this as these amounts are negligible
Thank you, for doing this excellent presentation on the ZSBKW antenna! Not only did you build one for us, you went to the trouble of doing a video, too - and, that extra effort is greatly appreciated! I would like to make a couple of observations for consideration:
Remember, ALL antennas represent some kind of compromise and this one is no exception. Despite its benefits, it may not be the best antenna for you. For one thing, it requires two sturdy supports for the ends that are also at a decent height (at least 40 feet to keep the ladder line from lying on the ground). If you have a couple of tall trees available, that's not a problem - but, operating in an open field or on a beach may present a significant challenge that you may not be able to overcome. Secondly, if you have only one support available to you, it will need to be erected in an inverted V configuration that may compromise the match it presents on the various bands. Furthermore, in a portable operation scenario with only one support that is less than 40 feet tall (common limitation), this antenna may not be the best option.
Thanks, again, for presenting this as a viable option in many situations!
73
AI4IJ
i like the friendship qualities you both display in this great hobby !
I appreciate it! We lost Marc last May and it’s been really hard on me.
@@AE4VJ I am so sorry to hear that ! Greg VK2GMC
Thank you guys for your time. I really enjoyed it.
Thanks for taking the time to watch!
I just finished the build and the tuning on mine. Got all of 40, 20, 17, 12 and the BOTTOM 2/3 of 10 meters. Tomorrow my elmer is loaning me a rig and I'll be calling CQ. Maybe I'll catch some of you having your night cap.
That is fantastic! Nice work and Congratulations!!!!!
Well done guys. What a beautiful place too....love the "sound" of spring.
Thank you!
Hey Brad! Long time, no see! I was searching for ideas for a fanned dipole for 160, 80, and 40, which took me to a Reddit post, and someone posted a link to this video. Cool concept, and I might just build it! I already have a 160m horizontal loop up, but I wanted something better for 40m, in particular. It was bittersweet to see Marc in the video with you. Anyways, thanks for posting!
@kf4hoq it has been a while! I hope you are doing well. This is the antenna that Marc got me back active in the hobby and DXCC. It’s a great antenna and easy to build! There is a modification or a twist that Brian came up with and we did a video on that along with an interview.
I love wire antennas. I have an inverted L with an extensive radial field, a Half Square ( excellent performer), Ocf, and resonate dipoles. Still my ZS6BKW is my workhorse! It out hears and gives me more contacts. Period. Build them, they will come.
I built my own ladder line as its made of unobtainium here in S. Africa. So far it was one of the most fun parts of this project. Hope to have the tower up soon and test my first ever home brew antenna in a couple days.
Tim, thanks to your video, I’m going to built this antenna with home made ladder line as well.
By adjusting the spacers, one can achieve customized impedance on the ladder line.
@@Stepclimb You got it! Have fun and enjoy the build, its very, very rewarding. 73
😂Same with me. A no go to get in SA so me and the wife also built the ladder.
A good source of antenna insulators is your local farm store. Electric fence insulators are the same thing. It would have been more helpful if you included the SWR readings upon completion. The apparent wardrobe malfunction was a nice touch!
I build ALL my own antennas & want to thank you boys for a very informative video. The antenna is common bits & pieces, & the balanced line can be made easily (I make my own) but I realise that for the cost of window line, it is not worth the effort in your case. Great video boys. Cheers! VE6XX
+Brian Hind thank you Brian!
How high up is the long wire thank you for the video
Sorry for the delayed response. I had a death in the family. It’s up about 40-45’
Thanks for the video. First hf antenna I built was the g5rv, the second was the g7fek, finally I just bought a 404-ul antenna that works amazing for my setup. Hard to know what to do in the beginning but videos like these are really helpful!
Thank you Jared! Good luck and have fun in the hobby. What’s your call sign?
VA6MRJ
How about trying an open wire fed doublet cut for 40? I finally got one up and it works great. 73
Great video. Thanks for posting. I’m totally jealous of that beautiful yard and tall trees !
I have a G5 that just broke in the last storm. I might bring the rest of it down and try this antenna.
