Anyone here using the Par EndFedZ® EF-SWL Antenna? I have two of their amateur radio antennas and they work unbelievably well, so I ordered the EF-SWL to string up inside in my bedroom for nighttime listening. I'm not sure how well it will work indoors, but the antenna has a 5 out 5 rating on eHam.
Par EndFedZ® EF-SWL Antenna
- Thread starter JustLou
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ridgescan
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What's up Lou-I run a PAR here. I shelfed the supplied 45' stranded #18 wire and added instead, a 100' solid bare #12 wire. That 9:1 PAR works really well with a longer wire-I'm very happy with its reception ability.
I've read a few out there who tried it indoors and had a blast with it. Keep us posted on how it works for your station
I've read a few out there who tried it indoors and had a blast with it. Keep us posted on how it works for your station
What's up Lou-I run a PAR here. I shelfed the supplied 45' stranded #18 wire and added instead, a 100' solid bare #12 wire. That 9:1 PAR works really well with a longer wire-I'm very happy with its reception ability.
I've read a few out there who tried it indoors and had a blast with it. Keep us posted on how it works for your station
Will do. I'll have it this week. If it works nearly as well as my EF-17 and EF10/20/40 work, I'll be happy.
I'm feeding a CR1and a R75 w a 45'Par using a Apex SPL-2 splitter with good coax and couldn't be more pleased. Grounded properly and ran under my covered porch and out to a tree. Polarized North/South. (I live in central Texas)
I will run a second one soon as I am about to add another HF rec to my shack. Great product especially for the $$$ and ease of set up.
I will run a second one soon as I am about to add another HF rec to my shack. Great product especially for the $$$ and ease of set up.
I received the antenna, and I'm still experimenting with it. So far, I tired 3 different configurations. First I just strung it up around the perimeter of my bedroom. The results were poor. It worked no better than my indoor slinky antenna. Second, I tried string it up horizontally in my attic. It worked better, but by no means great. 3rd, I strung it out my window to a pole on the side of my house. As expected, this had the best results. When the weather gets better, my play is to replace the 45' wire with around 100', and run it horizontally from my bedroom window, to my backyard. Similar to how I have my other PAR EF antennas running from my radio shack in the back of the house.
Yep, sounds like your on the right track. I ran mine east west for about 6 months and I always felt like it should be better than what it was so I switched to north south (straight line) and noticed at least a 30% positive difference. I read somewhere that the polarity would make a slight difference but it was a big difference on my set up. I am mostly monitoring milcoms and utilities. The New York Volmet though faint was not even a possibility when I was east west. The EAM's from Andrews and Offutt are stronger also. Guess the point is experiment with direction if you got the room.
Good luck with it
Good luck with it
It's working well now as-is. I did notice that it easily overloads and desensitizes my Grundig 750. For awhile I thought the antenna wasn't working very well, so I brought some of my ham gear into the room to test it on them. That's when I realized it was the radio, not the antenna. I got it working good on the 750 now too, but it takes some adjusting of the RF gain and attenuator depending on the signal.
PrimeNumber
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A little late to the party here, but I rigged one in the yard yesterday. The antenna's strung as an inverted L between two trees, ground rod at the matchbox, 50' of 50 ohm coax back to the house, into a Tecsun 660, and usually into the stereo from there.
This replaces a very similar setup I've been using for years, except that the old antenna did not have a matchbox transformer, nor was it grounded out by the feed point. With the matchbox (i.e., without that horrendous mismatch at the end of the longwire), signals are much stronger and more intelligible. Using the 660's scan feature with either antenna gave about the same number of hits, but with the EF-SWL about 4x the number of signals are strong and clean enough to use. So that was worthwhile.
I monkeyed around a little with the grounding options, but in the end there were no discernible differences so posts #2 & #3 are tied to a ground rod at the feed point. Other than some raspy bursts that a noise blanker would take out, the noise level and overall SW reception are nearly on par (hah!) with my Yaesu 450D and its 40/80m dipole. From that I'll conclude that the ground configuration is either right or so close that it doesn't matter.
Twenty four hours in, I've gotten a fair sample of how this antenna performs, and I'm keeping it. Sure, I'd be more of a "real radio guy" if I'd home-brewed the matchbox. But right now I just can't find the time, the project kept sliding, and hey it got done and things are working, working better than ever.
ps: It's a pretty good performer on FM too. I'm getting some of the fringe stations out of New Orleans a good bit better, at least well enough to make listening to their music tolerable. Again, smoothing over that impedance mismatch between the longwire and the feed line fixed the problem.
This replaces a very similar setup I've been using for years, except that the old antenna did not have a matchbox transformer, nor was it grounded out by the feed point. With the matchbox (i.e., without that horrendous mismatch at the end of the longwire), signals are much stronger and more intelligible. Using the 660's scan feature with either antenna gave about the same number of hits, but with the EF-SWL about 4x the number of signals are strong and clean enough to use. So that was worthwhile.
I monkeyed around a little with the grounding options, but in the end there were no discernible differences so posts #2 & #3 are tied to a ground rod at the feed point. Other than some raspy bursts that a noise blanker would take out, the noise level and overall SW reception are nearly on par (hah!) with my Yaesu 450D and its 40/80m dipole. From that I'll conclude that the ground configuration is either right or so close that it doesn't matter.
Twenty four hours in, I've gotten a fair sample of how this antenna performs, and I'm keeping it. Sure, I'd be more of a "real radio guy" if I'd home-brewed the matchbox. But right now I just can't find the time, the project kept sliding, and hey it got done and things are working, working better than ever.
ps: It's a pretty good performer on FM too. I'm getting some of the fringe stations out of New Orleans a good bit better, at least well enough to make listening to their music tolerable. Again, smoothing over that impedance mismatch between the longwire and the feed line fixed the problem.
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majoco
Stirrer
So you basically paid $70-something for a 9:1 un-un and a bit of coax - hmmmm.....
prcguy
Member
PrimeNumber
Member
By the time I research through several designs on the internet, weigh out conflicting design decisions, sort out which core to buy, find a watertight project box,order everything online – no supply places within an hours' drive, pay for $20 of parts plus another $20 in shipping, wait for it all to come in, carve out time from the family over a couple of weekends to build and then weather seal everything... you bet it was worth the $70.
I have other stuff to do in life. Your situation may be very different, and I encourage you to mine your own ferrite if that floats your boat.
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