Hi Jay, I've been running a 4010 EFHW inverted L up a Spiderpole 12HD for a few years. Out of the many configurations that I've tried, the inverted L has worked the best DX for me. I have found that raising the UNUN 3 or 4 feet off the ground usually lowers the SWR, and folding the wire back on itself (at the far end) for 6-12 inches helps SWR on 20, 15 & especially 10m. I also use a beefy inline 1:1 choke outside the shack for common mode currents, but I found that it actually helps reduce noise a little too! 73, Martin
Tnx Martin! I know that it the best way I’ve found to run them! ESP a 40m efhw on that 12m vertical run. Makes for great dx! The one I use is the 80m but only 30ft vertical. That extra 12 feet makes a huge difference. I’ve re oriented the loop in a vertical plane as a square. The low angle is pretty solid to EU but the efhw edges it to the west. The efhw is the best most practical antenna I’ve found:)
@@JayN4GO Something I'd like to try this summer is a sort of half-square configuration with a second 40ft pole placed 33ft away. Raise the unun to 26ft to give 1x 32ft horizontal with 2x 16ft legs (one at each end). I have no idea if it'll work better than the inverted L, but it should be at least twice as entertaining during gale-force winds! 😄
@@2E0RME you’ll have to let me know how it does. We have 50mph winds here right now. I’m a bit concerned everytime the wind gets this bad. The 12m squid pole bends double. Ha
Loops are always a little bit quieter on noise. A bit surprising is the delta loops seems to be about +3dB better than the EFHW in most tests. To me this suggest you might be able to optimize the EFHW inverted-L installation. Grounding and heavy choking at the feedpoint is probably near optimal with the transformer fairly close to the ground. Steve Ellington tested 6 or 8 configurations of grounding, choking, and counterpoise wires. He used a field strength meter and RF ammeter. I've seen more rigorous and sophisticated testing that suggests the heavy choking should be about 2m from the transformer feedpoint. See MO0OPX, Evil Lair, and Survival Comms. They document 90% or better efficiency on all bands with an insertion loss from 0.2dB to 0.6dB on all bands. They however used a non-standard 43 mix torroid that is almost a bead, so its pretty chunky and they use close winding autotransformer w/o a crossover.
@@vironpayne3405 thanks! Yeah the loop is just a better performance antenna for me here. I built a 52 fix auto transformer for qro based on Colin’s findings. It works well but still about 3-5 s units lower than the loop. I have since increased the height on the tower so the inverted L is about 41 ft vertical and a bit under 100’ straight. It handles 1200w Cw without reaching curry temps. I have found that the efhw works better flat topped. “About equal to the loop”. It’s a lot of fun trying different things.
I didn't expect much difference between these 2 antennas ......and I was correct. The 1/2 wave end fed inv L is one of the best wire antennas. The Delta loop is always a quieter antenna compared to most. Both are doing great - not that much in it !! de G4VZV
One would think but not in my case. I do run a line isolator on the efhw but the loop still a bit more noisy. But it comes with more gain to Europe in the current orientation
Delta loop is at times 2 S units better. Otherwise, slightly better than the EFHW - L. Good. I love loops. I have a ~ 300 ft loop with Apex at 90' fed with ladderline. A good all band antenna.
Definitely my favorite wire antenna. Mine now has 2 corners at 40’ fed at the top corner. About 4-6s units better than the efhw. Wish I had taller trees for sure.
I was hoping for horizontal loop vs. efhw. I have a 12.4m multi wire vertical. It's good, but there is too much noise on the lower bands. So I put up a 130ish foot efhw in an L. I hear what I think is about the same signal, but way less receive noise. It's not as good at transmit as the vertical. I'm looking for an EFHW vs. horizontal full wl loop comparison, as that was my next experiment. I keep trying to get more and more local 75m nets, but the one about 1000km away proves to be elusive - too weak.
Hey J, thanks for posting this. Curious what direction the elbow is pointed on the L. Also be sure and post your results regarding tx strength comparisons if you can. I found although the loop may have great ears generally, the L has better teeth heading 3k+ miles. I saw the same thing as you do on 75 meters between a 65' vertical against a delta. I even witnessed a vk station in the 80m dx window that I could hear on the vertical but not at all on the loop. So many variables in play right? Keep them coming! Best, Steve K1GMM
You’re spot on man. The L definitely has more teeth on 201510. The elbow turns and goes west north west. I love playing with antennas. My neighbors love this 40ft pole. Ha! I should’ve moved somewhere with tall trees.