I think you’ll be happy with it
I use a commercially made heavy duty version of this antenna with a balun at the 450/coax junction and it works very well at 45 feet off the ground. I can also use it on 75, but it is below my full size 75 meter dipole in performance. This is the best multiband wire antenna I have used in my 49 years on HF. I highly recommend you try one.
+Bill A. Thanks for sharing Bill! Excellent info for someone who is needs a nudge to build one.
What is the brand/name of the commercial version?
Great presentation guys! Yours is the first antenna video that I have seen that poo pooed the end insulators! I have never used end insulators. I have always use the same rope that you talked about and I do not know the name of the knot that I use at the end but it was taught to me by my father-in-law to secure ropes. Again great job and thanks for sharing!
Just got mine up today and SWR is 1.2-1.4 on 40, 20,17,12 got it 25 feet up inverted V. Made contacts in Ukraine, UK, and a few US stations over 1000 miles away !! great antenna !!
Thanks for sharing! Love hearing these reports
Interesting. However, unless I really missed something, the only difference between the two antenna types is the ZB6BKW is a little shorter than the G5Rv?
Looks grate one question balanced aril coax should there be a 1 to1 balum there
That’s what the choke is for
Simple but Effective! I never hear of this design so thanks for sharing and for creating such an informative and straight-forward video.
Thanks Rick!
HI How did you determine that the ladder line should be 39' 1 1/2"? I've seen other builds of this antenna where they measured the velocity factor of the ladder line first and came up with 38 1/2 ". Would have liked to see the tuning process. Did you alter the original length of the ladder line, or just the dipole arms? Good video.
Thanks. Brent VA7HUM
What would be a minimal height to hang this. One end would be no issue. I have a 100 foot tower. The other end is the issue can it slope and still be effective
50’-60’ should work very nicely. It can slope and will be just fine.
Just get the ladder line off the ground. It can be pulled back to an arc if needed.
@@AE4VJ thanks for the reply
Would the ladder-Line be 450 ohms? I am not sure that you folks mentioned that or not.
It would
Just built and installed mine, don’t have room for a beam, worked VK and YV on 17 CW and YC on 20M SSB. Big reports on 40M around the U.K. pleased
That’s excellent!
Great vid thanks fellas. Just got mine delivered to Australia from US took 5 weeks ! It's my first ham antenna and I hope I made a good choice. I'm hoping I can get is set up well. Can I extend the coax to shack and if so what is best to use ?
You can extend the coax. How much are you looking to add? That may depend on which coax you want to use. What antenna did you buy?
Just for kicks will this antenna work on eleven meter twenty seven mhz? Thanks Bob H. KC9LRA
Who buys wire antennas? Build your own!
i see this video couple times fantastic antenna and low power
Was the center suspended from the tower? Any precautions on distance to Tower?
This suspended from the two legs in trees. I would run a lead of about 10’ if one leg is supported from a tower or metallic structure.
When you tie or fold the wire at the end of the antenna, does that extra wire count in the length? Or, does the end measurement go to the furthest point of the fold or knot?
It gets counted, but an extra inch or so is negligible. You don’t want an extra foot of wire. Remember, it’s a lot easier to make the wire shorter than longer.
I am a huge proponent of this antenna. I’ve worked on 100 W literally 8000 miles east to west using it at 48 feet high with the ends at least 35 feet high. This is the best wire antenna very few talk about.
Would like to use part of this video for my channel that helps to teach hamRadio as well as the importance of a quality Antenna. I’ll be sure to credit your channel in the description section as well as show the locations of the contacts that you made. Great job on this one guys!
Larry
de K7HN
I’m goo with it Larry!
Thank you for viewing and the comments!
Modifed my G5RV to the specs you gents provided. I happened to have a roll of 450 ohm ladder about so down it came, trim, trim add, up again. Viola ! tunes up all over the place with minimal effort, havent made any contacts yet but the waterfall has more features in it now, especially on the 12,15 & 17M bands.. And now tunes all over 10M ZS6BKW for the win, 73 VK2JFK
Excellent to hear John! Hope to see you in the log soon!
