When radio amateurs get able to put an HF station on the air, they typically have questions on what antenna to make use of. The excellent news is that there are various choices to select from. The unhealthy information is that there are too many choices to select from. It may be overwhelming. This publish describes an antenna I simply put in that’s simple to place up and works nicely.
Having 30-foot tall pine timber on our property, my normal strategy for HF antennas is “wires within the timber.” I’ve a number of ropes strung up over these tall timber in order that I can elevate and decrease wire antennas as wanted. These ropes have been put in utilizing a slingshot to launch a fishing line excessive of the tree, then I pulled up a light-weight rope.
The antenna is the EFLW-1K from MyAntennas.com, which is an Finish Fed Lengthy Wire Antenna. (This shouldn’t be confused with an Finish Fed Half Wave antenna.) This antenna is deliberately lower to not be a resonant size on any of the bands. The 9:1 UNUN transforms the excessive impedance on the finish of the wire right down to one thing nearer to 50 ohms. The match shouldn’t be excellent so an antenna tuner is required to cowl all the bands. MyAntennas affords this antenna with completely different lengths of wire, with longer wires required to help the decrease HF bands. I bought the 53-foot model however determined to shorten the wire. My curiosity is working 20 meters and better and I needed the antenna to be principally vertical, so I shortened the wire to 36 toes. The MyAntennas merchandise are good however different comparable 9:1 UNUN merchandise on the tip of a wire will work.
An endfed antenna like this wants some type of counterpoise to steadiness out the antenna operation. Many individuals have written about this and there are various completely different approaches. The MyAntenna UNUN has a connector supposed to help including a brief size of counterpoise wire. I may have gone that route however a good size of coaxial cable mendacity on the bottom can perform as this counterpoise. In order that’s what I made a decision to make use of.
I additionally added an inline isolation transformer to reduce the frequent mode currents getting again to the transceiver. I don’t know that that is required however I had one obtainable so I used it. The antenna has 50 toes of LMR 400 coax laying on the bottom which connects to the inline transformer. Then, one other 25 toes of RG-8X coax connects the transformer to my transceiver. The interior antenna tuner in my Icom IC-7610 handles this antenna fairly nicely, tuning up on 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m and 10m. This implies I can immediately swap between the bands and be able to go.
I’ve been operating SSB, FT8 and FT4 on this antenna, working many stations in all areas: Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, North and South America. Situations are nice and I hold telling newer of us: now could be the time to be on HF! This primary antenna is a good way to get on the air and work some DX.
73 Bob K0NR
Replace (18 Jan 2024): I gave this antenna a attempt on 6 meters utilizing the IC-7610 (with tuner) and it really works on that band, too.
Replace (05 Feb 2024): Only for enjoyable, I attempted the antenna on 30m and 40m. I assumed it will be too brief however the tuner within the IC-7610 was glad and I’m making contacts on these two bands.
