Butternut HF9V
$$$$$
| Frequency | 80m: 3.5-4.0 MHz, 40m: 7.0-7.3 MHz, 30m: 10.1-10.15 MHz, 20m: 14.0-14.35 MHz, 17m: 18.068-18.168 MHz, 15m: 21.0-21.45 MHz, 12m: 24.89-24.99 MHz, 10m: 28.0-29.7 MHz, 6m: 50-54 MHz |
| Bands | 80m, 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, 10m, 6m |
| Type | multiband vertical (Differential Reactance Tuning) |
| Gain | -1 dBi (varies by band) |
| Polarization | vertical |
| TX power | 1500 W (current rating 1.5 kW SSB/CW + 375 W digital on 80/40/20/15/10; 800 W + 200 W digital on 17/12; 500 W + 125 W digital on 30/6 (earlier Bencher-era sheet rated the top tier 2 kW PEP)) |
| Modes | SSB, CW, AM, FM, digital |
| Length | 790 cm |
| Weight | 6.35 kg (14 lb) |
| Connector | coax at base; included quarter-wave 75-ohm matching section transforms the ~100-ohm 20 m feedpoint to 50 ohms |
| Mount | ground mount with radials |
| feedpoint | base connection with included 75-ohm quarter-wave matching line (nominal 50-ohm system; no balun needed) |
Estimated (unverified): introduction year (1980s, Butternut Electronics era); current US street price (unlisted - built to order)
Nine bands from 26 feet with no traps: the series-resonant circuits let the full height radiate, and on 20 m the antenna actually runs as a 3/8-wave with higher radiation resistance and wider SWR bandwidth than a quarter-wave design can manage. Per the manual it covers 30 through 10 m edge to edge under 2:1. The hardware survives decades outdoors, parts remain available, and it needs no balun.
Eighty meters is a loaded eighth-wave with a few tens of kHz of 2:1 bandwidth - pick your segment or bring a tuner. Initial tune-up of nine interacting adjustments takes patience, and any change ripples across bands. Like every ground-mounted vertical it lives or dies by the radial field, and the current production arrangement is built-to-order rather than off the shelf.
The most antenna Butternut ever fit on 26 feet, and the design's full thesis: stack series-resonant circuits so the entire radiator works on every band, then spend an afternoon tuning it and decades using it. Budget for radials and a tuner segment plan on 80 m.
The HF9V is the Butternut design philosophy taken to its logical extreme: nine bands, 80 through 6 meters, from 26 feet of aluminum and not a single trap. It comes from the same family as the two-band HF2V — same 1976 Don Newcomb pedigree, same series-resonant L/C circuits of air-wound coils and ceramic doorknob capacitors, same pass through Bencher in 1994 to DX Engineering in late 2014, which today builds the HF9V to order.
What makes it interesting is how differently it behaves band to band. On 80 it is a loaded quarter-wave; on 40 a true quarter-wave. On 30 a small series circuit taps onto the 40 m coil to reach a secondary resonance near 10.1 MHz. On 20 the whole thing runs as a 3/8-wave radiator — higher radiation resistance and wider bandwidth than any quarter-wave or trapped competitor of similar height — and the resulting ~100-ohm feedpoint is matched through an included electrical quarter-wave of 75-ohm cable, which the original documentation charmingly calls a geometric mean transformer. On 15 it is a slightly extended quarter-wave with a stub decoupler; on 10 and 6 it works as a 3/4-wave; on 17 and 12 the coils act as packets of reactance that set up half- to 5/8-wave operation. Every band uses the full radiator or a deliberately decoupled section of it; nothing is amputated by traps.
The spec sheet is honest about the trade. The 2:1 bandwidth covers the entire band on every band from 30 through 10 m — but the current manual quotes only 140-150 kHz on 40 m and 25-30 kHz on 80 m, because a 26-foot radiator on 80 is simply small, and resonance SWR itself runs anywhere from 1.5:1 to 2.5:1 depending on band. Power handling is tiered: the current rating is 1.5 kW SSB/CW with 375 W digital on 80/40/20/15/10, stepping down to 800 W on 17/12 and 500 W on 30/6 (the older Bencher-era sheet allowed 2 kW on the top tier). The ground rules are the usual Butternut ones: at least a dozen radials of 20 to 45 feet, with efficiency roughly doubling as you double the count until about 60 wires.
The cost of nine bands in 26 feet is the tune-up. Nine interacting adjustments of coil turns, wire lengths, and tap positions reward patience and a notebook, and owners speak of it as a rite of passage. Against the classic trapped alternative — the Hustler 4BTV school, where traps cut the antenna shorter as frequency rises — the Butternut trades that simplicity for efficiency and bandwidth. For operators who only care about the low bands, the HF2V does two bands with less compromise; the HF9V is for the ham who wants one vertical to do nearly everything.