I was just going to add that for anyone who has a G5RV laying about you could modify it to the dimensions given for the ZS6BKW. This is already written by others here. I have always made my own antennas or modernized others to suit my requirements. I am an Ex class A1 Combat Radioman by trade. 16 years in the R. Signals. I would normally go to the stores and drew out copper wire, insulators and halyards. Coax usually came 50 or 100 ft lengths terminated with plugs on. If you wanted a antenna for a set of frequencies, you measured and cut the wire with insulators in between for different frequencies. With a jumper wire in-between to join up or shorten the total length. Any frequencies different to the ones already cut and made you would have to make up out in the field. Preferably in daylight. We normally did security frequency changes at midnight. All good stuff to give you the know-how to do it and get it write first time. Have fun everyone. The more you do it the easier it becomes. de John - G0WXU.
That story right there is why I love amateur radio the practical know how folks apply to problem solving. Cheers from KF5OWH in Arkansas
Saludos hermano estoy muy interesado en hacer la antena ZS6BKW tengo todo el materia solo me falta hacer la escalerita que separacion tengo que colocar para que me de los 450 ohms ---yv4fzf desde venezuela 73
Why would you modify a g4rv
can you use 300oh ribbon if you cant get 450 ohm flat line
Thank you guys for the video. You got me out of the house and made me order some ladder line, and build something again. Here are some real world results from a careful builder.
“If you have a G5RV, you should probably take it down…..”
I listened to you guys with interest and took down my venerable G5RV that had served me well (of course, with a MFJ antenna tuner) for about 3 years.
Anxious to cut the tuner out of the equation, I carefully built according to your instructions measuring 3x and cutting once, being careful to leave a extra foot on each end for possible trimming issues. I had the G5RV mounted at 35’ between 2 trees in the back yard with ample spacing, so I put the ZS6BKW in it’s place, hanging it with the same paracord. The ZS6BKW’s ladder line is longer, so for initial testing I left the extra ladder running across the deck about 10’ off the ground in the back yard.
Using an antenna analyzer, the SWR results are fantastic on 40M with the SWR across the entire band less than 2.0!!! I can only use about half of 20M without the tuner, 30M, 15M, 60M are totally off of the scale. 12M and 17M are between 3 and 4 SWR. I did pickup the lower part of 10M, which I didn’t have with the G5RV.
I spent a day shortening and lengthening the wire to trim, sliding back and forth hoping for some magic positioning. Your original lengths are about the best at 46’6” per side and 39’3” for ladder line. I raised the antenna to put the ZS6BKW’s ladder line at full length, but this made very little measureable SWR difference.
RESULT? Hanging in MY trees at MY house, the G5RV SWR results are better on 80M and 20M (overall). The ZS6BKW is better on 40M and part of 20M. 17 and 12 are tuneable with my radio’s built-in tuner (but, alas…. little if any activity there). I do gain part of 10M. My results… yours, of course, are different.
It would be great to see SWR across individual bands with your setup to compare to mine. I only see you testing 40M and 20M with a radio, which are the best on my setup as well.
+Kenneth Bell it is true to expect different results with different installations you may want to take a look at the G0GSF antenna if you have the height as it takes half the space of the zs6bkw. I’m glad that got you out of the house and experiencing the essence of the hobby! Remember, a resonant antenna doesn’t always mean a 1:1 swr.
I appreciate this analysis. I truly do. Thank you for this hard work.
The ZS6BKW is a very good Antenna........but when it´s needed to use a long Koax-feedline until the shack........isn´t there much loss?
The only loss is in the coax and on HF loss is generally low. How long of a run?
@@AE4VJ Okay - then it is not a problem. I had forgotten that the ZS6BKW resonates on different frequency bands. Big losses on the coax cables only arise if you go into the coax cable after the chicken conductor in the case of non-resonant antennas and the whole system has to be tuned with a tuner.
tnx for the Video and always "good propagations"....
@@michaelzehrfeld7766 if you use heiliax coax it won't be an issue
I have a ZS6BKW that was made by W8AMZ. It worked well on all the bands you mentioned but, I found it to be very noisy and took it down in favor of dipoles and even verticals with less noise. Could be the way I had it strung up in the trees. Did you guys notice increased noise?
