palmerjrusa
Member
For the PAR and home made versions I like to get the entire length of wire horizonal and as high as possible but thats limited to about 15-25ft due to available trees, etc. On the home made versions with chalk line reel the empty chalk line reel is your throw weight to get the far end up in a tree. I usually carry a second chalk line reel with about 80ft of miniature parachute cord to toss over another tree and pull up the transformer end. If a second tree is not available I will sometimes use the antenna with the transformer lower and the wire sloping up to the only tree or high point.
In all cases I get signal reports similar to other 100 watt stations on the band and I'm usually running about 10 watts into the end fed.
Thanks, I want to use having an IC-705 as an opportunity to learn more about getting the max out of a QRP rig using effective antennas and learn more about the technical/theory side of that rather than just cranking up the transmission wattage.