EFHW 8010 antenna ?

[k8niv]

I have 2 of these, and both are up at the present time, but going to call them, 1 and 2 so u no them apart....

The one, I have up, on the transformer side its about 62ft off the ground, and the tail is about 90ft off the ground, and hangs between 2 tall sickamore trees, and this one is 130ft long, and hangs in a NW by SE direction, and been fed with 160ft of RG 213 coax, and have ferrite's on the cable near the shack.....I also probably need to mention I now live near the foot of a mountain and also one across the highway, kinda n a valley here, but opens up some into the East and NW directions, ....we moved here 3 years ago .....since then I hung these EF's up here, I used to live a few miles up the road and the EF did really well there, but since moving down here it don't seem to work as well, this is why I was wondering if the mountains close to here can be affecting how well it does ?...

Same goes for working DX, used to be able to work it easy up the road at the old place but not as easy or often here....

I was just curios if maybe the mountains here is playing a roll in working the DX, little discouraged with all this........any suggestions or ideas how to change this ?

 

[K6GBW]

Not really. The beauty of HF is that mountains and weather don't effect much. Your transmitting a signal up and out toward the sky and having it reflected back down to earth. The antennas height above ground would have the greatest effect, and it sounds like yours are plenty high. The type of soil you are over would also effect it. If you are over dry sandy soil it is the worst and damp, loamy type soil if the best. Swamps are good too!

If anything, I'd try and shorten your coaxes a bit. 160 feet is going to have some loss. At 62 to 90 feet on 40 and up the antenna will be directional broadside to the wire. It will still be omini on 80 meters. Also consider that the bands over the last couple of years have just been really dreadful. They are only now starting to pick up.

 

[k8niv]

Ok I did shorten the 1 up some, it's about a 120ft of Rg 213 coax now, can't to much due to where it is located from the shack....

#2, I moved it today, the transformer side is about 50ft off the ground..... and it runs cross the yard to another tree where it's 89-90ft off the ground, and have a pulley on each side of this one, and it hangs in a N to S directions, and has about 110ft of RG 213 coax on this one...also have a CMC Choke inline due to running over top of the house to the taller tree's out by the bridge......for time been have the coax running a long on the ground, hate this but all I can do with it for now.....probably not the best way I have it up but about the only choice I have for now......the 1st time I had a EF running across the house I had RFI in the shack, but now I have a cmc choke and ferrites on the coax, so far so good no issues in the shack or the house...

 

[K6GBW]

Sounds like you've done about all you can do. It's at a really good height and has good coax. The coax running along the ground won't really do anything because even though an EFHW uses the coax as a counterpoise it only uses a small part of it near the transformer. As for common mode chokes, you only really need on near the radio side to tamp down any RF being picked up by the coax shield. The EFHW shouldn't really have a problem with RFI in the shack as long as you keep it to the frequencies it's made for. If you transmit outside those frequencies they do light up pretty quickly. All in all, it sounds like a good set up. If you're having trouble hearing now it's likely just the propagation. It's been really up and down the last few months. A month ago we had something like 75 sunspots and today we have zero! So just be patient and it will come back.

 

[prcguy]

At that height the antenna will work better for DX on 40m and up with 80m being at a useable height for both NVIS and some DX.

Ok I did shorten the 1 up some, it's about a 120ft of Rg 213 coax now, can't to much due to where it is located from the shack....

#2, I moved it today, the transformer side is about 50ft off the ground..... and it runs cross the yard to another tree where it's 89-90ft off the ground, and have a pulley on each side of this one, and it hangs in a N to S directions, and has about 110ft of RG 213 coax on this one...also have a CMC Choke inline due to running over top of the house to the taller tree's out by the bridge......for time been have the coax running a long on the ground, hate this but all I can do with it for now.....probably not the best way I have it up but about the only choice I have for now......the 1st time I had a EF running across the house I had RFI in the shack, but now I have a cmc choke and ferrites on the coax, so far so good no issues in the shack or the house...

 

[k8niv]

I'd been listening to DX coming in here Russia of the nights, they come in here loud, but can't get it back to those guys, lol....just like to be able to work some good DX off these wire antennas, thanks for the info

 

[wwhitby]

OP, try shifting the orientation of your antennas around if you are able to do so. It can make a world of difference.

A fellow ham had an EFHW up and it worked fine for him. He changed the location, and couldn't hear much. When he asked me about it, I told him to put it back the way it was, and bingo, his reception came back like it was before.