AE4HZ the only time I notice elevated noise is when the wire insulation is chafed and sorting again a branch. This will eventually happen after some time in the sun and friction, no matter the antenna. With mine, this is the only time I’ll notice a lot of noise.
Yes, noise does increase on any ladder or open feedline as the vertical wire pick up the noise. Actually both ZS6BKW & G5RV are back to back L-antennas. That says it all.
How exactly do you go about separating the center and the shield of the coax so that it connects to the ladder line?
Unbraid the shield and use some heat shrink or tape the hell out of it and put a ring terminal on it. The. You can use a center insulator and some brass screws. That may be a good video to do...prepping the coax for that.
I was unable to see how you connected the 450 ladder line to the coax. I would certainly like to see or hear about that. You have convinced me to build one since last week’s storm broke my G5RV.
Tommy. N4KBM.
I did a video on how to transition from coax to ladder line.
Mating your Coax to Ladder Line
ruclips.net/video/3uw5fpFd0Sk/видео.html
what did you get with swr mid band every band on your analyser ?
ZS6BKW -- what would happen if you changed the driven element from a dipole into a closed loop (quad/diamond/rhombic)?
Could you easily convert an existing G5RV? Especially an MFJ commercially made full size G5RV? eg shortening elements etc
+Shane Hean is the ladderline 450 ohm?
@@AE4VJ Yes 450 Ohm ladderline and uses multistrand non insulated copper for wire elements
+Shane Hean and only center insulators? No 4:1 balun or anything, right?
@@AE4VJ Correct
@@shanehean1 Did you convert your MFJ G5RV to this antenna? How does it work? I'm thinking of doing this and at a slight inverted v.
Is a 4:1 balun necessary and how many turns of 4" coax to use for choke? 6 maybe?
No balun needed. We recommend at least 6 turns at 6”. If you have the coax, maybe do 10 turns at 10”
Just curious, how far in the air were you able to string the antenna. I wasn't able to clearly see the height or tell if it was an inverted antenna from the video.
It was a bit higher than the length of the ladder line. It was configured as a dipole. Flattop
@@AE4VJ Thank You for the reply. I was thinking about constructing this antenna and maybe doing an inverted "V" since I don't have any trees around.
Marc and I received an email from G0GSF (ex ZS6BKW). The following is part of his email:
Just this morning a friend of mine, Keith G4OKT, alerted me to your video on the ZS6BKW, the antenna I designed way back in the early 1980s. I had a look at it and enjoyed it very much. Congratulations on such a lucid explanation of how the antenna performs and also how you went about constructing it. I noticed a number of comments from others, too, so you're certainly generating some interest.
You may be interested in a shortened version of the antenna (there was at least query along those lines in the comments section). I designed it around a year ago and after subjecting it to the usual computer simulations with EZNEC6, my local amateur radio club (Chester & District Radio Society) built the antenna and specifically the matching section for it. There is an optimum impedance for L2, the 'series-section matching transformer', to give it its fancy name, which is somewhat lower than 450 ohms but the antenna is very tolerant as you demonstrated so will probably work with 450 ohms too. We were aiming for 380 ohms and Bruce M0CVP achieved 388 ohms at his first pass. That was absolutely fine. Of course the velocity factor is important and so we measured that too and found it to be very close to 0.9 for the open-wire line he built.
Maybe you'd like to try the compact version of this multiband antenna but call it the G0GSF since that's my call these days, as it has been for the past thirty years?
73 Brian G0GSF (ex ZS6BKW).
Marc and I plan on building one soon to give it a go and a video on it as well so stay tuned. The weather isn’t looking good for this weekend so it probably won’t be the next video published, but I expect it to be after the next one.
I would be very interested in seeing the shortened version and know if it would perform on 80m with a match box.
So, did you go ahead with that?
Looking for options to put in the attic. So I am interested in this shorter version and don't mind trying something new! Please send me dimensions and if you have a video of it it would help.
We do have a video. It’s the G0GSF antenna video
The ZS6BKW jr Better known as The G0GSF Antenna compact ZS6BKW
One very well done video. Been looking for a general purpose antenna for my Drake TR4 T4XB collection to transmit on from Las Vegas. I have a 60 foot width small back yard.
