Neat set up. A few weeks ago I homebrewed a 71 ft random wire with a 9:1 unun I built. I also laid down about a dozen radials and it tunes from 160 to 10. I've made a lot of contacts with it... especially on 17 and 12 meters. I'm a CW op - de KE7LOY.
Full wave loop for me ! All i have ever used not even a so239 just strip coax back and twist on 243 feet of black 14 gauge stranded ! I have been a ham for 28 years and it is all I have ever used. I’ve gone through two of them one to manual tuner and one to An LDG 100. If I can hear them they will here me ! Nice and simple and cheap KE4TDG. 73. Shrink Wrap Ends. : ))
Nice setup. Last summer I was it a [ let's try something new mood ]. So, I ran 280 feet of 10g stranded wire [ EF ] from 15ft high to 70ft high using two pullies. Not sure what 280 was going to do but whatever. lol. Bingo across the bands.
Yeah I want to play around with the length of wire attached to this one as well. I got plenty room to make it much longer. Sometimes you just get lucky!
I have the same one, you needed to do with this. I made my own I think the problem with this one is the two wires which would be considered primary the not twisted together they should be twisted. The one I made I twisted the two together and I'm almost flat on the upper part of the 75 m band all the way to the 17 m band. Mine is just not a box on the side that I don't know what I'll do it
Thanks for posting this, it gave me some ideas as I'm working on my own antenna setup at present. I'm guessing this was half wave for 160 metres as you mention 230ft?
Is it possible to build a balun for an EFHW antenna without a ferrite core or feed that kind of antenna without a balun? I've tried a Zepp Antenna without success since I don't have an antenna tuner, just an old FT840. Thanks!
To my knowledge all the ones I've seen are built very similar to the one in this video. Hopefully someone will see your question here and be able to reply with more information. Thanks for watching and 73...
Hope this answers your questions. The manufacture "Balun Designs" includes a modified ring connector that you can attach your own wire to. You and easily make another one if you have spare ring terminals. You just cut a small piece of the ring out so it will slip over the shaft of the bolt.
What kind of core material is that? 43.... 31.... or 2 mix? fairly sure that isn't #2 mix because all the cores of that mix seem to be painted red.. yours is green.
To me it looks like a PC 40 toroid, a low band MnZn toroid up to 2 MHz. A transformer with a lot of loss at 80-10 MHz, I wouldn't even use a mix 31 for that!
Seems to do a pretty good job. I think it holds the tension of the wire best if the wire is not pulling on the lug at a angle. Mine is, and in the summer heat it seemed to want to bow the plastic box. I have intentions of moving my transformer mounting location which would correct this.
Not sure if this answer will be helpful but.... I had previously used a 9:1 and it was very noisy, tried a ugly Balun which helped a little. Talked to the guys at Balun Design and they said that was a known issue with 9:1 / so they suggested I go with a 49:1 since I also had plenty room to extend a longer wire.
watch the difference between "end feds" as they are not all the same... a quarter wave whip is also "end fed" but doesn't need any matching un:un at all. An end fed HALF wave (or multiple thereof) is high Z in (a couple of thousand ohms) so needs the 49:1 (49 x 50 ohms around 2500 ohms). Note a half wave on 7MHz is two half waves on 14MHz and three half waves on 21 so can work on all these bands with the same 49:1 un:un. The 9:1 transformers are used on other lengths of end-fed (or off centre fed) antennas.
Short answer..9:1 is for RANDOM length end fed...49:1 (or even 64:1) is for HALF WAVE end fed. Half wave not being random at all but measured out specifically. 9:1 being a random length, both still fed from just one end! (of course there is more to it but this is the short answer)
A 9:1 is for a random length wire. The wire should not be a length that is resonant on any band. A manual tuner must be used. The impedance at the feed point is about 2,000 ohms. A 49:1 is for a resonant half wave wire. You cut the wire a half wave length long for the lowest band. Approx. 130 ft for 80. It will be resonant from 80-10. You may need help on the WARC bands but the internal tuner should take care of that. The impedance at the feed point is approx. 5,000 ohms.
I like it a lot. I can achieve a low SWR on many HF bands with it. I'm currently waiting for cooler weather to tweak the wire length. A little tweaking and I think I can get it working even better. Thanks for the reply!
There is a facebook group called “End Fed Half Wave Antennas” also search for “Steve Ellington” on RU-vid. He has a lot of great videos showing construction of this type of antenna.
