A no nonsense portable antenna for SOTA & POTA

 

Here's another great post from Montana ham Dennis Lane (KR7Q).

In this beautiful video, Dennis discusses his early ham radio "career" and how his ideas about HF antennas have changed over the years.

After Dennis shows us his beam antenna, he explains how he got into Parks on the Air (POTA) and SOTA (Summits on the Air) activities.  

During these outdoor operations, Dennis realized he need a simple,  " nonsense", cost effective HF antenna for the great outdoors.  In Dennis's opinion, the End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) is the best solution to the portable antenna challenge.

Dennis offers many suggestions for creating the EFHW, some of which you may find useful in your situation.

If you can't see the video, please insert this title URL into your browser search box:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEgUvVFwqSQ.

Here are some comments from Dennis (KR7Q):

In this video I share some photos of my early days in ham radio. I also give you a glimpse of what a beautiful place we live in, here in Western MT. This video and my comments are based upon what I have experienced. I am just showing how I built this antenna and the results. My design criteria for this antenna is based upon an extreme distaste for non-resonate antennas fed with coax and a tuner at THE transmitter. Only my opinion here... YOUR CRITERIA FOR AN EFFECTIVE ANTENNA MAY BE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. I believe that A TUNER AT THE BASE (FEED POINT) OF THE ANTENNNA WILL ALSO BE MORE EFFECTIVE than a tuner at the transmitter. Non resonate antennas will work fine, if that's all you have. However, It seems to me that using a resonate antenna with either a tuner or transformer at the feed point is more efficient. The links in this antenna provide resonance for each band. If I am operating QRP, or very low power, why should I waste power to the losses in coax with an SWR on it and power dissipated in a tuner, even if the tuner is built into the rig? Recently, I had a new ham ask me why I use this antenna arrangement, when there are simpler antennas that do pretty well for field work. My answer was simple; “best RF practices”. When I know about loss in compromised antennas, why should I use them? I said to the new ham; “When propagation is great, you can work the world on a wet noodle. But does that mean you have a great antenna? No, it means you have great propagation”. Remember, the ionosphere is the great equalizer when it comes to antennas. Regardless of what antenna you use, just put up what ever you can and then go have fun! This is just another option for you to consider. Feel free to contact me if you have questions. I’ll do my best to share my what I know about this great multi-band, portable antenna. This is the wire I used. I found it on Amazon ***BNTECHO #22 Silicone Wire – 250’, red flexible – stranded Tinned Copper Wire. (250’ for $34) 73, de KR7Q kr7q@outlook.com

Transcript

Follow along using the transcript.

KR7Q Dennis Lane

415 subscribers