I am wondering if 15 meters could not be added to ZS6BKW by using the fan fold like principal. Just adding second element with each leg being 11 feet 2 inches or as tuned with its interaction with the normal ZS6BKW.
How high is it? will it work as a inverted V? Is the dipole section flat? Do you need the ladder line to drop straight down? Is the radiation pattern similar to a dipole or both depending on the band?
Others have thought about trying it as an inverted V, but it’s designed as a flat top. This doesn’t mean it will not work. It was up somewhere around 50’. Ladder line doesn’t have to come straight down and the pattern varies per band.
Helo @AE4VJ Just one question, there is a difference using wire cable insulated? It is necessary to use an insulated cable or we need to peal the cooper wire cable? Thanks from Costa Rica TI2GBB Greg
I would always use insulated wire you don’t want it snorting against trees, leaves etc.
@@AE4VJ Perfect, thanks for the advice!
Glad to help!
VERY NICE. Is it like having one wire to the left, one to the right and at the center point continue to the rig the left and right wires with a spacing of 3.5 inches so no need for an insulator at the top or a connection with a coax ? you have two wires that comes in the shack to an external tuner and use the balanced line connector. Am I on the right track or in nowhere land. 73 VA2SOB Claude
+Claude M. P. The vertical line is 450ohm ladder line that is the matching section. There is a center insulator at the top and bottom of the matching section to provide strain relief to the connections and to keep them from getting twisted and shorting.
Hello from KC4HNS in Columbia SC. Hope to be able to build this antenna soon. Am physically handicapped but hopefully I will be able to get some help from some Columbia hams.
I am going to make this but will on,y be able to get it about 28-30 feet high in the middle. The two ends will be about 12 feet high. Is that going to make it a poor setup.
Can the feed Point connection be soldered instead of bolted together will it affect the SWR or anyting
It sure can, but it’s a good idea to have some strain relief.
Thanks for the info
I enjoyed your video - I have a question for you - I operate an icom 751A - at present I am using a sg239 tuner - I operate afair bit on 80m but as I listened to your comments it appears that it needs to be tuned on 80m - so here is the question - can I attach the coax to my antenna tuner and use my tuner to tune when 80 m and when operating on the other bands ie 20, 40 and 10 just bypass the tuner. Your thoughts are much appreciated Burt
Yes. You can leave the tuner in-line
@@AE4VJ thank you for replying to my message
I had a ZS6BKW up for several years. It was a commercial one I bought and it flat out worked well. Sadly it broke in a Tropical Storm and I bought another one but have not put it back up. Do not have the room or trees where I am now.
Buenas noches desde Chile, Por estos lados sólo disponemos de cable 300 ohms. Qué largo recomiendan? Acabo de terminar una de 14.20 metros de largo por lado y 11.10 metros de cinta 300 ohms. No siontaniza en 7 MHZ eb mi IC 7300. Agradezco alguna sugerencia.
Good evening from Chile, On these sides we only have 300 ohm cable. What length do you recommend? I just finished one 14.20 meters long per side and 11.10 meters of 300 ohm tape. My IC 7300 does not tune in 7 MHZ. I appreciate any suggestion.
Love it!!!!!!!! One question. My tower is only 35ft. What is the best way to take care of the excess ladder line???? Thanks guys!!!!!
You don’t want the ladder line right up against the tower anyway as it could react with it. You can pull the ladder line back in an arc opposite of the tower. It doesn’t need to be perfectly straight, but you don’t want it laying on the ground.
Look at that ham radio Heaven. You have Enough land and high trees to make a project like this a snap and a success. In The Tristate area we have lots generally 50 feet wide and 100 ft deep max and challenges at every turn.. Wow would love to have a place like that!
Move out to the country Mike, you only live once Sir. Cheers.
Can the antenna be scaled down by a factor of two? I don't have any 45' trees. Hopefully scaling by two would result in a 20 meter and up multi band antenna with some use on 40 meters maybe with a tuner.
