The QRPer Board

Hi Guys,

I'm trying to put together a (some) kits for use portable with my venerable FT817nd and my as yet unused (on TX) MTR5b. and I'm trying to sort either 1 or 2 aerials. I've made a 40m EFHW and I have a sotabeams bandspringer midi which I assume is a sort of long wire affair (not really studied it) but it covers 60m to 6m I think. Any other suggestions?

Thanks

Nick
G8SYE

Resonant efhws are exceptionally versatile and portable. They allow you to have predictable patterns based on the various ways they can be setup, something not so easily found on a center fed antenna.

And while one antenna can be used on resonant bands, sometimes the resulting pattern is not ideal for where your signal ends up being radiated .... (And sometimes the pattern is ideal....hi hi )

So your idea of TWO antennas seems quite suitable as you can have more choices on the resulting radiation pattern, and fit that pattern to where you want to be heard.


Assuming 40 through 10 meters, one end fed cut to 20M with add on links for 30 and 40 plus a second one cut to 10M with add on links for 15 and 17 might well offer you the most flexibility if you don't mind a bit of cutting and testing b4 you finalize your kit.

es vy 73 OM de "Baab" w9ya

Thanks for the pointers. you can never have too many antennas I'll do a bit more reading and dig a couple of my old books out.

73's
Nick

..

I would want to carry two different types of antennas, if possible. One, a wire antenna, either an EFHW (without a tuner) or an EFRW (with a tuner). The other a DS-1, PAC-12, magloop, or some other not-too-tall antenna - if for some reason you can't use the wire antenna.

73,
Mike, KL7MJ

KL7MJ wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2024 3:52 pm I would want to carry two different types of antennas, if possible. One, a wire antenna, either an EFHW (without a tuner) or an EFRW (with a tuner). The other a DS-1, PAC-12, magloop, or some other not-too-tall antenna - if for some reason you can't use the wire antenna.

73,
Mike, KL7MJ

you could cut an EFHW, add some wire with a spade connector to make it an EFRW and carry two transformers, a 9:1 and a 49:1

Andrew (grayhat) wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 5:53 pm you could cut an EFHW, add some wire with a spade connector to make it an EFRW and carry two transformers, a 9:1 and a 49:1

I'd maybe have a disconnect in the EFHW wire at an EFRW-friendly length - 35.5 or 29 feet.

KL7MJ wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:27 pm

Andrew (grayhat) wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 5:53 pm you could cut an EFHW, add some wire with a spade connector to make it an EFRW and carry two transformers, a 9:1 and a 49:1

I'd maybe have a disconnect in the EFHW wire at an EFRW-friendly length - 35.5 or 29 feet.

That's another way to do it, you start with a length of wire matching a "good length", for example, one of those you may calculate using this

https://k7mem.com/Ant_End_Fed.html#Not_Random_Multi

then you add a spade connector (or whatever other one) to the wire end and add a run of wire to turn the EFRW into an EFHW, trim the additional wire to resonance and you have it, then... it would be nice to find a way to have a transformer which could be "switched" from 9:1 to 49:1 that would make the antenna even more compact since one won't need to carry two impedance transformers, such an antenna would allow to work w/o an ATU or, using an ATU have the freedom to use whatever frequency, which is useful if propagation is somewhat "crazy"