Recommend first time user Antenna Setup

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osros

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Sorry still reading posts but I have specific needs and like help on. I will soon be a Ham and want to get up and running asap. I have limited Antenna location options but my current plan is a 30ft push up mast on a pipe mount using a Universal Vertical Tilt Base ATB-75. I think I will be tinkering alot with the antennas until I am happy so need a easy up and down solution for one person.

With that said I am looking for a good first time HF vertical antenna, wideband use for CW and good receive on all HF bands that is not too expensive or big/heavy. My plans for this mast set up is for 2 or 3 light weight receive antennas I already have on the sides plus the new transmitting vertical. As I gain more experience and privileges Im sure I will go on to bigger and better things I just like to get off to a good start with help from those who know. I plan to use a Icom-7300 I have my eyes on so a decent rig just like to have a decent first time antenna to match.

Any help appreciated.
 

AK9R

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Your suggested Icom IC-7300 mates very well with the Icom AH-4 tuner (the LDG AT-100 or AT-200 would be a second choice). I am currently using a ZeroFive 27 foot vertical with an AH-4 mounted at the antenna base.

Many HF verticals are typically mounted near the ground and require a system of radials laid out on the ground. After a few months of grass-growing season, you won't be able to see the radial wires.
 

osros

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Your suggested Icom IC-7300 mates very well with the Icom AH-4 tuner (the LDG AT-100 or AT-200 would be a second choice). I am currently using a ZeroFive 27 foot vertical with an AH-4 mounted at the antenna base.

Many HF verticals are typically mounted near the ground and require a system of radials laid out on the ground. After a few months of grass-growing season, you won't be able to see the radial wires.

Thanks,

The space at ground level will be my problem I need to get something up higher the only space at the ground will be the pipe and mast being it will be near a driveway. I'm looking at other options for location but If I go where there is more room I will have to run about 250-350ft +/- of line I'm unsure if doable but I'm thinking it is for HF is more forgiving if I use a quality line. I'm kinda come to terms that it maybe best I have two separate antenna setups one for the receive antennas next to the house on its own mast and a separate one for the Ham gear. The HAM HF vertical is priority right now.

In fact further away from the house I can do whatever I want I have a open field its just the distance and raising the line to clear heads and vehicles to the house. I'm looking into this further I'm just trying to get creative with something closer to the house for a shorter line run, its just closer to the house I have a lot of trees around, power lines to keep clear of etc and I still like to have the space to walk the mast or Antenna itself up and down as needed.

EDIT: Also I like that ZeroFive stuff, went to the site giving me even more ideas and options.
 
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prcguy

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An auto tuner at the base of a vertical with lots of radials is a good thing and the popular 43ft size will give good results on 160 through about 20m and something shorter like 27 through 33ft is ok for 80 through 10m. Without lots of radials it just doesn't work very well.

I've used a number of no radial type verticals with varying success. The best I've used is an old Cushcraft R7 and it performed ok, not great but ok compared to my everyday multiband dipole at 35t. I also had good performance from a Butternut HF6V but it was mounted on a 125ft X 125ft solid copper sheet metal roof. Put that on the ground with no radials and it will become a big dummy load.

I was not happy at all with a new GAP Titan someone talked me into buying. If you want any performance please avoid the Comet CHA250B (dummy load on a stick) and its clones or anything made by Chameleon or Alpha Antenna.

Why a vertical? If you can hang one end of a dipole on your house and the other end on a tree or mast in the yard you will have a great antenna for very cheap and a multiband 80-6m dipole like the ZS6BKW is cheap and easy to make and will usually blow away most any vertical unless its very low to the ground. Another great antenna is a multiband end fed half wave like the LNR "PAR" End fed, or (probably a better version) from MyAntennas. You don't want the generic 9:1 balun version (dummyload with a wire), you want the resonant end fed half wave that comes in various version that will go down to either 40m, 80m or 160m depending on how much space you have.