Robert Jackson you’ll loose a couple of other bands if you do. Most likely 17 & 12. There are a lot of articles online so feel free to experiment. That’s part of the hobby
It can be scaled down. If you reduce the flat top to 45’11” and shorten the matching section to 19’8”, you should wind up with an antenna that has low SWR on 20m, 10m and the bottom of 6m and 2m. There are much better ways to get out on 2m, but the antenna could be a lot of fun to use during an Es opening on 6m.
73 N4UFP
Excellent video I am making one of these this week. The pdfs I read online have a 1:1 choke balun with ferrite at the bottom of the ladder line, what's the difference between that and the loop you made out of coax?
DX Commander goes into some detail about using a ferrite core in a choke, so you may want to check out some of his vids. I've always used just a choke with about 6 turns of 6" diameter and had very good luck with it. If you got the ferrite, feel free to use it, but if not I wouldn't worry too much about it.
I was distracted with the open zipper fly. Sheesh!
I would also simply solder those connections to the ladder line instead of trying to justify using different materials and argue which one gives the least amount of trouble. A good solder joint won't provide changing SWR readings due to corrosion or rust. It only consumes at the most 1/2 inch of lead material and you simply leave it alone. Of course, you can just do what you did in the field on the fly, but there doesn't seem to be enough "fly" experience here.
lol. Yeah well he is no longer with us. Marc was a phd in electrical engineering. I usually crimp then solder.
This was simply a demonstration of the antenna. A good practice video may be a good idea.
Just about any antenna will work good if you put it up in trees that are a 100 feet in the air. Try using trees in Arizona where about 15 feet is as high as they get.
Does inclement weather(rain or especially snow and ice) affect its performance with those exposed connectors?
Ice build up will effect any antenna. However, I have had no problems with rain. Of course you want to weather proof any exposed parts of the coax to keep water out.
Thanks for sharing that wonderful experience. 😊
Many greetings
Matthias 👋
DL1NDG
Thank you so very much! 🙏
@@AE4VJ I thank YOU! Have good contacts with your antenna and nice QSO's.
😉
I got my DXCC with it.
Thanks for making this video. I was going to build the G5RV, but saw this and was curious.... I built this antenna over the last few days. It performs great over my attic dipole. There was a 10-15 db rise in signal strength. The attic dipole used to perform "pretty good" until I had the solar cells installed on the rooftop. I'm sure those deflected the signal..... Anyway, I used 14ga stranded, coated wire and made the center insulator for it from a section of clear acrylic that I have (I'm a small sign maker) and used rope that I purchased from Rural King as the end pieces. One end is fastened to my house and the other end I shot up in a huge oak tree over a branch with a bow & arrow using thin rope as a leader. On its downside, I attached a 2.5 lb weight that hangs against the tree trunk and it keeps the line taught, but will give when the tree moves....which isn't often....it's a HUGE tree. I used 3" to 2" PVC pipe as the center support (I know, I know) and used one guy from the house for stability. Great little project. Maybe I'll catch you on. de KA3DON.
Awesome Don! Glad you are have a good experience with it! Hope to see you in the log soon!
@@AE4VJ Great story! I have tons of bamboo in my yard, I may give that a try vs. the PVC. Great video and comments! Congrats on your antenna!!! How do you keep the PVC pipe in place?
I may have to watch this again to refresh my memory of the pvc pipe.
Question about Radiating Wires. I seen you tied them around string at the ends and also looped/tied them at the center insulator. Did you measure it before you tie them or did you make that strait part in between the ties 46.8'? I thought tying the radiating wire like that would mess up something...Weather it be electrically or radiation pattern wise.
+Austin DeMarr tut little bit shouldn’t matter. I would go a few inches longer on the far ends where you secure it to the rope.
I have a ZS6BKW in an in inverted V configuration & I am pretty happy with it. What would you say is the optimal height at the apex ?
As high as possible
Would this antenna yield any results in a garden at ground level?? I don't have any trees and can't put one on the house
Not optimal. You may be better with a self supporting vertical.
@@AE4VJ ok thanks
Hi
I know this is an older video, I have a question. This will be my first antenna I ever built, I am wondering why the #14 THHN stranded wire you use has a sheathing? Would you want a bare wire? Please note, I don't know antennas well, just curious!
