Flagpole antenna

Mustang1954

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Oct 24, 2023
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I've been offline for many years and am just getting back into the hobby. I bought a 24 foot "flagpole"antenna with an MFJ auto tuner and am having a lot of trouble with SWR. I have my antenna connected to ladder line to a balun. From there to the auto tuner, than about 200' of coax to my shop, then to a MFJ bias tee to my SWR meter to my transceiver. On trying to auto tune on AM or CW I'm getting readings of 5 or higher. I removed the auto tuner and bias tee and tried running it through an MFJ 949 tuner which won't even show any SWR readings or any other info. My coax is buried and pretty old. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!
 

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AK9R

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I don't think you need to feed the antenna with ladder line. Just connect the "hot" side of the tuner to the vertical element and connect the "ground" side of the tuner to a radial system and possibly a ground rod at the base of the antenna.

If everything is connected properly, the tuner should try to find a match and present a low SWR to your transmitter. If it doesn't, then something's not connected correctly or the tuner has failed. The "old" buried coax may be a problem if the jacket has failed and moisture has gotten into the coax.
 

prcguy

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I’m a little confused about the setup so I will tell you how I would do it. First off the MFJ antenna tuner output should connect direct to the base of the flagpole antenna with a short wire. Actually the wire can be as long as you want but it is a radiating part of the antenna. The flagpole antenna will need an adequate ground plane like lots of ground radials or lengths of chicken wire under it, etc, and this ground plane should connect to the ground side of the tuner. This type antenna will not tune up and work very well with just a ground rod.

Second problem seems to be the long feedline run. I might consider using a 4:1 balun at the radio feeding 200ft of ladder line to another 4:1 balun at the tuner input with a short 50 ohm jumper. Or just use 200ft of low loss coax like LMR600 or some surplus Heliax, etc.
 

Mustang1954

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I don't think you need to feed the antenna with ladder line. Just connect the "hot" side of the tuner to the vertical element and connect the "ground" side of the tuner to a radial system and possibly a ground rod at the base of the antenna.

If everything is connected properly, the tuner should try to find a match and present a low SWR to your transmitter. If it doesn't, then something's not connected correctly or the tuner has failed. The "old" buried coax may be a problem if the jacket has failed and moisture has gotten into the coax.
Thanks for the information! I followed the instructions from. Greyline antennas and the antenna is supposed to act like a vertical dipole with no ground radials needed. The ladder line is just a short run Inside of the setup and connects to a 1:1 balun with a 50 ohm coax connector. Really frustrating as it's advertised as really easy to use and reviews from other hams are really positive
 

AK9R

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Greyline antennas and the antenna is supposed to act like a vertical dipole with no ground radials needed.
I think I'd connect it exactly the way Greyline tells you to. If it doesn't work, I'd contact them.

My frame of reference is a ZeroFive vertical antenna fed with an Icom AH-4 with a field of radials below the antenna. The AH-4 has a "hot" side and a ground. It does not have a coax output like your tuner appears to have. I run my coax through a choke to knock down the RF then to the coax input of the tuner. The "hot" side of the tuner is connected directly to the bottom of the antenna. The ground side is connected to my radial field.

As for the reviews, I'd never heard of Greyline Antennas until your post. Learn something every day.
 

littona

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I think I'd connect it exactly the way Greyline tells you to. If it doesn't work, I'd contact them.

My frame of reference is a ZeroFive vertical antenna fed with an Icom AH-4 with a field of radials below the antenna. The AH-4 has a "hot" side and a ground. It does not have a coax output like your tuner appears to have. I run my coax through a choke to knock down the RF then to the coax input of the tuner. The "hot" side of the tuner is connected directly to the bottom of the antenna. The ground side is connected to my radial field.

As for the reviews, I'd never heard of Greyline Antennas until your post. Learn something every day.
They're pretty famous over on QRZ for not delivering or standing behind their product.
 

WA0CBW

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This antenna is really an off center feed vertical dipole. The center of the dipole is fed with ladder line centered in the lower dipole leg with spacers. The end of the lower leg has a slot to bring out the ladder line. An insulating rod is fastened to the end of the lower dipole leg and fits into a short tube that is buried in the ground for support. The ladder line goes to a balun and tuner and coax from the balun to the radio.

It indeed is a curious design and doesn't conform to the typical "flag pole" design we all think of.

Bill
 

prcguy

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In my experience a 24ft vertical over ground plane is about the shortest you can go and still put out a reasonable signal on 40m and you would need something like a 43ft to work ok down to 80m. If the OPs 24ft vertical is an OCFD then it’s only going to perform somewhat ok on the higher bands, maybe 20m and up. Plus a vertical OCFD is notorious for having lobes that point up to nowhere when operated on anything but its fundamental 1/2 wave design freq.

