Ham Radio - An end fed half wave antenna with built in counterpoise. (Experimental)

I ran an 66 foot end fed #14 stranded wire in an apartment setting with good success. I built a link coupled parallel network tuner for it and it tuned 40-10 meters.

It was a 5 watts QRP station using CW. But I did build a small amplifier that ran 16 watts.

A 49:1 BALUN with speaker wire will probably let the smoke out.

 

Use eye protection.

 

It's just a Zepp with a shorter matching section which makes it have a higher feedpoint impedance requiring a transformer.

 

There is a standard way of correctly feeding a "Zepp" antenna and this is not it!!

 

...because its not a Zepp.

Jeez,

This stuff is old.

The point is the video shows newbies a way of end feeding an OCD or long wire....

 

I enjoyed the video as there was a minimum of "uhhh" and general bloviation like may ham vids. It was clearly presented.

 

My rig can generate RF or smoke...but not both...

I'm gonna avoid the short counterpoise and the 49:1 balun in order to avoid the smoke.

 

I'd like to point out that a light bulb was used as a "successful antenna" to work all continents. It's just that its really hard to make a good dummy load
AF4RK

 

When I was young and moved around I tossed a random plastic covered wire over a tree and hooked to a Dentron Junior. I worked out surprisingly good on the limited bands I used. No gimmicks just tuned a good match.

 

Yup. Keeping it simple. No reinventing the wheel.

In a second floor apartment. 60' of magnet wire out the window and over a tree for the radiator. 30' of magnet wire stapled to the interior room wall for a counterpoise. Basic L-network. HW-8. Works. Plenty of contacts, though I freely admit to not overloading many receiver front ends.

 

In England, hitting it with 1.5kW is not gonna happen because they are limited on the output power. But I've run ununs at 100W levels for years with no problem. The G5RV is still the high performer for me but for those with antenna limitations as far as available space is concerned and HOAs, the end fed dipole antenna is a winner.

I use a 9:1 open wire (not toroid) unun, 63-ft of wire with 16-ft of counterpoise. Check the link on my qrz.com bio to see the diagram.

I plan to test the 49:1 unun design given here and I expect it to be better than mine.

 

Not with a HW-8, wish I still had mine.