Thanks
Jon, W1JJN
Hi John! There are a couple of reasons for using insulated wire. First, the calculations Andre done with that (slightly different velocity factor) and the other is it will keep the radiator from shorting against trees and other things it may encounter.
@@AE4VJ thank you Brad!,
73
@@AE4VJ Thank you. This is very critical and good information for a successful deployment!
How high was the antenna up? N4KBM. How long would a 10-40 meters be and how long would the twin lead be?
It was about 40’ or so.
I have a challenging lot I am putting up an off center fed dipole (because that is where the trees are) I am thinking of using a matching window line like this antenna.. thank you for the current balun idea.. wondering if using your lengths but off center at 20 (ish) % would work? Let the fun of testing begin 😀
+Bill Lamm I’m all for experimenting. You may want to take a look at the G0GSF antenna. It’s designed by the same guy and requires half the space. If you have y’all enough trees, it may be a good option. ruclips.net/video/EypzupYh3uw/видео.html
I have an older Kenwood with a built in autotuner that only tunes on the TX. Would this antenna be a good option for me?
+Jeff Shannon yes sir it would!
Would you happen to know the highest impedance this antenna will have using as designed ? Thanks
Does the ladder line have to be free hanging vertically or can some of it be laying on the ground? I'm not sure I can get the feed point 40+ feet in the air.
You don’t want it laying on the ground, but you can pull it back into a slope if you need to. That’s how I used mine.
@@AE4VJ OKay. Thanks. That will help.
Hi, guys
I had the zs6bkw for years and it worked well on all those bands you mentionned . It was up on a metal post of about 10 m or so up the roof. But I had to put it down as the post didn’t stand a strong wind and then went on a loop antenna for upper band and a g5rv/ junior for 30 and 40 and even some portion of 80m .
I’d be very interested to try the shortened version of the zs6bkw ( I mean the G0GSF antenna).
Vy 73 de 7X5AV
+DJAMAL BENDAOUD excellent post! the G0GSF video will go live tomorrow. Marc and I modified the ZS6BKW to test and shoot the footage. We also have an interview with G0GSF in that video. It’s about an hour long but there is a lot of info in it.
If you are only going to have one antenna up in the air, a ladder line fed loop or doublet is the best antenna you can build period. NOTHING will work more bands as reliably and with excellent results as either one of these antennas. You can easily build every piece of it yourself including the feedline and tuner if you choose. Make the antenna as long as the lowest band you plan to operate and it will work great on every band above that. With the right homemade tuner, I've even seen very short antennas work lower (than ant designed length) bands with excellent results. (ie 70 foot overall antenna length working 75 meters with Link-coupled--or inductively-coupled--antenna tuners with no obvious loss of signal strength)
What other configurations could the zs6bkw be done
Is there any particular reason why we can’t use the ladder line all the way to the shack and then terminated into RG8?
+K174W the ladder line is used as a matching section so it’s length needs to be as designed.
Correct me if I’m wrong but it seems the only differences in this antenna and the G5RV is the radial length... where the G5RV is 102’ and the ZS6BKW is 94’...... Also the ladder line lengths differ where the ZS6BKW is 39’3” and the G5RV is 32’6” Both 450 Ohm......
450ohm ladder line
I'm thinking about building one of these. I am height restricted, not by our neighborhood, but by my abilities. Can any part the ladder line be routed along the ground? Thanks so much.
I wouldn’t let it lay on the ground, but you can pull it back to where it’s an arc.
so quick question, i see you have the height to be able to get that ladder line off the ground considerably. what if you can't get 40ft of ladder line in the "space provided" without it lying on the ground or say the roof of the house? could you shorten the ladder line to say 20 feet if you'r only interested in 40 and up?
The ladder line is the matching section so the length is critical. If you can’t get it vertical, you can pull it back at an angle. I wouldn’t run it in the house or against anything metallic for it to couple to.
All the great antenna ideas, but still need at least 45-50 vertical feet for the center line. How I wish I could put some of these great antenna ideas to work for me, but that center feed point height is a killer!
You really need to get the ladder line off the ground. You can pull it back, tie it off in a slope and get something to work.
How do you deal with the almost 40' of ladder line if you can only get the antenna 20-30' above the ground?