Your long run of coax will completely kill your signal unless the antenna has an inherently good match on all the bands you want to work. The published loss on coax goes way up when operated under extreme mismatch, just be aware of that. One nice thing about the ZS6BKW over the more well known G5RV is the former has a good match on most bands without a tuner and that goes a long way when running long feedlines. A G5RV has a lousy match everywhere but 20m and really long coax runs on that antenna will eat up much of your signal.
prcguy


Thanks,

The space at ground level will be my problem I need to get something up higher the only space at the ground will be the pipe and mast being it will be near a driveway. I'm looking at other options for location but If I go where there is more room I will have to run about 250-350ft +/- of line I'm unsure if doable but I'm thinking it is for HF is more forgiving if I use a quality line. I'm kinda come to terms that it maybe best I have two separate antenna setups one for the receive antennas next to the house on its own mast and a separate one for the Ham gear. The HAM HF vertical is priority right now.

In fact further away from the house I can do whatever I want I have a open field its just the distance and raising the line to clear heads and vehicles to the house. I'm looking into this further I'm just trying to get creative with something closer to the house for a shorter line run, its just closer to the house I have a lot of trees around, power lines to keep clear of etc and I still like to have the space to walk the mast or Antenna itself up and down as needed.

EDIT: Also I like that ZeroFive stuff, went to the site giving me even more ideas and options.
 

osros

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Thanks all for the feedback, I really need to educate myself on this stuff I come from receive only SWL & scanners so antenna needs are a lot simpler. I am re thinking the vertical because of the long line run and ground radials I was not aware of. The min line run will be approx.100-150ft from the shack to the antenna this is unchangeable shack is on one end of house the antenna will be starting at the opposite end. Possibly a little shorter if I go under the house instead of over the house with the line that just came to mind :). The shack has too much trees around and right over on that side.

The dipole is an idea and will look into that I can do a mast out in the open field just for the other side of the antenna and the feed end right at the house. Looking up some info, Question; whats a good height off the ground for a dipole? At min I would need 10ft to clear heads and vehicles as I said before a drive way is involved.

I still would like good wideband receive that's my bread and butter SWL at heart but I like good results on TX on 6 to 80m I guess good all around then. Perhaps I need to switch to a receive only ant when I want to SWL and focus on a good standalone HAM antenna for when I want to TX instead of trying to have one do it all?
 
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prcguy

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Dipole height depends on what you want to talk to or how much height you can realistically get away with. I use HF for mostly regional stuff on 40 and 80m and within about 500mi. The best antenna for that is a horizontal wire type about 25 to 35ft max in height. If you make it higher the upward radiation or NVIS properties get worse and lower will reduce efficiency but it will still work ok for NVIS at say 6ft or 10ft off the ground. I also talk a lot of DX on the same antenna and I have done adequate coast to coast 40m DX with a dipole 6ft off the ground and also laying right on the ground as in the EYRING military antennas.

If you want the best DX performance from a dipole put it at exactly 1/2 wavelength or multiples of 1/2 wavelength above ground. For 40m on up that would be about 65ft off the ground and for 80m on up about 130ft, but at those heights you will have little NVIS or 100 to 500 mi performance.

You don't need a center support for a dipole if you have solid anchor points for the ends. I've held up 135ft long dipoles just fine at the ends but you need a good 50 to 100lbs of pull to keep it from drooping and preferably a pulley and weight to keep constant tension if one end is attached to a tree or something that moves with the wind.

This is where I like the resonant end feed half wave where you can have a 65ft long antenna for 40-10m or a 135ft long antenna for 80-10m and the coax is at one end so it doesn't add weight to the center of the antenna like a conventional dipole. I've also had excellent results from an offset center fed dipole, sometimes called a "Carolina Windom". I think MyAntennas makes one of the best offset center feds and I like the interesting twist on the RadioWorks version where part of the vertical hanging feedline is made into a vertical radiator to fill in a little better on the higher bands for DX.

In fact, I will highly recommend an offset center fed 80m "Windom" type for your new Icom 7300 since its internal tuner has a limited tuning range and the 80m offset center fed antennas have a reasonable match on most every HF band. Just try to keep it 20ft or more off the ground. They also make a fine SWL antenna.
prcguy

Thanks all for the feedback, I really need to educate myself on this stuff I come from receive only SWL & scanners so antenna needs are a lot simpler. I am re thinking the vertical because of the long line run and ground radials I was not aware of. The min line run will be approx.100-150ft from the shack to the antenna this is unchangeable shack is on one end of house the antenna will be starting at the opposite end. Possibly a little shorter if I go under the house instead of over the house with the line that just came to mind :). The shack has too much trees around and right over on that side.