 

[popnokick]

All of these messages back and forth and no one has mentioned the two major components (besides an antenna) that affect propagation: TIME OF DAY and FREQUENCY. When (time of day) and where (freq) are you looking for Russian DX? And apologies if you are an experienced OM with lots of DX QSLs on the wall. I just didn't want to assume that you were an experienced DXer. If that's the case, let us know.

 

[K6GBW]

Popnokick is right. Time of day is a big factor. Also, a lot of times that you are hearing DX stations they are running power and using beams on towers. You might be able to hear them but they might not hear you. That said, I've called back some distant stations and just been lucky. The propagation was just right and I've talked to Indonesia from Los Angeles on 20 watts! Doesn't happen all the time, but when it does it's a treat and I'm jazzed for days!

 

[k8niv]

Sorry guys, the times some has been of the nights I hear DX from Russia, and few other stations from Europe....I really haven't been paying much attention to the times I get on the radio, but has been of the evenings.....the guys I have heard has beams and there on a tower and they run a amplifier as well, really loud coming in here like a S7 or so signal......don't recall frequency but they was on 20m, he did work some of states from the East coast as well as West coast.....I'm sure I was trying to work this DX in the wrong time of the day, due to the gray line area..

I took the 2nd EF 8010 down and replaced it with a EF 40-10m bands and have the one end about 28ft off the ground and the other end about 80ft or so, have been able to work some DX over to Madeira Island, didn't think was too bad for a 100 watt radio...this antenna is a sloper right now plans on raising the lower side up some more...

Those EF 8010 model antennas, long wire and hard to stretch it out when u have alot of tree limbs in the way, don't want to cut them due to shade in the summer months so i tried to make do, and where the 2nd one was the wire kept getting hung in the tree limbs this is why I took it down and put the 40-10m EF up, like I say just playing with the 2nd antenna always trying to improve my station if I can, enjoy working DX when I can tho...

 

[k8niv]

Have a question about the 2nd EF 8010 I have here....

As you all no I have moved this one around a few different times over the years to experiment with, I like these EF's because u can get the bands 80-10m and the idea the coax feed point is on the end and not out in the middle somewhere...

But anyways, have a spot picked out, and going to replace the 4010 with this one and may try hanging it in a inverted L,....question I have is what can I use at the top where the antenna wire will need to make the turn and go horizontal without damaging the wire ?...
Have in mind, hanging my transformer about 6ft off the ground and going up the tree its about 80ft or so to the pulley and go cross the yard from there horizontal ........would this pulley damage the wire if I used it ?.......wire is about a 18ga steel stranded looks like....

I have a big yard, but power lines on site too, comes in from the main road to a service line that comes to the house, so limited in some areas to hang these long wires...

 

[prcguy]

The 80-10 EFHW has a maximum current point in the middle on 80m and will have four max current points along its length on 40m and so on. If I were hanging it in an inverted L I would do some research on the resulting radiation patterns and hang it to make the best use of them. You can use a pully, metal or plastic and some black dacron rope to hold the middle and ends up.

I'm thinking splitting the length exactly in half so half is vertical and half is horizontal so the currents will be predictable and I would hang the feedpoint off the ground where the vertical side will have a good takeoff angle for DX. Or you could just hang the entire antenna at 1/2 wavelength on 40m (about 66ft) and enjoy good DX on 40 through 10 or hang it 133ft horizontal and you will have great DX 80 through 10m.

Then I would hang the other one horizontal about 33ft off the ground for the best NVIS on 80 and 40m and it will still work well for DX 20 through 10m

 

[k8niv]

Ok, I raised the 2nd EF up, and have the transformer side about 66ft high and as it comes across the yard/house it drops down some, I'll have to move this side somewhere else to get it 66ft or so this fall.....also went ahead and put the CMC Choke inline too.....I went with a 130ft length on the wire antenna, swr not to bad, 17m it runs a 3.0 and 40m is a 3.0, but drops as you go down the frequencies......80m is a little more, but still need to fine tune the wire....it hangs in a N to S directions,,

 

[prcguy]

The wire should be in the 133 to 134ft length to resonate around 7.125, 14.250, 28.500 or basically all the harmonics of 7.125MHz. 80m will resonate around 3.56MHz unless you bought the MyAntennas 75m version which has a capacitor in the middle to move the 80m resonant point near 3.9MHz.