With that said I have no comments to ad regarding a 24ft OCFD that would not upset the OP.
 

merlin

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Most radial free 'flagpole' designs I have seen are about 33 foot long. This is generally usable from 3.5 Mhz and up.
The impedance at the base may be about 600 to 1000 ohms and that is where you need a 9:1 balun if feeding with 50 ohm coax.
Using a tuner you won't need the balun, but all tuners are not created equal. many have a minimum reasonance they will tolerate and/or limited to band segments. I have used Icom AT-140 and SSG-230 full range HF tuners with great success.
Feeding with 600 ohm ladder line, you WILL need a counter poise in the form of radials out from the base of the antenna.
More is better. Again, you will need a 9:1 balun for short coax into RX/TX equipment.
Option is a transmatch.
Don't expect optimum performance on 80 meters, 40 should be acceptable and improve going up in frequency.
Cheers.
 

N8RPY

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Did you get this solved??? I have the SAME issue. Bought a Greyline 24 ft. HIGH swr on all bands. Yes I made sure the top pole was the output. Ran the analyzer and found 14230.00 was the best at 1.2 SWR 47 ohms, the rest are terrible! 160 is +10 10 Meter is +10 40 Meter is 4.1. My Yaesu DX10 can't tune it and if I use my MFJ993B, my output on 40 meters is only 7 watts when it tunes it. Contacted Greyline with NO REPLIES to email or phone calls??
 

K7MEM

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This probably won't change anything, but I will describe my 43' ground mounted vertical antenna. I don't live in a HOA and have a large back yard, so I don't worry about hiding anything. You can see the top of the antenna over my roof, but no one seems to be bothered by it. Some of the neighbors have been curious, but that's it.

The antenna is a DXE Thunderbolt. They still offer a Thunderbolt, but it is different than mine. I have it placed in the back yard spaced at least 40' away from everything. If it fell down, it wouldn't touch any structure or anybody else's property. The antenna is mounted on a 4' section of pipe that is pounded into the ground. If I used a concrete base, I probably wouldn't need the four guy ropes. But the guying keeps the movement at a minimum. The antenna is mounted on a Tilt Base for ease in raising and lowering.

At the base of the antenna I have 16 - 32' radials connected to a DXE-RADP-3 radial plate. The radials are "combed" into the grass and sit at ground level, along with the coax (50' - 60' of RG-214). I use a lawn tractor to mow the lawn and never had any issues with the coax or the radials. Both are completely invisible and I just run them over with the mower. In a arial view from Google, you can just barely see the center of the antenna. Also at the base, and feeding the vertical, is a DXE-UN-43 4:1 Balun.

Inside by shack I currently use a old Dentron Jr. manual tuner. I tried using a MFJ-941D manual tuner, but the Dentron had better range. With this setup I can tune any band 40 to 10 Meters. The settings are easily repeatable on the tuner. On 160 and 80 Meters, the tuning isn't so good (SWR 2.6:1) but I don't use those bands anyway. I purchased a remote tuner recently (MFJ-926B), but I am waiting for better weather to install it. That may do better on 160 and 80. If not there are range extenders available from MFJ that can possibly help.

I have looked at the antenna with my NanoVNA H4, but haven't done any real analysis.
 

prcguy

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This probably won't change anything, but I will describe my 43' ground mounted vertical antenna. I don't live in a HOA and have a large back yard, so I don't worry about hiding anything. You can see the top of the antenna over my roof, but no one seems to be bothered by it. Some of the neighbors have been curious, but that's it.

The antenna is a DXE Thunderbolt. They still offer a Thunderbolt, but it is different than mine. I have it placed in the back yard spaced at least 40' away from everything. If it fell down, it wouldn't touch any structure or anybody else's property. The antenna is mounted on a 4' section of pipe that is pounded into the ground. If I used a concrete base, I probably wouldn't need the four guy ropes. But the guying keeps the movement at a minimum. The antenna is mounted on a Tilt Base for ease in raising and lowering.

At the base of the antenna I have 16 - 32' radials connected to a plate. The radials are "combed" into the grass and sit at ground level, along with the coax (50' - 60' of RG-214). I use a lawn tractor to mow the lawn and never had any issues with the coax or the radials. Both are completely invisible and I just run them over with the mower. In a arial view from Google, you can just barely see the center of the antenna. Also at the base, and feeding the vertical, is a DXE-UN-43 4:1 Balun.

Inside by shack I currently use a old Dentron Jr. manual tuner. I tried using a MFJ-941D manual tuner, but the Dentron had better range. With this setup I can tune any band 40 to 10 Meters. The settings are easily repeatable on the tuner. On 160 and 80 Meters, the tuning isn't so good (SWR 2.6:1) but I don't use those bands anyway. I purchased a remote tuner recently (MFJ-926B), but I am waiting for better weather to install it. That may do better on 160 and 80. If not there are range extenders available from MFJ that can possibly help.

