Looking at 40 meter Propagation using WSPR and a EFHW Antenna

N9SWR · Dec 7, 2020

W9YW said: ↑

My jury is in. I've been using one since June, elevated 30' to 85'. Once I raised the lower end to 40', I hear and work the planet. Yes, there are nulls and I wish I could rotate it about 25deg occasionally so that I could work the nulls. One day I'll do that. Easy to build, deploy, maintain, and dirt cheap. I believe that other designs can and do work well. For under US$150 in parts, my own anecdotal success has been huge. That cost does not include the sycamore tree.

73 Tom
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I have a close set up like yours and have the same wishes. If I could rotate my yard it would be great. The lower end is on a 40 ft push up pole and the high end is 75 ft telephone pole. It works great. Mine runs about 10 deg off of North/South.

2E0CIT · Dec 7, 2020

VK7HH said: ↑

WSPR is a great tool to look at and measure propagation on the various ham radio bands. In this video I test my EFHW (end fed half wave) antenna to see if it is "getting out" and who could hear me. The results are quite interesting and you can clearly see propagation results!

Other videos on End Fed Half Waves:

My New HF End Fed Antenna:

Explaining End Fed Half Wave Antennas & Experimentation:

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The discussion on the EFHW was interesting and welcome but for a detailed and concise description of its theory, practical construction and behavour I haven't found anything better than WA7ARK's presentation:

http://hamfest.w7yrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/EFHWslides.pdf

My next homebrew project. I've collected all the bits needed for the EFHW that Mike describes and just need to connect them together.
73 Jeff

N6SPP · Dec 10, 2020

W4KJG said: ↑

Probably most of my transmission time is on WSPR. The remainder is mainly on FT8 because there is so much more FT8 activity, but ...

Most of my monitoring and periodic transmissions are for antenna evaluations and tests.

For me, WSPR is much better for my experimentation because it gives an idea of how much transmit power is actually being used by the sender, On FT8 I see signals within miles of each other that are as much as 50 dB different in received S/N.

I just wish there was a lot more activity on WSPR. It is vey disappointing how few people are using WSPR.

I'm not on every day, and when I'm on, I'm not on 24/7. However I am on WSPR on nearly all of the amateur bands 160-10 meters, transmitting between 1 mW (0 dBm) to 5 watts (+37 dBm). I hope to get some setups below the North American AM broadcast band during the winter season.

Regards,
Ken
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Hi Ken,
Also consider WSPR receive-only on 136 and 474 KHz.. Grab your longest wire or vertical antenna and place your internal or outboard tuner in bypass mode for max noise, and decode overnite. 73, n6spp-cm98

Looking at 40 meter Propagation using WSPR and a EFHW Antenna

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