New Antenna - Re-Building Hustler 5BTV

I just picked up an antenna yesterday. I didn't know what it was, I just knew it was a Hustler and "a good antenna". I got a forwarded e-mail from someone and it said "first call takes it". So I called and was the first caller!

The lady on the other end said it was an "RM-75s". So I looked that up and it was a mobile 75m resonator. So, I wasn't thrilled about it. I don't run 75m as that is the trash pit of Ham radio these days. So since it was just being given away I decided to pick it up and maybe pass it along.

Well, when I arrived there sure was an RM-75s resonator - only about another 20 feet or so and 4 more bands! This was a pleasant surprise. It turned out to be a 5BTV - 10, 15, 20, 40, 80m vertical.

The antenna is showing its age and needs some work to get up to operating condition. The resonator needs to be sealed up well, some hardware needs to be replaced, it needs a new set of radials for the cap hat, and so on.

My task for today is to go out to the hardware store and get some new stainless bolts and nuts. Yesterday I spent about a half hour-45min drilling out the old, rusted steel bolts on the cap hat bracket. All the original radials had snapped off somewhere in it's history.

I have no idea how old the antenna is, but it does look pretty well weathered. It could be 5, 10, 15, 20+ years old. I found out the original ones were made in the mid-late 80's, so its possible the antenna could be as old as I am!

Update:

Here is what the antenna looked like this morning:

I didn't get any pictures of what the cap hat bracket looked like as I had already drilled out the screws last night.

A friend of mine gave me a batch of old 2m elements from a Cushcraft antenna. So I cut some of these up and used them as the replacement cap hat radials. This method worked out pretty well.

Here is what the antenna looks like all together now:



Now the only tasks left are to put an so-239 on there and make some radials. I don't have a piece of metal to mount the so-239 chassis on so I am going to wait on that. The antenna won't be set up immediately anyway. When I get a chance I will play around with it and see how it loads up on the bands. I am assuming it needs to totally be re-tuned. I operate CW almost exclusively so I will tune the dip to favor the lower parts of the bands while still allowing me to get on the ssb parts if I want (<2:1 hopefully).