I have looked at the antenna with my NanoVNA H4, but haven't done any real analysis.
I have the original DXE 43ft vertical with same radial plate, tilt base and about 30, 32ft radials and ran an LDG auto tuner at the end of 125ft of LMR400 at the radio w/100w max. It worked but not all that great. I then took off the DXE-UN-43 balun and replaced with an SGC-230 auto tuner at the antenna and it finally woke up and really worked great, it was a completely different antenna. I could make lots of contacts on 160m where’re nobody could hear me before.

The other antenna at the same site a ZS6BKW dipole at about 20ft high that used to work much better everywhere now took a backseat on 40 through 17m and 160m. Do yourself a favor and ditch the balun for a tuner at the antenna. BTW, the 43ft is too long for anything above 17m and those bands will suffer with or without a tuner at the base.
 

K7MEM

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Yup, that DXE 43ft vertical sounds like the same antenna that I have. Complete with the tilt base and radial plate. The only thing I don't have yet, is a tuner at the base. I have one, but it isn't installed yet. I will have to try disconnecting the UN-43, when I do install it this spring.

For most hams, how well the antenna works is mostly subjective. If it brings in the signals, and I make some contacts, that's all that matters. At least to me. Plus, I am not a contester or wallpaper chaser. What ever comes along, is good enough for me. I have been a ham for 59 years now and have had lots of different antennas. The only one that I had that, I thought, was really really great, was when I had a TH3-MK3 Triband beam on a 50' crank-up tower.

Another good one was the antenna I used when I lived in Germany (early 80s). There, I was operating as DA2EU (CW only). The antenna feed point was about 10' - 15' away from my operating position, on the balcony of a 2nd story house. It was just a random length of wire that sloped down to a cow fence. With that antenna, I made contacts all over Europe, England, Russia, Asia, Japan, Africa, etc.. I only had a home brew SWR bridge for tuning and I figured my SWR was about 10:1. But I operated anyway and never had a problem. The antenna worked great. Although, I wouldn't recommend that with a solid state rig. I was using a Heathkit HR-1680/HX-1681 pair, that I built.

In my current location, and with the DXE vertical antenna, the noise level is very low (~S1). All utilities are under ground and it is spaced away from anything metallic. The neighbors are far enough away and don't seem to add to the noise. In my unsophisticated opinion, it works great.
 

GlobalNorth

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..Contacted Greyline with NO REPLIES to email or phone calls??

If you have any of their products, consider yourself to be very lucky. They have a notorious reputation in the amateur ranks for taking orders, cashing the payments, and never delivering anything to customers. They do not respond to telephone calls, e-mails, letters, Telexes, Telegrams, and apparently summonses or subpoenas.

You have a few choices. 1. Try to get it to work for you; 2. Ask/pay someone with a competent level of antenna knowledge to help you or to get it running; 3. Rip it down, recycle all possible parts at a scrap yard and eat the losses.

Sorry, but they prey on people's dreams.
 

prcguy

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Yup, that DXE 43ft vertical sounds like the same antenna that I have. Complete with the tilt base and radial plate. The only thing I don't have yet, is a tuner at the base. I have one, but it isn't installed yet. I will have to try disconnecting the UN-43, when I do install it this spring.

For most hams, how well the antenna works is mostly subjective. If it brings in the signals, and I make some contacts, that's all that matters. At least to me. Plus, I am not a contester or wallpaper chaser. What ever comes along, is good enough for me. I have been a ham for 59 years now and have had lots of different antennas. The only one that I had that, I thought, was really really great, was when I had a TH3-MK3 Triband beam on a 50' crank-up tower.

Another good one was the antenna I used when I lived in Germany (early 80s). There, I was operating as DA2EU (CW only). The antenna feed point was about 10' - 15' away from my operating position, on the balcony of a 2nd story house. It was just a random length of wire that sloped down to a cow fence. With that antenna, I made contacts all over Europe, England, Russia, Asia, Japan, Africa, etc.. I only had a home brew SWR bridge for tuning and I figured my SWR was about 10:1. But I operated anyway and never had a problem. The antenna worked great. Although, I wouldn't recommend that with a solid state rig. I was using a Heathkit HR-1680/HX-1681 pair, that I built.

In my current location, and with the DXE vertical antenna, the noise level is very low (~S1). All utilities are under ground and it is spaced away from anything metallic. The neighbors are far enough away and don't seem to add to the noise. In my unsophisticated opinion, it works great.
In my opinion just good enough is not good enough when the antenna has the capability to provide pure delight. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a DX or wallpaper chaser, you spent good money on that antenna and it’s just waiting for you to open the gate and let it run full trot.
 

610

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Just curious if there have been any updates to the high SWR issues? I too have a 28' Greyline antenna with the same issues. I have a MFJ-998RT at the base. I can tune everything from 10 to 80 meters but it takes a bit of time, sometimes 15-20 seconds. If I go QRO with around 500 watts my SWR jumps all over the place at 20m
 
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