Since I had already invested $450 in the other vertical I was skeptical but at 83 years of age, what did I have to loose. After telling my sad story to Tom, he suggested the 10-40 ground plane. Looking at eHam reviews going all the way to the end of the section on vertical antennas led me to ZeroFive. It was the worst possible purchase, taking it up and down to tune, not being able to go from using FT8 to upper phone bands without retuning etc.

I purchased a 'no ground radial' antenna from the people who advertise in QST. This caused a search for a vertical and installing 30 or more radials was out of the question.

I think this antenna looks great on the house, and the wife did not object.Īfter moving from 4000 feet elevation, two towers, five beams and wire up 90 feet I wound up with COPD and had to move to city lot and lower elevation. This antenna works much better then they did. I had other verticals in the past, without enough radials, and they worked very poorly. The ideal antenna would have a bunch of full size radials, but if you don't have the space, this antenna seems to do very well. The 42 foot version would have been nice but too much for my situation/mount. I roof mounted mine, about a foot off the top of the roof, and a 30 foot tall antenna is a lot of antenna to extend while standing on the peak of a roof. I have about 60 feet of rg214 feeding it, no rf in the house, nothing gets hot, even at high power. I installed it and hooked it up without the unun as that ships separate and it works much better with the unun. I got the unun version, the unun seems to make the antenna have a lower swr across a very wide range.ġ.2-1 on 40 meters, 1.5-1 or less on all the other bands I have tried. This antenna is likely a better DX antenna then a local antenna.

Performance is mixed, on 40 meters a full size dipole does better in most stateside situations but the zero 5 is close.Īs you go higher in frequency the zero 5 gets better and better. Really well made antenna, easy to assemble.

Zero five antennas installation