@@JayN4GO ya know Glen k4ghc? He put up a zs6bkw a couple of weeks ago. He's slaughtering it all over the world. I'm thinking about trying one. Built it in about 20 minutes.friggin thing is nuts.
@@JayN4GO I was skeptical as always but now I know 3 people that use it. One has even got his 200 dxcc on it on 40 thru 10. He crushes it on 74/80 too. May be something to play with coming into fall. Hope the fam is good and nice to see you still hard at work. I follow what ur doing pretty closely. Cheers bud!
@@k1gmmgreenmountainmaniac251 that’s great man. Do you know which zs6 plans they’re using ? I think there’s a few different ones. Just came back inside from chopping the inverted L to a straight vertical for 30m. Seems good on 12m also. Only 1 good 6m opening this year man. I took all the 2m crap down and left up a small Diamond vertical for locals. It looks like the sun is finally waking up. Hope you guys are doing well brother. I think we’ll all be playing radio from home as long as gas keeps climbing.
The “end fed half wave” in an inverted L is pretty much a vertical antenna. The peak current will be a quarter wave back from the tip or open end or about 33 feet from the end. That puts in in your particular case on the vertical wire down a bit from the top. You will have a current distribution starting with zero at the ground ( if the feed point is at the ground) and increasing to maximum near the top. That part is simply a quarter wave vertical. The horizontal part is nearly a quarter wave horizontal. Should work but not as well as it would with a good radial system. Not sure where the delta loop is fed..sounds like at the center of the bottom wire? If so that might not be too efficient. The feed point for a one wavelength loop will be at a high current point. Depending on where on the loop you feed it, it can be either horizontal or vertical polarization. It is essentially two dipoles fed in phase with the ends connected. Max gain for two dipoles is with them both horizontal, fed in phase and spaced pretty far apart, just over half wavelength. A quad loop is two half wave dipoles fed in phase spaced a quarter wave apart and with the ends of both dipoles bent in so they toutch. Gain is reduced a lot because of the close spacing but is a dB or so better than a single dipole. The delta loop is a variation in shape of simple quad loop to be a triangle. Both the quad loop and delta loop lend themselves to being the driven element in a parasitic array. With all antennas having the high current portion as high and straight as possible helps a lot. With straight wires significantly longer than half wave the extra length (over a half wave ) changes the pattern. On higher bands you can get good gain in specific directions. Also deep nulls in other directions. For horizontal antennas height above the ground determines “radiation” angle and efficiency. For verticals the ground radial system controls efficiency as well as where the max current point falls. Top loaded verticals can move the high current point up from the ground. That’s the case for your inverted L halfwave wire. I would beware of “quiet” antennas. No good antenna will be quiet unless the “noise” is local and of the opposite polarization.
@@JayN4GO That’s hard to know.. sometimes one will be sufficient. The quarter wave inverted L is a common 160 meter antenna. It’s current maximum is at the ground or feed point and really needs a good radial system. My inverted L antennas are always longer to get the high current away from the ground feed point. Also as the feed point impedance increases as the antenna length goes from quarter wave to approach halfwave I think the radial system does not need to be as elaborate. This seems to be somewhat verified by all the end fed half wave antennas working pretty good with only a short counterpoise. I always look at where the current peaks fall on a wire for each band to get a feel for the radiation pattern and feed point impedance. I never want high current near the ground if it can be helped. Your inverted L is probably radiating best as a horizontal wire dipole on 20 meters as the horizontal part is almost half wave long. The vertical portion may be inconsequential which seems to make me think more radials may not help much on 20 and above. Hard to say for certain without a detailed analysis but that’s my impression. We do know that a horizontal wire close to a half wave long with current flowing out to the open end and reflected back again is an excellent radiator.
