Coil Wars: How to decide what coil antenna to buy for POTA, SOTA and portable operations 

Thanks, I’ll check that out! Yup! I recently made a linked 1/4-wave vertical wire for 17m and 20m to use with the SOTABEAMS Carbon 6 mast. I should weigh that and compare it to the WRC 17’ telescoping mast.

Thanks, Morten. I had fun with the intro and I’m glad you liked it.

Thanks! It's great to see so many new options out there.

So true. I'll need to do WSPR testing with it when I get a Ham Radio Tube one, LOL. Thanks for checking it out, Mike!

Thanks for watching, Ken. I hope you're able to get that setup working well.

I agree. It seems like some of the new antennas out there are either more polished and/or ruggedly engineered then the traditional Wolf River Coil. I hope to try some new ones in the future and see for myself. Thanks for watching!

You’re right about the SWR sweep/chart. It’s much easier with a G90 or ICOM 7300/705 than a Yaesu or a radio without one. I’ve never used one of the spikes (I’ve used a mirror mount on ground rod, but that’s a little different and affects SWR). I think it’s not so much about efficiency with a spike or tripod as it is the setup. I just flew and bringing a spike thru TSA wouldn’t be an option. Some parks won’t allow spikes in the ground either. Tripods can be a little bulkier and take longer to setup, but they might be a little more sturdy in winds. Everything is a compromise with antennas. That said, if you’re going to use elevated radials, they would need to be a resonant length and a few feet up, but the trade off would be less loss than radials on the ground. You could also try to make it a little more directional with elevated radials. But it becomes a more complicated setup. I hope that helps.

Thanks for watching! There's a lot of options out there and that's a good thing.

Thanks for bringing that up! That's a good point and definitely should be a consideration. I've known about the WRC center loaded coil, but I've never had the opportunity to use that or any other center loaded.

Thanks, I didn’t have the Super Antenna MP1 on my radar. I’ll have to look into that more. Hopefully I can try some of these and do a follow up video.

We won’t know until we try them all! 😂

There are plenty of good reasons to buy an antenna versus making one. For me, time is a major consideration, but I do enjoy making them when I can. I think a coil would be a fun project someday. But I'm sure I'd have a hard time matching the quality of some of these, like Rez or Chameleon, LOL. Thanks for watching!

Some people know nothing about the technical aspect of how or why their equipment works....and they don't care to know. I can't imagine being one of those people, but there are many of them.

Thanks! There's so many options out there now, it's hard to keep track. But more options is always a good thing with antennas.