The ZS6BKW antenna is a better match for our bands than the G5RV. The method of construction and tuning is essentially the same for both antennas but the dimensions are different.
Here is the ZS6BKW antenna installed at AK6R fine tuned for the CW/FT8 frequencies on 40-20-17-12-10 meters. An excellent antenna when installed at 30 feet or higher and no tuner required avoiding the tuner losses and constant retuning. If you want to work all bands from 80-10 install an antenna tuner between the 1:1 balun and the amplifier and ignore the 39/40 switch.
Is this the best FT8 antenna? – I think so as I has made over 70,000 contacts and it still is a proven winner -Good world wide DX, easy to install, no tuner and takes full legal limit.
Here are several different 1:1 baluns you can use depending on power requirements:
BUY THIS KIT NOW TO SOLVE YOUR RFI/EMI NEEDS! WORKS WITH MANY BRANDS OF HAM/COMMERCIAL HF RADIOS WITH DUAL ANTENNAS OUTPUTS AND MULTIPLE I/O CONNECTIONS INCLUDING THE YAESU FTDX10
Kit Includes noise reduction ring filters for one coax cable, AC/DC power and six 1/2" snap on filters for I/O cables covering RFI range of 1-300 MHz. Quick installation - immediate RFI/noise reduction. No radio mods required.
This kit will help reduce or eliminate:
1. “Hot mic” RFI caused by poor grounding of antennas or common mode currents from linear amps feeding unbalanced (coax fed) antennas without baluns/line isolators.
2. RFI to neighbor’s electronic devices including audio/video systems, computers, telephones, garage door openers, etc.
3. RFI to your other radios, audio/video systems, computers, telephones, etc.
A side benefit is a reduction in noise floor in your receiver depending on the amount of noise being introduced by common mode currents (which are blocked/reduced by the chokes in this kit).
These chokes use a special mix of ferrite core material that is effective in suppressing radio frequency interference from transmitters and high noise floor on receivers.
The split beads beads are easy to use, don’t require modification of the protected equipment and work in almost all cases, even when plug-in filters fail.
Use of the chokes often helps cure SWR problems between transceiver and a linear amp and between transceiver and antenna tuner or direct to antenna. The DC power line choke helps keep common mode current out of the power line which could cause interference to other devices connected to the same power line if not suppressed.
For additional RFI suppression, use a feed line choke at the antenna feed point to suppress common current on the coax feed line and a coax noise filter (like our CMNF-500-50) at the radio end of the coax to reduce common mode noise.If you use a linear amplifier use a Palomar Engineers amplifier RFI kit for additional RFI interference suppression.
Here is the Coax Noise Filter used to suppress coax common mode currents (works for all type of antennas)
PDF of ZS6BKW at AK6R Construction Article HERE: My ZS6BKW Antenna