@@dandypoint much to consider. I think I’ll attempt to put the pole atop of the deck making the delta apex at 53ft. It is fed at the corner. Equal length on all sides. Maybe it will make the loop work better. It’s far from a quiet loop but more so than any antenna I’ve tried. Lots of man made noise here in a city lot. I can tell when the kid plugs up her phone charger. Hehe. Maybe pulling the delta off of a sloping configuration to up and down will help a bit. \ to | I’m sure it will change the impedance also.
@@JayN4GO Yes. A lot of variables. I will email you some diagrams later if I can. With any full wave loop the feed point will become a high current point. The point exactly halfway around the loop will also become a high current point. If the wire carrying the high current is horizontal you end up with a horizontally polarized antenna. So a loop fed at the center bottom corner has a horizontal side up in the air, that’s your dominant part of the antenna and you have horizontal polarization. However if you make that horizontal wire a halfwave long and can feed it in the center, you can cut off the rest of the wire and have a dipole. If that top horizontal wire is 1/3 of a wave long and you have all three sides equal, your dominant part is not as good as a half wave dipole (it is only 1/3 wave long) but the rest of the loop does radiate and you end up with a full wave loop that has slight gain over a halfwave dipole. For a given set of heights for the top and bottom I think you get the most gain out of a square loop. It’s a compromise between length of horizontal elements and vertical spacing. You can only have it wide horizontally and narrow vertically or narrow horizontally and wide vertically. In both these cases the loop reduces to a folded dipole, either vertically or horizontally. So you get the best compromise with quarter wave horizontal elements spaced a quarter wave apart and that’s a square. Again the feedpoint determines if the high current points are in the vertical or horizontal sides.
Hi Jay, I've been running a 4010 EFHW inverted L up a Spiderpole 12HD for a few years. Out of the many configurations that I've tried, the inverted L has worked the best DX for me.
I have found that raising the UNUN 3 or 4 feet off the ground usually lowers the SWR, and folding the wire back on itself (at the far end) for 6-12 inches helps SWR on 20, 15 & especially 10m. I also use a beefy inline 1:1 choke outside the shack for common mode currents, but I found that it actually helps reduce noise a little too! 73, Martin
Tnx Martin! I know that it the best way I’ve found to run them! ESP a 40m efhw on that 12m vertical run. Makes for great dx! The one I use is the 80m but only 30ft vertical. That extra 12 feet makes a huge difference. I’ve re oriented the loop in a vertical plane as a square. The low angle is pretty solid to EU but the efhw edges it to the west. The efhw is the best most practical antenna I’ve found:)
@@JayN4GO Something I'd like to try this summer is a sort of half-square configuration with a second 40ft pole placed 33ft away. Raise the unun to 26ft to give 1x 32ft horizontal with 2x 16ft legs (one at each end). I have no idea if it'll work better than the inverted L, but it should be at least twice as entertaining during gale-force winds! 😄
@@2E0RME you’ll have to let me know how it does. We have 50mph winds here right now. I’m a bit concerned everytime the wind gets this bad. The 12m squid pole bends double. Ha
Loops are always a little bit quieter on noise. A bit surprising is the delta loops seems to be about +3dB better than the EFHW in most tests.
To me this suggest you might be able to optimize the EFHW inverted-L installation. Grounding and heavy choking at the feedpoint is probably near optimal with the transformer fairly close to the ground.
Steve Ellington tested 6 or 8 configurations of grounding, choking, and counterpoise wires. He used a field strength meter and RF ammeter.
I've seen more rigorous and sophisticated testing that suggests the heavy choking should be about 2m from the transformer feedpoint. See MO0OPX, Evil Lair, and Survival Comms. They document 90% or better efficiency on all bands with an insertion loss from 0.2dB to 0.6dB on all bands.
They however used a non-standard 43 mix torroid that is almost a bead, so its pretty chunky and they use close winding autotransformer w/o a crossover.
@@vironpayne3405 thanks! Yeah the loop is just a better performance antenna for me here. I built a 52 fix auto transformer for qro based on Colin’s findings. It works well but still about 3-5 s units lower than the loop. I have since increased the height on the tower so the inverted L is about 41 ft vertical and a bit under 100’ straight. It handles 1200w Cw without reaching curry temps. I have found that the efhw works better flat topped. “About equal to the loop”.
