The support pole should be a minimum of 4′ below ground and 36″ above so you can attach the antenna’s lower mounting bracket. A 4″-6″ gravel bed at the bottom allows for proper drainage.

The required hole measures 24″ x 24″ x 48″ deep and can be dug with a post-hole digger. The 2:1 SWR match on my Thunderbolt measured about 50 kHz wide, and as I’m an ardent DXer, was easily adjusted for resonance in the middle of the DX/CW portion of the band centered at 1.830 MHz.įollow along to see the process: Having dug larger tower holes before I felt this one would be a bit simpler…so I let my XYL Toby, KLØSS, do the work! Just kidding, but she did help out a lot. Uses a large capacity hat to create a proper match.” The vertical antenna is specifically designed to operate on 160 meters…and That I had to dig a hole, fill it with concrete to secure a base for theĪntenna, erect the vertical, and lay out an extensive wire radial field.Īccording to the antenna’s web page and assembly manual:Įngineering DXE-160VA-1 is a slow taper 55-foot high Monoband Vertical Antenna

Having installed crank-up towers at previous homes, I knew I won’t go into great detail on assembly here, but I thought a pictorial journey of the process would give Hams an idea of how to proceed with a similar project. DX Engineering has several single and dual-band verticals for 160-40m that are top-performing DX machines, and the Thunderbolt was recently spotlighted on the OnAllBands web page. To get started, I worked with Mark Ludwick, W8BBQ, my go-to guy at DX Engineering, for the purchase of the DXE-160VA-1 Thunderbolt Vertical and its appropriate accessories and materials. This is the story of how I installed DX Engineering’s Top Band “Thunderbolt” Vertical Antenna and went from zero to 160m DXCC in one year. I’ve been a Ham for over 50 years, but up until about four years ago I had never had a QSO on 160m! In 2016, I decided that had to change.

Zero five antennas installation