Ladder line doesn’t have to be straight. It’s a matching section. You can pull it back and allow it to slope. You don’t really want it touching the ground, but you can pull it back and lash it to the house or some other support.
Hi there, we are also advised to stay in here in Germany. As the last storm damaged my HF vertica I have now time to build and put up a ZS6BKW JUNIOR antenna.
The horizontal length is 14.2m. I´m not sure if what I found out about the vertical feeding line.
I read that it is 12,2m. To me it seems to be far too long. Do you have any information about the dimensions? Otherwise I´d go for a half size g5rv antenna. Thanks!
www.mpoweruk.com/papers/MaakToe.pdf
Here’s the article from RADCOM
Is there any mods you can do to the ZS6BKW to bring down the SWR on 15m ?
Not without changing the other bands. If you have an inboard tuner, it should take care of it however.
Can you use this as a "inverted v"?
You can try it. It’s designed as a regular flat top dipole, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work. Most likely it will change the resonance some. It would still be better than no antenna
I would like to build this antenna as a Stealth ZS6BKW, using jacketed 26 AWG stranded copper clad steel (like from Wireman). Since the wire diameter is reduced, does anything change in the system as far as radiator length or ladder line length? Thanks!
What is the minimum height from the ground can it be?
Higher the better. I’d say at least 30’. Pull the ladder line back at an angle or arc so it’s not coiled on the ground
Very nice video and Very Cool LOGO at 4:46, is that available to SC Hams?
Scott Brown do you want the whole animation?
@@AE4VJ Yes Everything looks great! KN4SMO you can look me up on QRZ
Ok so what if I can only get up to 30’ high I’d this going to be a problem?
I do not have any Trees
I understand. You don’t want the ladder line laying on the ground so if you can pull it back so there is a slope to it it should work.
Could I use twin lead instead of Ladder line . Thanks
unfortunately, no. The ladder line is the matching section for this antenna so its impedance is critical.
I have a doublet that has 40 ft of latterline and the 51ft traditional each side, it will be simple enough to shorten. If this will resonate everywhere you say, it certainly will be great.
+America's Way Out you would need to trim it, but in theory it should work if the ladder line is correct
@@AE4VJ I have an MFJ 1:1 that has the pressure insert style wire hookup with coax so239 on the other side, should it work to lower the common current and also make the transition to coax?
It should
Few different dimensions floating around the internet. What are the correct ones?
The one in the comment pinned to the top
So how much do you need to shorten the G5RV to make it a ZS6BKW?
Could you solder the elements to the ladder line?
You could. Just have proper strain relief
Just got my General license and looking at this as my first antenna. If I attach the center to a metal mast on the house, is it okay to run the ladder line down the metal mast? I assume I may need standoffs to keep the ladder away from the pole. Will a 4" standoff be far enough?
+Gary Acker you’ll be a lot better off using something non metallic. Can you pull the ladder line off the pole at an angle? You don’t want the pole to couple to the matching section. I would say you’d need 2’ stand off
Assembled and installed one of these today works great on the 5 bands swr is acceptable on all.......
+MrJr669 that’s great! Nice job!
SWR is not a measure for performance or losses, it really is not. Just telling you the system is 50 Ohm like a dummyload. Resonance is mostly NOT 50 Ohm, it's uncommon it is with a multiband antenna. You take SWR as a performance reading and that is so incredibly wrong. Resonance has nothing to do with 50 Ohm or SWR, it has to do with the wavelength.
And the ZS6BKW is too short to resonate on low bands, even when the SWR is 1:1 it will not radiate because the radiators are not in resonance with the frequency. Nothing more to it.
@@BasHeijermans but it works because it's a variation of Tesla's 94ft random. I think I trust his opinion
Nice video guys i have been using this antenna for several years now, the Great Steve Hunt G3TXQ SK once wrote just make a coax fed dipole resonant on 5 mhz. then remove the coax add 41 feet of ladder line to the feedpoint tune to 24.950 mhz. and trim the ladder line till lowest swr on 24.950 mhz. and it will work well on 40,20,17,12,10
+Daniel Sensing thank you sir for the comments! That’s a pretty good way to look at it!