It’s a lot of fun trying different things.
I didn't expect much difference between these 2 antennas ......and I was correct. The 1/2 wave end fed inv L is one of the best wire antennas. The Delta loop is always a quieter antenna compared to most. Both are doing great - not that much in it !!
de G4VZV
Great comparison, but of course direction of loop and distance of rx stations alters reception comparisons, and it might be completely opposite on tx.
Very true!
seem to be about the same
but any loop antenna is going to be a bit quieter than an open end antenna
One would think but not in my case. I do run a line isolator on the efhw but the loop still a bit more noisy. But it comes with more gain to Europe in the current orientation
Delta loop is at times 2 S units better. Otherwise, slightly better than the EFHW - L.
Good. I love loops. I have a ~ 300 ft loop with Apex at 90' fed with ladderline. A good all band antenna.
Definitely my favorite wire antenna. Mine now has 2 corners at 40’ fed at the top corner. About 4-6s units better than the efhw. Wish I had taller trees for sure.
I was hoping for horizontal loop vs. efhw.
I have a 12.4m multi wire vertical. It's good, but there is too much noise on the lower bands. So I put up a 130ish foot efhw in an L. I hear what I think is about the same signal, but way less receive noise. It's not as good at transmit as the vertical.
I'm looking for an EFHW vs. horizontal full wl loop comparison, as that was my next experiment. I keep trying to get more and more local 75m nets, but the one about 1000km away proves to be elusive - too weak.
I ran an 80m Horizontal loop. It was very quiet but wasn’t a dx antenna. About 600km and in antenna. You might look into the 80m half square
Hey J, thanks for posting this. Curious what direction the elbow is pointed on the L. Also be sure and post your results regarding tx strength comparisons if you can. I found although the loop may have great ears generally, the L has better teeth heading 3k+ miles. I saw the same thing as you do on 75 meters between a 65' vertical against a delta. I even witnessed a vk station in the 80m dx window that I could hear on the vertical but not at all on the loop. So many variables in play right? Keep them coming! Best, Steve K1GMM
You’re spot on man. The L definitely has more teeth on 201510. The elbow turns and goes west north west. I love playing with antennas. My neighbors love this 40ft pole. Ha! I should’ve moved somewhere with tall trees.
@@JayN4GO ya know Glen k4ghc? He put up a zs6bkw a couple of weeks ago. He's slaughtering it all over the world. I'm thinking about trying one. Built it in about 20 minutes.friggin thing is nuts.
@@k1gmmgreenmountainmaniac251 no kidding!? I was actually looking at the plans last night to make one. Sounds like another plan:)
@@JayN4GO I was skeptical as always but now I know 3 people that use it. One has even got his 200 dxcc on it on 40 thru 10. He crushes it on 74/80 too. May be something to play with coming into fall. Hope the fam is good and nice to see you still hard at work. I follow what ur doing pretty closely. Cheers bud!
@@k1gmmgreenmountainmaniac251 that’s great man. Do you know which zs6 plans they’re using ? I think there’s a few different ones. Just came back inside from chopping the inverted L to a straight vertical for 30m. Seems good on 12m also. Only 1 good 6m opening this year man. I took all the 2m crap down and left up a small Diamond vertical for locals. It looks like the sun is finally waking up. Hope you guys are doing well brother. I think we’ll all be playing radio from home as long as gas keeps climbing.
ATT with Pre Amp on? Am I missing something here? Why not just back off on RF gain?
Yep I prefer to use the roofing filter instead of the sdr in the chain. Hybrid rig.
In my experience, full wave loop and quad antenna will always be more quiet than others.
I think I’ll put the apex of the loop on the top of the 40ft pole on the deck. Should get it around 53ft. Hard to beat a full wave
@@JayN4GO the higher...the better.
The “end fed half wave” in an inverted L is pretty much a vertical antenna. The peak current will be a quarter wave back from the tip or open end or about 33 feet from the end.
That puts in in your particular case on the vertical wire down a bit from the top. You will have a current distribution starting with zero at the ground ( if the feed point is at the ground) and increasing to maximum near the top. That part is simply a quarter wave vertical. The horizontal part is nearly a quarter wave horizontal. Should work but not as well as it would with a good radial system.
