Is this the worst antenna for portable use? - Comet HFJ-350M Toy Box

I use a 102' dipole fed with ladder line and a Palstar tuner, 100 watts on CW and was
spotted in the Virgin Islands 8-31-21 at 19dB.....Hows does your wet noodle do ?

20 meters , You might want to read a book called "Reflections" by Maxwell , he designed many of the HyGain Antennas used by NASA on their sattelites. The antenna I have tunes fine, they actually should call that box a Transmatch, since its a match from radio to antenna.

 

Could not have said it better !

 

Yeah I saw this at the Huntsville Hamfest and decided to try it out. I haven't been out in the field with it but seeing what you needed to do to make this work is troubling. But truth be told I would likely be working 20 meters and up, so we'll have to see.

 

Bravo! You are entirely correct. "Non-resonant" antennas radiate JUST AS EFFICIENTLY as ones that resonate within the ham bands. The ONLY difference is that non-resonant antennas do not provide a convenient 50-ohm nominal impedance to the feedline, hence the need for an impedance transformation to 50-ohms. If that transformation is performed AT THE ANTENNA, with a well-designed tuner that does not generate significant heat losses - one will not see any difference in efficiency when compared to a resonant antenna.

The recent popularity of tuners located inside of rigs, or at the operating position, has led to a great deal of misunderstanding with regards to antenna efficiency. Running a 100 foot coax line with a 15: 1 SWR on it will result in a great deal of line loss...leading some to believe that: 1) tuners are inherently lossy and/or 2) tuning a single antenna for multiband use results in poor radiation efficiency. Neither is true - and this fact is very well documented in the engineering literature.

Considering all of the faux "antenna expertise" displayed in these forums - it is no surprise that such misconceptions exist and are continually repeated.

 

Be it a shortened whip, low hanging dipole, or an STL, you make contacts and fun ...... then it works! Carry On & ENJOY !

 

The video told me a great deal more about the operator that it did about the antenna.


When evaluating an antenna it is critical to remember that you are really evaluating the entire antenna-system in a particular environment and not just the antenna itself.


The methodology used for evaluating the antenna throughout this video was problematic at best. I do not think that any meaningful evaluation of the antenna and antenna-system can be derived from what was shown.


The location of the antenna was far too close to the operator. The influence of the operators body on the various readings which were taken were substantial, clear, and well documented. Therefore the data points shown were all too influenced by operator proximity to be meaningful to me. Just getting the base of the antenna elevated 6 feet above the operators head (measured from the seated operating-position) and elevating the counterpoise radial would have yielded more meaningful results.


Data obtained while utilizing one counterpoise wire: particularly a counterpoise wire which was clearly far too short a counterpoise wire will cast an unfavorable light of the antenna pretty consistently. So the evaluation on 160 meters should be viewed more as a curio than as a meaningful test of the antenna. The counterpoise wires need to be of adequate length for the evaluation to be meaningful.


Testing the antenna system on the air would tell me more about it that just just showing some readings from instruments.

 

I'll refrain from directly questioning the mental health of SQ9MDF and the 1,028 others with recorded SOTA activations on 80 meters. Good on them!

But you're an intelligent fellow. I've read many of your other posts, friend, and I believe you know exactly what was behind my rhetorical question...

...so let's take this a step or two further down the path of absurdity. I mean, just about anyone can do 80 meters on a SOTA activation. 1,029 souls have done just that. What's the challenge there? Where are the 160 meter SOTA activations? And why stop there? Why aren't there more 630 and 2,200 meter SOTA activations?

I'll leave it at that, in fear of running our little side thread off the proverbial ridiculousness cliff.

 

What's the challenge there? Well if you visualise the environment you will see that the challenge lies partly in the physical difficulty of setting up a rather long antenna in the limited space on the top of a mountain, which also often is a hostile environment. The challenge is worth taking up because earlier in the day 80m will provide NVIS propagation when there is none on 40m and sometimes on 60m too. OTOH as the day progresses you lose that advantage due to absorption. If space is a problem on 80m it is a greater problem on 160m, yet 92 sotari have accepted that challenge and the leader is John, G4YSS, with 1841 points. The database shows that some 87 activators have recorded contacts on the bands lower than 160m, remarkable even though the points gained have not been spectacular - but the lesson is clear, if there is a challenge some hams will accept it, long may that continue!

Oh yes, I should add that the challenge in the microwave area is also accepted, with for instance 40 hams recording contacts on 10 GHz.

 

It's a heavily-loaded compromise antenna which lacks any of the attributes which it would need to possess to overcome the limitations of being a heavily-loaded compromise antenna. If you have to mount it high or out of the way of other objects or the operator, or carry rolls of chicken wire for a counterpoise, it's not really a lot of good to you as a portable operator.

 

Wow. Never mind.

 

I do NOT know of ANY multi-band vertical antenna that doesn't use loading coils, on at least some of the bands it can be used on! Some of these designs may not be very good, but to just blatantly call all these antennas "Dummy Loads" Probably has a whole hell of a lot more to do with the Operator, than it has to do with the antenna! Yes!!! Verticals, and even dipoles, with loading coils are a compromise! But pretty much ALL antennas are a compromise of one sort or another! Getting a full sized half wave length 80 Meter dipole up 60 feet into the air, is a half day job, at least... and if you are camping at that site for only a day or two, WAY too much work!

 

A Slinky antenna might work... If it's too heavy, use one made of plastic.

 

I'm glad you can't see WN1MB's comments on here anymore TO. He's a mighty PITA.
Great video as always

 

I agree. I have used doublet antennas for years. None were resonant on any band. A tuner is a must though.