Building the DX Commander Signature 9

22 Aug 2026

Building the DX Commander Signature 9 requires a few stages but is mostly straightforward, once you follow Callum’s (M0MCX) great advice, guide and videos.

One of Callum’s pro-tips is to use bracelet cubes for labelling the wires. My favourite wavelength received an added heart.

Useful guides

There are some really useful YouTube videos from DX Commander and other ham radio channels. These are the ones I found most useful:

• Official guides from Callum at DX Commander:
  • Callum’s Signature 9 ground post installation
  • Callum’s Signature 9 build tips
  • Callum’s radial guide
  • If you get stuck or are unsure about something, check out DX Commander’s discord server
• Tech Mind’s guides:
  • DX Commander Signature 9 - Preparing Radials & Elements Plus Ground & Driven Plates Part 2
  • DX Commander Signature 9 - Unboxing and Ground Mount PART 1
• Ham Radio DX’s guide for Signature 12 but still useful for Signature 9
• Irish Ham Radio’s guide

Lessons learned

Some things I did not find very obvious from the manual but learned during the build:

• The ground plate should go over the ground poll and not at the end of the DX Commander antenna.
• Some of the antenna wires do require a long marine cable. It seemed like I was doing something wrong as the required cable was long but yes it was correct.
• Keep the heat shrink further back from the connector when soldering, sometimes I took too long soldering and it heated up the shrink and that was not reversible. Whoops!

Stages of install

When you purchase the DX Commander, everything is shipped including the wire, connectors and ground pole. The photo contains some extras things that I didn’t need to use as it all came with the kit.

Cutting the radials, I kept it simple with 6 groups of 4 cables, all 3 metres long. The antenna cables were cut to the exact lengths prescribed in the guide .

Soldering the connectors and putting the heat shrink on.

It is a good idea to extend the pole out fully on chairs to make it easier to run the cables. Make sure to fully extend all the sections of the pole first, and check the length is at least 9 meters before running the cables.

Digging the hole and leaving it settle is a good idea. I didn’t use concrete but was careful to tightly pack the soil when refilling the hole. Then put the ground plate over the pole, this is where the radials attach.

Next, its time to put up the antenna and attach the radials to the ground plate.

Visitors

My first installation of the DX Commander was made at a different site, shortly before I moved house. Here are some of the neighbours and curious visitors I had during the first install: an eldery hen, an eldery horse and an eldery dog!

The soil at the first location was very sandy and I used concrete slabs inside the hole to keep the pole more supported. The most recent installation site has red clay soil and is much better for holding the pole in place.

The most recent visitor at the new location, who will not be allowed near the radials!

Instant results

Once setup, the first station I heard was Sweden (from Australia) and then Italy, so I was very impressed right away!

Next, onto tuning and refining the cable lengths.