During the 2006-7 winter I have had the opportunity to put on my roof this famous GP antenna.
Here I will report some experiences with it.
The HF2 works on 40-80 meter bands and on 160 with an add-on kit.
It is mounted on my roof , near the sea at about 50mt above the sea level. I have installed also the Capacitance Hat (CH) with 4 steel wires with the specified lenght +-3.5mt for 40-80 , and also four guy wires as I was not sure that the antenna could remain up on strong winds.
Sometime later, leaving the same CH on the GP, it has been tuned to work also on 160mt with a kit produced by IT9ZMX Vittorio.
The tuning of the HF2 is an easy task. Of course it is simplified if one has also an antenna analyzer as the MFJ259.
I have used 4 radials per band .
The bandwidths on each band are as per specs .
I have done the comparisons with the HyGain DX88 GP, a 40mt full size loop, and 80-160 full size(FS) dipoles.
Very weak stations have been listened and in any band condition .
My impressions of this antenna after a full winter of contests and swl_ing are quasi positive.
On 40mt the FS loop is little better.
On 80mt it is better than the DX88 but is almost "au_pair" with the FS dipole.
On 160mt I have had some reports better for the FS dipole .
The reports showed that a qso held at noise levels (S0 = 59 in contest) priviledged the dipole.
Anyway I suppose such reports are dependent mostly on the location of my qth, a small hollow near the sea and high mountain toward my south to north-west directions.
As all GPs also the HF2 is prone to pick-up the noise, specially on 160meters.
During rainy days the dipoles were more "silent" than the HF2 .
But the 40mt FS loop let me work the contests even during heavy rain.
Here are the pics of the tuned antenna data :
The next winter I will do more tests with different ground and radials configurations.
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Spring 2008
One Year has passed and more experiences have been carried on the HF2V + 160meters kit antenna.
The following pictures show the definitive setup of the 160 meters kit.
link to larger pic
The 160mt kit has worked "at once" . Only two small bugs : the holding brakets of the BIG capacitor and the loading coil material.
The brakets are not so strong , so I had to reinforce them otherway under windy blasts the Cap moved itself varying the band tuning.
Having no teflon or plastic of such dimension I have used a wine cork to make steadier the Capacitor .
The loading coil is made from a smaller diameter wire and is more flexible, so I have fastened with a rope.
The two smal bugs have been cured and the antenna works very fine.
Last : the ground choke must be put in a determinated position to keep the SWR low, so the use of the MFJ analyzer is a must.
I hope to see you on the Top Band the next winter.