EFHW 8010 antenna ?

[Firekite]

Does the antenna start and remain close to the ground? With antennas, everything affects everything, and it’s not floating in free space with a theoretical invisible analyzer attached at the feed point. Sometimes you never find out why something didn’t work for you like everyone says it should’ve. If you found the right length for your install, and you’re getting good reports, then it sounds like it’s doing it’s job.

 

[k8niv]

On the transformer side, it's about 65-66ft off the ground, and the wire touches a tree limb about 10ft out as the wire comes across the yard to the back side of the house the insulator is a few feet from touching a tree limb out there, this side is about 36-40ft off the ground, it hangs in a little slope, I'll have to find someone to climb a tree to raise it up, if I try to raise it up the insulator will be in the tree limbs, tried this yesterday.......but the run of coax coming to the shack window is roughly 140ft......noway to shorten this unless I go to a inverted L, and put the transformer closer to the ground....

Where the length is now has the lowest swr I've seen on it so far.....

 

[prcguy]

I've used several MyAntennas EFHW 8010s and the SWR has always been very good like 1.5:1 over most the resonant bands like 40, 20, etc and 80m covers about 200KHz under 2:1. Sometimes water can get inside plastic boxes, any way to pry the lid off and check for water inside?

17m will be higher because the harmonic of the resonant spot on 80m around 3.56Mhz will end up about 17.81MHz and at 18.1MHz the SWR will be climbing up as you go higher on 17m. Pay attention to the SWR on 40 and 20m for resonance and you just have to let the WARC bands run a little higher.

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....

 

[tweiss3]

To add to prcguy above, if you want 17/15/12 coverage, you need to use the MyAntennas version. They include a small "trap" like item near the transformer that does center up the dip on 17/15/12.

 

[k8niv]

I've ran this one EF 6 years and it has been moved a few times and never had this much problem getting the swr down cross the bands.....only thing different now is location, and longer run of coax coming to the shack, oh and had to fix 2 breaks, bothered soldered........I noticed yesterday a tree limb was rubbing against the insulated wire, on the transformer side, didn't think it would be a problem, anyways tried to move it and broke the wire, behind one of the splices I had made previous in the wire, took it down and hung a EF 40-10 up there, it's about 60ft and it is out away from the tree in mid-air, and tunes well 40, 20, 15, 12, 10m, but 17, little too high, even able to use it on 75m band, this is weird, lol...never thought that would tune on 4.0 through 3.8....
It's always nice to have tree limbs to use, but keep wire out away from the limbs, lesson learned here...

 

[k8niv]

This EF 4010 seems to be doing really well, mostly just using it on 20 and 40m bands, have the transformer about 63ft and hangs out in mid air from the tree limbs, put LMR 400UF coax on it, just going to leave this one up there for time been.......the other 8010 antenna is ready to go, but this thing is working well......

But would like to ask what do you all use to keep stress off your PL connector keep coax from pulling down on it ?...

 

[Firekite]

But would like to ask what do you all use to keep stress off your PL connector keep coax from pulling down on it ?...

 

[k8niv]

Hey guys, have a question....

This EF 4010 I have up here in the front yard at 65ft has been working DX really well like it is on 20/40m bands, happy with it....

The EFHW 8010's are a different story, the newer one of the two, I measured this out before just to see what length it was at, from the factory it was on 133.3ft long, and the swr was higher then.......so, I just measured it out to 133.7ft, almost to the end of the wire now, and the swr did drop some.......... the swr not quiet as low as I'd like it, 17m swr is running 3.5 to a 3.3.....20m swr runs a 2.8 to a 1.6....40m swr runs a 2.1 to a 1.1, and 80m swr is 2.0 to a 2.8.......before the swr on 80 was all over a 3.3....now it has dropped some.........would love to have this swr lower but will take what I can get, rest of the frequencies is usable.....really not sure why the swr is this high according to what you all has posted up here, unles maybe where I have a long run of coax to the shack, .......however, there is a metal building in the area, but wouldn't think it be close enough to affect it......

I hung this one up different, it now hangs out in mid-air as the coax comes down to the ground it touches some of the limbs, not sure if it affects the swr or anything or not....also wrapped a strain relief for the PL connector like Dave did in the video......it hangs about 60ft on the transformer side, and the tail is about 70ft.....however, I do prefer the swr been lower on 17m, 20m, 40m and 80m be good than the rest.....I did compare the 2 antennas some last few days actually no comparsion, 4010 has a lot better rx than the 8010 does.....really not sure what to do with this....

 

[popnokick]

How close is the metal building? If close enough it is going to have much more effect than tree limbs you wrote about.

 

[k8niv]

About 30ft away

 

[popnokick]

Directly underneath the antenna span by chance, or 30 ft away off to the side?

 

[k8niv]

Off to the side