The dipole is an idea and will look into that I can do a mast out in the open field just for the other side of the antenna and the feed end right at the house. Looking up some info, Question; whats a good height off the ground for a dipole? At min I would need 10ft to clear heads and vehicles as I said before a drive way is involved.

I still would like good wideband receive that's my bread and butter SWL at heart but I like good results on TX on 6 to 80m I guess good all around then. Perhaps I need to switch to a receive only ant when I want to SWL and focus on a good standalone HAM antenna for when I want to TX instead of trying to have one do it all?
 

osros

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Thanks all,

Interesting stuff, Im liking that MyAntennas EFHW-8010 alot I think I can pull that one off at say 30ft to 8/10ft. There is no way I can do above 30ft in my area.

Not sure if I can go in two directions with a Windom and the config of the ant I would have to look into it and see. I envision now a 30ft mast at the corner of the house with that EFHW antenna going to the end of a barn that should give me 8-10 ft anywhere a downward slope if thats is a ok setup?

The Myantenna looks like a easy setup with great reviews, they boast no tuner is needed which sounds good for me to start with costs getting a bit scary but hey thats our hobby.

Question:

With the IC7300 there is a internal tuner and they sell a external turner? and the wording seems like you need the external turner anyway so what does the internal turner do? not knowing how all this works yet confuses me.
 

AK9R

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The internal tuner in the IC-7300 is very similar to the internal tuner in other Icom radios, though it does have a bit less usable range. If you use the internal tuner, you simply plug the coax into the back of the radio, press the Tune button to initiate a tuning cycle, and start talking when the tuning process completes.

There is also a 4-pin Molex connector on the back of the radio for an external tuner. If you use something like the Icom AH-4, it can be mounted outside and you run a coax and a 4-wire control cable from the radio to the tuner. The "output" of the AH-4 is a "hot" terminal which is connected to an antenna, such as a vertical, and a ground terminal which is connected to ground. Even though the AH-4 was designed to tune mobile whips, it can easily be used to tune a fixed vertical. You can also use it to tune dipoles and loops by attaching one side of the wire antenna to the hot terminal and the other side to the ground terminal (which would not be grounded, in this case). The function is essentially the same as the internal tuner in that you press the Tune button on the radio to initiate a tune cycle.

Both the internal tuner and the AH-4 external tuner store "memories" of the settings needed to get the lowest SWR on whatever frequency you are using. This speeds up setting the tuner when you make big frequency changes or change bands.

On the Icoms with internal tuners, the internal tuner works as long as the external tuner is disconnected. When you connect the external tuner to that Molex connector, the internal tuner is automatically bypassed.

In addition to the AH-4, the LDG AT-100, AT-200, AT-600, and AT-1000 (second generation versions) all function identically to the AH-4 except that they are designed for indoor use.
 

prcguy

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A good friend of mine bought the 40m end fed from MyAntennas and he loves it over anything else he has used and it solved a problem in his limited space. I've built about a dozen versions of it and they all work great.

One thing to consider on the resonant end fed types is all the bands are exactly harmonically related. This is fine on the 40m version that also covers 20, 15 and 10m. If its tuned around 7.15MHz on 40m it will be centered on 14.3MHz on 20m, 21.45MHz on 15m and 28.6MHz on 10m.

However, an 80m version tuned for 7.15MHz on 40m will resonate way low in the CW portion of 80m at 3.575MHz. So, the match in the phone portion of 75m will be high but the Icom 7300 tuner should be ok and the antenna will radiate just fine.

I built an 80m version but did things a little different and placed a 40m trap at the end of 63ft of wire and that allows me to tune the 80m portion for about 3.9Mhz so it covers all the phone portion of the band without affecting 40-10m.
prcguy


Thanks all,

Interesting stuff, Im liking that MyAntennas EFHW-8010 alot I think I can pull that one off at say 30ft to 8/10ft. There is no way I can do above 30ft in my area.