If you don't have the 75m version you can modify an 80m version by cutting it 67ft from the far end, attaching an insulator then bridging the insulator with a 250pf high voltage capacitor like a 10kV doorknob or similar. This will give you a great match in the phone portion of 75m roughly 3.8 to 4.0MHz without a tuner and will not affect any other band.

When you have the length right for the frequencies mentioned above then 30, 17 and 12m will have a very useable match around 2:1.

Ok, I raised the 2nd EF up, and have the transformer side about 66ft high and as it comes across the yard/house it drops down some, I'll have to move this side somewhere else to get it 66ft or so this fall.....also went ahead and put the CMC Choke inline too.....I went with a 130ft length on the wire antenna, swr not to bad, 17m it runs a 3.0 and 40m is a 3.0, but drops as you go down the frequencies......80m is a little more, but still need to fine tune the wire....it hangs in a N to S directions,,

 

[k8niv]

Nice, both mine are the 8010 versions, I will try this tomorrow and see how it goes........the side on my antennas is the E and W...

 

[k8niv]

Here's a update on my 2nd EF, I did try the longer lengths of wire, started here at 130ft, 133ft, 134ft, even tried 132ft and still the swr didn't drop very much on 17, 20, 40 these bands was descent but 80m swr was the worse....

I ended up shorting the wire down to 128ft length, 10 thru 15m swr runs 1.5 or less, 17m and 20m swr runs a 2.0 the highest, and 40m and 80m swr runs 3.2 at the highest, .......30m band swr is a 1.3 .......60m swr is way to high.........

Just guessing, reason the longer length didn't work for me maybe I do have a long run of coax, from the tree my transformer is in back to the shack window, noway to shorten this, pretty much a straight shot from the tree to the shack....

Ok now, if I was to shorten it more would the swr drop anymore than it is, what you all think ?....

My internal tuner pretty much handles all the bands now, except for 60 meters..........80 meters, highest swr is on 4.0, with a 3.2, .....it drops as u go down the frequencies....at 3.8 my swr is a 2.8, and on 3.5mhz swr is a 2.0....just used this as a reference ponit....

 

[prcguy]

Since the bands these cover are harmonically related I tune them first on 40m for a VSWR dip at 7.125 then check for a dip at 14.250 and 28.500. If all those freqs fall in line then the antenna is tuned. 30, 17 and 12m will be useable and will never be a great match because they are not harmonically related to the other bands. The antenna should be between 133 and 134ft long when tuned.

What brand are your antennas?

Here's a update on my 2nd EF, I did try the longer lengths of wire, started here at 130ft, 133ft, 134ft, even tried 132ft and still the swr didn't drop very much on 17, 20, 40 these bands was descent but 80m swr was the worse....

I ended up shorting the wire down to 128ft length, 10 thru 15m swr runs 1.5 or less, 17m and 20m swr runs a 2.0 the highest, and 40m and 80m swr runs 3.2 at the highest, .......30m band swr is a 1.3 .......60m swr is way to high.........

Just guessing, reason the longer length didn't work for me maybe I do have a long run of coax, from the tree my transformer is in back to the shack window, noway to shorten this, pretty much a straight shot from the tree to the shack....

Ok now, if I was to shorten it more would the swr drop anymore than it is, what you all think ?....

My internal tuner pretty much handles all the bands now, except for 60 meters..........80 meters, highest swr is on 4.0, with a 3.2, .....it drops as u go down the frequencies....at 3.8 my swr is a 2.8, and on 3.5mhz swr is a 2.0....just used this as a reference ponit....

 

[k8niv]

There both 80-10m bands...

This one here I been working with has been broke a couple times and I had to splice them back and soldered them....I don't have MFJ or Rig Expert to use here, just a swr meter to go by....This EFHW 8010 Ive had it about 6 years or so, no vent holes in it, like this newer one does I have...

 

[k8niv]

Even tho the wire is insulated, would touching tree limbs affect it in anyway ?.....

 

[k8niv]

Ok have a question about his EF I been working with....

Been doing little more research on these EFHW 8010 antennas, and looks like the 133-134ft is the length according to what I have seen....

My question is, how come the swr was still little high on these bands, 17m highest it was is a 3.2, and on 20m highest it was 3.5 and 40m highest was 3.5 and on 80m highest was a 4.0, .......readings at 133ft about the same.......swr don't seem to be out of the ball park, but still curious why it's not lower, still looking for that sweet spot....I'll try 133.6ft and see what this does, hoping it lines it out....