Antenna adjustments - Day 37 In Lock-down

Its been a while since my last post which is quite strange as I have had plenty of time to blog but not really been in the blogging mood, probably because of the world pandemic which we are all suffering. As it is for most the way of life has changed considerably at the moment but thankfully we are all holding out well and keeping healthy.
The radio however has been in use and I have been busy making DX on 80, 40, 20, 15 and even 10 meters. My new fan dipole pictured below is performing spot on with great reports into the US on 40 and 80 meters.

I thought a close up of the centre might help you see how easy it is to construct this amazing performing 80/40m antenna. My Fan Dipole is 1:1 to 1:3 across both 80 and 40m without any ATU required I definitely should have built one years ago!

With such a good result regarding the 40/80M Fan Dipole I was back playing around with the Hustler 6BTV. This excellent 6 band trap vertical has been subjected to many storms over the last 15 years and one particular storm bent the lower section many years ago. I was able to use my metal working skills and workshop to repair the bent tube to a fashion and have been using it with a slight banana type configuration ever since. With the wx been as it has been which is good I have been outside in the garden a lot and noticed the 6BTV had become much more banana like.
After checking I could only find a replacement section in the USA the price of a replacement was 50 dollars plus the same again and some more for shipping bringing it to $140 US dollars.
I measured up the tube size and sourced some similar suitable tube locally in the UK 1.25 inch diameter ally tube with a decent wall thickness, which worked out at £19 delivered. The section I wanted to replace was the bottom section for 10m and I required a length of 1800 mm aluminium tube, which is just short of 6 feet. The length I purchased was 2000mm which was ample, I got to work in the garden and swapped the bent section over and now the 6BTV looks great as it soars up in the air nice and straight! Whilst I was working on the Hustler I went to town on cleaning up the radial and coaxial connection points as well as the actual antenna. Its working great and I am happy to be able to use both vertical and horizontal polarisation on all HF with good results all round.

Hope you are all healthy and well, Catch up soon, Stay Safe! 73 Simon M0YKS and Family