Not sure if I can go in two directions with a Windom and the config of the ant I would have to look into it and see. I envision now a 30ft mast at the corner of the house with that EFHW antenna going to the end of a barn that should give me 8-10 ft anywhere a downward slope if thats is a ok setup?

The Myantenna looks like a easy setup with great reviews, they boast no tuner is needed which sounds good for me to start with costs getting a bit scary but hey thats our hobby.

Question:

With the IC7300 there is a internal tuner and they sell a external turner? and the wording seems like you need the external turner anyway so what does the internal turner do? not knowing how all this works yet confuses me.
 

osros

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Thanks good stuff,

I think I will go for that 40m end feed to start. So my plan to go 30ft to 8-10 feet slope is acceptable?

Also so I don't start a new thread what is best recommendation, low loss, somewhat flexible, not too expensive for say 150ft run coax one for HF TX/RX use and the other for VHF/UHF RX use.

Thanks!
 

prcguy

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I often run an EFHW portable from a park bench to a tree with the transformer near the radio at about 6ft height and the end maybe 20ft and it works well. Other times I have both ends at around 20ft and it works better. When the bands are not dead my signal on 40m with 100w is as good or better than most people on the nets I check into.
prcguy

Thanks good stuff,

I think I will go for that 40m end feed to start. So my plan to go 30ft to 8-10 feet slope is acceptable?

Also so I don't start a new thread what is best recommendation, low loss, somewhat flexible, not too expensive for say 150ft run coax one for HF TX/RX use and the other for VHF/UHF RX use.

Thanks!
 

osros

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Thanks,

I'm sure I will have a lot of experimenting to do. Because of my very limited mast install options I went with this 30ft swivel base mast kit, it is more for portable or temporary use but since I will have the house to also support it I plan on a semi permanent install. I like this since I can play with different installs without killing myself with those heavier masts. When Im happy with the right antenna config Im sure I can replace it with a more permanent setup.


Antenna selected, Mast ordered, looking now at grounding rod and grounding bar inside shack that I need badly and coax to use.



I often run an EFHW portable from a park bench to a tree with the transformer near the radio at about 6ft height and the end maybe 20ft and it works well. Other times I have both ends at around 20ft and it works better. When the bands are not dead my signal on 40m with 100w is as good or better than most people on the nets I check into.
prcguy
 

prcguy

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Before you design your grounding read up on NEC article 810.
prcguy

Thanks,

I'm sure I will have a lot of experimenting to do. Because of my very limited mast install options I went with this 30ft swivel base mast kit, it is more for portable or temporary use but since I will have the house to also support it I plan on a semi permanent install. I like this since I can play with different installs without killing myself with those heavier masts. When Im happy with the right antenna config Im sure I can replace it with a more permanent setup.


Antenna selected, Mast ordered, looking now at grounding rod and grounding bar inside shack that I need badly and coax to use.
 

wb6uqa

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QSO King end fed wire

I use this antenna on 40 and 80 meters. The internal tuner in the IC 7300 tunes it. I have a beam for 20-6 meters.
 

prcguy

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I didn't say it doesn't tune, I said it doesn't radiate worth anything. A recent example of this is a local Govt agency was using or trying to use your exact same QSO King 9:1 end fed with some Harris 20W HF manpacks. They could not make any of their HF nets with the end of the QSO King antenna high up on a flag pole.

I made them a clone of the multi band PAR end fed but cut for both 40m amateur and their Govt freqs. They make fine contacts now where they QSO King does not. The 100W rated resonant end fed half wave I made them cost maybe $15 and it blows away the QSO King.

That has been my experience for several years when comparing any non resonant 9:1 end fed or 6:1 or whatever QSO King, Alpha Antenna, Chameleon and others use, they don't radiate very well at all. Yes your internal tuner will tune them, no they don't work with a darn. Or, if you are actually making contacts with your QSO King, going to a resonant half wave end fed will make everyone think you turned on an amplifier.
prcguy

Edit:
Hey wb6uqa, since you are close to me I will loan you one of my end feds to try out. If it sucks you can post it here. If it works as I claim you can post that here and I'll help you make one.

I use this antenna on 40 and 80 meters. The internal tuner in the IC 7300 tunes it. I have a beam for 20-6 meters.
 
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