Not sure where the delta loop is fed..sounds like at the center of the bottom wire? If so that might not be too efficient.
The feed point for a one wavelength loop will be at a high current point. Depending on where on the loop you feed it, it can be either horizontal or vertical polarization. It is essentially two dipoles fed in phase with the ends connected. Max gain for two dipoles is with them both horizontal, fed in phase and spaced pretty far apart, just over half wavelength.
A quad loop is two half wave dipoles fed in phase spaced a quarter wave apart and with the ends of both dipoles bent in so they toutch. Gain is reduced a lot because of the close spacing but is a dB or so better than a single dipole.
The delta loop is a variation in shape of simple quad loop to be a triangle. Both the quad loop and delta loop lend themselves to being the driven element in a parasitic array.
With all antennas having the high current portion as high and straight as possible helps a lot. With straight wires significantly longer than half wave the extra length (over a half wave ) changes the pattern. On higher bands you can get good gain in specific directions. Also deep nulls in other directions. For horizontal antennas height above the ground determines “radiation” angle and efficiency.
For verticals the ground radial system controls efficiency as well as where the max current point falls. Top loaded verticals can move the high current point up from the ground. That’s the case for your inverted L halfwave wire.
I would beware of “quiet” antennas. No good antenna will be quiet unless the “noise” is local and of the opposite polarization.
Thanks brother. How many radials should I run? I know it really affects the efhw as they get longer.
@@JayN4GO That’s hard to know.. sometimes one will be sufficient. The quarter wave inverted L is a common 160 meter antenna. It’s current maximum is at the ground or feed point and really needs a good radial system. My inverted L antennas are always longer to get the high current away from the ground feed point. Also as the feed point impedance increases as the antenna length goes from quarter wave to approach halfwave I think the radial system does not need to be as elaborate. This seems to be somewhat verified by all the end fed half wave antennas working pretty good with only a short counterpoise.
I always look at where the current peaks fall on a wire for each band to get a feel for the radiation pattern and feed point impedance. I never want high current near the ground if it can be helped.
Your inverted L is probably radiating best as a horizontal wire dipole on 20 meters as the horizontal part is almost half wave long. The vertical portion may be inconsequential which seems to make me think more radials may not help much on 20 and above. Hard to say for certain without a detailed analysis but that’s my impression. We do know that a horizontal wire close to a half wave long with current flowing out to the open end and reflected back again is an excellent radiator.
@@dandypoint I may just add the 125’ wire and get 80m. Hoping to get the Mosley 33 up this week
@@dandypoint much to consider. I think I’ll attempt to put the pole atop of the deck making the delta apex at 53ft. It is fed at the corner. Equal length on all sides. Maybe it will make the loop work better. It’s far from a quiet loop but more so than any antenna I’ve tried. Lots of man made noise here in a city lot. I can tell when the kid plugs up her phone charger. Hehe. Maybe pulling the delta off of a sloping configuration to up and down will help a bit. \ to |
I’m sure it will change the impedance also.
@@JayN4GO Yes. A lot of variables. I will email you some diagrams later if I can. With any full wave loop the feed point will become a high current point. The point exactly halfway around the loop will also become a high current point. If the wire carrying the high current is horizontal you end up with a horizontally polarized antenna. So a loop fed at the center bottom corner has a horizontal side up in the air, that’s your dominant part of the antenna and you have horizontal polarization. However if you make that horizontal wire a halfwave long and can feed it in the center, you can cut off the rest of the wire and have a dipole. If that top horizontal wire is 1/3 of a wave long and you have all three sides equal, your dominant part is not as good as a half wave dipole (it is only 1/3 wave long) but the rest of the loop does radiate and you end up with a full wave loop that has slight gain over a halfwave dipole. For a given set of heights for the top and bottom I think you get the most gain out of a square loop. It’s a compromise between length of horizontal elements and vertical spacing. You can only have it wide horizontally and narrow vertically or narrow horizontally and wide vertically. In both these cases the loop reduces to a folded dipole, either vertically or horizontally. So you get the best compromise with quarter wave horizontal elements spaced a quarter wave apart and that’s a square. Again the feedpoint determines if the high current points are in the vertical or horizontal sides.