Making contacts on an experimental ham radio antenna
Вставка
- Опубліковано 16 лип 2024
- I get out for the night in the Land Rover to try out a new portable ham radio antenna and cook a curry.
Many thanks to Chris M0VUE from radio-stuff.com www.radio-stuff.com/ for gifting me the antenna I tried out on this trip. He calls it his experimental antenna which is an EFHW but with a common mode choke built in.
The antenna is a prototype but well made and easy to set up, I was very pleased to make contacts on 5watts and more on 90 watts. Sometimes you get a good feeling with an antenna, when you have confidence that you can break pile ups, this has that on 20m.
This explains the antenna a bit more: www.radio-stuff.com/post/efhw...
The second antenna is the Slidewinder coil and tripod from M1ECC antennas www.m1ecc-antennas.co.uk/ another fantastic UK based company making portable antenna gear.
The D10 wire and antenna poe is from another UK based antenna producer Dx Commander. www.m0mcx.co.uk/
Locations are based around Buxton in the Peak District.
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Setting up ham radio station
08:27 Contacts! on the new antenna
11:37 Slidewinder coi antenna
15:03 Sunset and cooking
Carl, another great video, alot of good information on the different types of antennas, also the scenery is really great, thank you for sharing and keep 'em coming. The food was also very appetizing!
Thank you Wayne.
Excellent content as always Carl. A joy to watch. Always love the curry cooking too, I never really cook outside (other than a BBQ in the garden during the summer). I think curry must taste extra special away from the normal kitchen! Cheers, Mark (2E0MSR).
Always love your videos. Thanks for taking us along. Your meal prep is always one of my favorite parts. Such a quirky thing to add. I like how you tell us the menu early in every video. Keep up the good work.
Common mode chokes are a trick I discovered some months ago on EFHW and on random wires. Power is very secondary to antenna performance when conditions are ok but eliminating noise is essential and that is where the chokes can help considerably. Great stuff Carl.M7BLC
Never thought of myself as a "handler" maybe this would look good on my CV ;-) !! Hope to catch you more successfully on 2M Soon ... Good luck
Thanks for making this video clip Carl. I forget for a while the time you take making them and occasionally comment. When I have been out portable, I find keeping the antennas simple works well. I use an original X80 vertical by Snowdonia antenna company, but add a length of military wire to the tip and then horizontally to a tree N/S. It aids SWR and tunes easier. Plus I carry spare coax lengths etc. 73's Andy M6APJ.
Great videos Carl
Because radials act as a magnet for passers by I just don’t use anything other than EFHW. I have resonant lengths for 20, 18 and 10. 40 becomes the issue when utilising the 10 meter pole. I bought a PAR a antenna many years ago that has a coil in that works reasonably well. The lower frequencies are a problem as ideally I’d like to use my DX Commander but time to deploy plus the radial issue just makes it too fiddly. DX Commander comes into its own when used for a complete day away from people. Great vid 73 Mike
Yes the DXC is a fantastic multi band antenna however for where I tend to camp out, the radials and set up is not an option.
The solar weather website is really interesting, I will be using it in the future. It's been up and down this last couple of weeks, wide open for 10 minutes then suddenly closing again. Keep the videos coming bud.
That meal looked great, Carl :)
Good one Carl! BTW, I ripped a few seconds of one of your videos that I'm Premiere tonight at 10:00.. You go to be early so you'll miss it! :)
Ooh 10pm I’ll stay up late for that one! Hope to see you soon buddy!
I choke both ends of my efhw antennas coax and use a small counterpoise wire. Also do that with my non resonant antennas.
If the EFHW is operating on it's own band and resonant, then the feed line isn't really acting as a counterpoise. The half wave cycle is contained on the antenna and there is no radiating balance that seeks to find a counterpoise. This confused me when I started using HyEnd Fed antennas which have no counterpoise, but work brilliantly. Hang on that's the way to explain it. The EFHW is a dipole, but driven from one end. Perfectly resonant. But *only* on the main band.
If you use the ATU to operate it off band, then it isn't actually acting as an EFHW any more and all bets are off. It bothers me that when people use an EFHW off band that it's completely messing with how the antenna operates.
My 49:1 transformers have the primary isolated from the secondary. No common mode current in the coax. A counterpoise is required.
Great Vid again, are you sorted now Antenna Wise now Carl?
I'll never be sorted for antennas as I keep messing 😄
The antenna is great, curry better ;-) cheers de VK2YVA 73.
Hi Carl I don't know if you know that space woman Tamatha Skov has a American Ham Radio Licence Great Video as all ways 73 de G6JMX
I didn’t know but it makes sense, Dr Skov is one of those rare incredibly intelligent and high quality presenters.
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Great video! de W2CSI