Radioddity HF 009 Portable HF Antenna Review

If you have ever walked into a park or campground thinking "I wish I had a real HF antenna with me," the Radioddity HF 009 is aimed straight at you. It is a complete portable HF vertical in a shoulder bag, tuned with a simple slider and telescoping whip instead of a pile of wire and stakes. After a few outings with it on my own gear, I would give it a full 5 stars and call it one of Radioddity's best products so far.

Radioddity sent the HF 009 over as a compact field antenna, and the first thing that caught my attention was the way it is packaged. The whole system lives in a purpose built soft case with proper padding and compartments. Inside you get the ground spike and base, extension sections, center loaded coil with a sliding tap, stainless whip, radials, coax, and even a BNC adapter. For once I did not have to dig through my go bag for "the rest of the parts" just to go on the air.

On the bench the antenna feels more like something from a high end HF accessory brand than a budget experiment. Threads are clean, the coil slider moves with a nice amount of resistance, and the whip is smooth without feeling flimsy. If you are coming from mag mounts or random wire tossed in a tree, the HF 009 feels like a solid step up. It ties in nicely with the kind of portable stations we talk about in the Gear reviews section and it slots right in next to the QRP and POTA focused rigs you see in general radio articles.

What you actually get in the HF 009 kit

The HF 009 is not just a whip and coil. Out of the box you get a complete vertical system that can leave the shack with zero extra accessories. The bottom end is a metal ground spike with the base assembly attached, so you can plant the antenna right into soil at a park or campsite. Above that live two extension rods, the tunable loading coil with its slider, and a telescoping stainless whip that extends high enough to be useful on 60 m while still packing down short enough to fit the bag. Three radial wires and a 5 meter length of coax with PL 259 connectors are tucked into the upper compartment, along with a BNC to SO 239 adapter so you can plug directly into radios like the Xiegu series or small QRP rigs.

Field setup: from bag to first contact

One of the big selling points of the HF 009 is that you do not need a complicated procedure or tuner wizardry to get on the air. The first time I deployed it, I did not even crack the manual until after the activation. The pieces together in a way that makes sense, and once you have assembled it once, you can repeat the process quickly in the dark or cold with gloves on.

• Step 1: Push the ground spike firmly into reasonably solid soil, attach the base if it is not already mounted, and fan the three radial wires out away from foot traffic.
• Step 2: Thread on the extension sections, loading coil, and whip, then connect the included coax and your radio, making sure all the mechanical joints are snug.
• Step 3: Pick your band, extend the whip, slide the coil tap to the approximate mark you have found for that band, and fine tune by watching SWR as you nudge the slider a bit at a time.

HF 009 vs wires, hamsticks, and other portable options

Portable HF antennas always sit on a triangle between performance, convenience, and cost. A resonant dipole or end fed wire in a tall tree will almost always beat a short loaded vertical, but you also do not always have a tall tree or the time to hang wire. Hamsticks and other mono band mobile whips work well but fill your car with a pile of fiberglass. The HF 009 lands in a nice middle ground where you get multi band coverage, repeatable tuning, and a compact form factor that drops into a single bag. If you are just getting into HF and still working through getting started guides, that simplicity is worth a lot.

• You get a full multi band package instead of buying separate whips or building multiple wire antennas.
• Setup is faster and more repeatable than tossing random wire in a tree and guessing at lengths in the field.
• The only real tradeoff is like any compact vertical it will not magically beat a full size dipole.

On air performance and tuning behavior

So how does it actually play? Across a few evenings of testing and a POTA style activation, I had zero trouble getting the HF 009 into a comfortable SWR range on 40, 20, 17, and 10 meters. Once you find the coil slider positions that make sense for your style of operating, they are easy to remember or mark, and you can get the radio happy in under a minute per band. With 50 to 100 watts on SSB and digital, reports were right in line with what I expect from a reasonably efficient portable vertical on those bands.

The pattern is what you would expect from a ground mounted loaded vertical: it favors low angle radiation, which is exactly what you want for medium to long haul contacts on 20 m and up. On 40 m it is not going to compete with a full size high dipole, but for an antenna that lives in a shoulder bag it did just fine. Noise pickup was manageable, even in urban environments, and I did not run into any weird tuning behavior as long as the radials were stretched out and not coiled around themselves or lying on wet metal tables.

Practical tips to get the most from the HF 009

You can absolutely drop this antenna in the ground and start transmitting, but a few small habits help it really shine. Think about where and how you set it up, just like you would with any vertical. The nice thing about the HF 009 is that once you find a routine that works, it is easy to repeat that routine at every park, campsite, or small backyard you operate from.

1. Give the radials some respect by stretching them out in different directions and keeping them off concrete and metal when you can.
2. Take 30 seconds to walk the coil slider and whip on each band while watching your meters, then jot down the sweet spots in a small notebook you keep with the antenna.
3. Keep the antenna where people and pets are not going to walk into the whip, and stay well clear of power lines and other hazards when you drive the ground spike in.