K7UTX
Bill Dunn
Eastsound, WA USA

Here is a commentary of my installation of the DXE-MBVE-5 with UNUN and 150' of RG-213. The gear all arrived in good shape and only 4 days UPS transit time from your location to the Pacific NW, to an island, no less. I unpacked everything which was well packaged and identified. The manual is first-rate with excellent illustrations. Believe it or not, I actually read the manual completely prior to initiating the installation! My location here on Orcas Island, in the midst of the San Juan Islands off the coast of WA state, is on SOLID rock, all igneous stone. So, we decided to roto-hammer a 1.5" diameter hole into the rock. We were able to drill a hole 20" deep. I then took a 44" piece of 1.5" cold rolled steel stock and had it welded into a 24" piece of 2" od iron pipe. This I then pounded into our roto-hammered hole along with a judicious application of epoxy as a combo lubricant and adhesive. With great effort, we finally seated it to a 20" depth and let it set overnight. I then attached my DX Engineering base plate and a total of forty (40) thirty-two foot long radials. I snaked the RG-213 coax from the shack to the base plate and anchored it along the way with your biodegradable staples. I proceeded to assemble the base of the antenna with the tilt mechanism and the bottom section of tubing. In this way, I could go ahead and attach the UNUN and ground connectors as one unit. I then took this to my location and attached the assembled unit to the 2" post. Following this, I assembled the antenna in four-section assemblies. I then took each section to the antenna location and assembled the antenna in situ. It was then very easy to raise and 'settle' into its cradle. After attaching the coax to the UNUN and to my radio(s), I was good to go. After a couple of days use, I can say I am quite pleased with the results. I have been switching between the MBVE-5 and my 80m dipole hung 35' in the air and comparing signal quality into three different radios (Elecraft K3 & KX3 and ICOM 7000). It has been a great learning exercise so far and one I am very happy with having undertaken. I suspect that my total assembly and installation time was on the order of 6 to 7 hours, including the base plate and radials (time consuming), the antenna base with UNUN and the antenna itself. Everything is very well machined and goes together beautifully. Kudos for a great job.