Thanks Walt for being a great Elmer! With your encouragement I’ve made all sorts of cheap, but effective antennas with speaker wire. All sorts of DX with my G90. Keep up the good with. Thanks again!
Got a G90 arriving in the mail on Wednesday. 2 weeks until I get my license (hopefully). You have been a great help and motivation for me! Keep surfing those airwaves!
You will Love that Radio. If your new to HF, do yourself a favor and do some RU-vid searches on setting up the G90 and its features. There are some really good videos to help you out. I found quite a few that helped me Including Walt’s videos.
Thanks Walt for the great video! I love wire antennas, and have had great success with garden wire. The poles you mentioned are very effective for hf, and a lot of hams have had great success with this very practical technique! 73, and keep up the great work! Mark G7EDZ.
I have been gathering rocks to build up around my mast at the beach. I'm headed to Home Depot after work to get some PVC! LOL! Looks sooooo much easier.
Wish we had sand here. My beaches are so rock, huge pebbles or shallow depth of shingle with rock underneath. Generally stuck with guy lines guy tall antennas or tripod for whips. But I don't mind as it's all great fun. 73 M3KXZ
I'm still waiting for my first email asking how to build antennas for fresh water and forests, LOL. This reminds me I need to get out and play with the TennTennas some more. That was a go-to antenna for me and it's been too long since I used it.
Great Info! I live 10 minutes from the Atlantic City and Brigantine Beaches in Southern NJ. I’ve been accumulating some of your suggested supplies and I’m planning on doing some “Meal Team 6” Beach 🏖️ Exercises with my G90!
I have a favorite spot at US-1148. It's about 1/2 hike so usually, no one is there. I do like my 100 watts though and carry my pack that's 50 plus pounds. Keeps me in shape! I'm at 47 activations from that park now w/ 2,300 plus QSOs. LOL 😅
Thanks Walt for these antennas setups. Got me motivated to do POTa on the beach. Being from Puerto Rico I have beaches all over. Thanks again, hope to catch you someday on radio. 73’ from KP4YAT
thanks walt for all your info. I love your channel and your really full of great info and experiences. Not only that but you also think about Hams outside of the US. so it's great you pointed out stuff you can look for / buy in Europe and Australia. Too many channels sorta ignore the rest of the world but want to have ham contacts with them crazy hehe.
Beaches on the air is a good program for DX. Not huge pile ups but more DX focused. They have a discord channel for spotting. I love working the radio on the beach. I will be down at Pawleys Island SC soon. 73's
What a great video Walt 👍🙂 I have just ordered 2 beach umbrella screw stands to use for E51 holiday DXpedition - we are going to Rarotonga with XYLs and looking forward to working the pileups on CW and SSB - when not snorkeling, etc. The info in your videos has been very helpful, thanks!! 73 de two ZL ops
Hey Walt thank you for a video filled with useful and practical advice! Poles really are our basic weapon for portable operation but finding good suitable ones is difficult in my experience. Good sturdy poles 5-7m long at a reasonable price are rather easy to find, like the Caperlan one from Decathlon. I have the 7m model, paid 20-something euros for it, I like it. But when you need a 10m+ pole, choice is much restricted in my experience. The Chinese brand fishing poles I bought from Ali were all shorter than advertised, sometimes by a large margin (my last purchase supposedly was 13m long, it measures not much over 10m) and they do break easily too. I broke my 10m. OTOH the poles actually made for ham radio like the Dx Commanders or my 12m Spiderbeam are OK but quite heavy, too much for me to stand them up when it's windy, and they're too thick at their base to be inserted into any umbrella stand (beach sand or ground model) I could find. So I have to resort to assemblies using PVC pipe as you do, but it's not as solid, so I have to use guy wires.
I made an antenna using extension cable wire. It worked well with a 4:1 balun. My home base setup is a Yaesu FT-710, 15m of LMR-400 coax, a lightning arrestor, along with a Hy-Gain VA-6160 43' vertical antenna, clamped to a pole 8' long, set 3'in the ground with concrete.
Excellent, concise, incredibly clear discussion of a dynamite antenna installation. I live on the Big Island of Hawaii, and have used nearby beaches to enhance my simple vertical antennas. The ocean really helps boost my qrp signals. Aloha, Russ (KH6JRM).
Short, concise, good info that’s all I need in a video. Another good one Walt. I’m with you on 20 watts or less, I’ll take a 59 or 44 or 33 into Europe or heading west any day just making the trip is enough for me.
I enjoy your videos and often mimic what you do (because your advice is good). I have been in Florida my whole life and have learned to fear the corrosive effects of salt water. At the end of a day of salt water fishing, I wash all of my gear off in fresh water and let it dry. When I watch you put your radials in the salt water it it gives me chills, when I imagine you (or me) rolling those radials up at the end of the day and putting it in a box with your radios and antennas. Do you take any care to get that salt water off your stuff at the end of the day?
Hey Walt great video!!! I have the Kwik Stik but it isn't exactly 17 feet its only 16'7" so in this case what length of a vertical wire antenna should I put on this as a 17.5 or a Rybakov will not fit on this? As always your help and input is always appreciated
Unfortunately no, it’s the salinity of the saltwater that gives it the heightened reaction. You would probably still see a slight difference on the lake but nothing like a true saltwater body.
