Does antenna orientation make any difference? 

Hi Steve, I hope you are well. I really enjoy your videos, so thank you for the time and effort you put into publishing them. I found your tests very interesting. I am only a HAM of a few years and maybe use the radio on HF a few times a month. My first HF antenna was a ZS6BKW in an inverted V configuration, probably about 9 meters or 30 ft at the centre above the house and about 3 meters or 10 ft at the ends. Looking down on the antenna from the sky the legs were not perfectly 180 degrees, probably more like 160 degrees. Roughly in a South East / North East orientation from my QTH near County Durham in the North East of England. This antenna worked fantastic and seemed to favour a South East pattern. I know that my QTH in the UK means I hit a lot of stations in Europe and there is mostly ocean in the East and North East from me. But I felt like north Africa, and Portugal are always a struggle compared to stations in Russia or Serbia. I wanted to get on 80m and set up an 80m EFHW. This is about 7m up a tree and then about 32m sloping down in a North East direction to a height of about 5m. While this antenna is also working very well and I seem to get more bands, I feel the performance on some of the bands like 40m and 20m is much worse than the ZS6BKW. Interestingly, I felt the radiation and reception pattern seems very similar with both antennas. But the EFHW is more susceptible to interference, and not as goof as receiving. I also feel I could easily break into a pile up on the ZS6BKW using 20 Watts against some Italian stations using maybe 1KW. I did have both wire antennas up at the same time, but was experimenting with my 2m / 70cm VHF / UHF antenna setup. I had the ZS6BKW attached to that mast and it was awkward to remove it with its ladder line and legs every time I wanted to make mast adjustments. I have the VHF / UHF antenna sorted now so may put the ZS6BKW back up soon as it is such a good antenna. But as I am not as active on the radio as I would like to be due to work and life, so its not urgent and the EFHW works very well. I am 90% morse code anyways on HF and 100% SSTV on 2m so its not like I need the most efficient antenna systems for these modes, especially CW. I think your comments on factoring all the things like the time between the tests are very interesting as its a difficult measurement to consider when you think about the band and propagation conditions. Also time of day is a factor. I always think about the stories I heard as a kid about the electricity grid taking strain and seeing a spike in consumption when the adverts for the most popular soap opera comes on in the evenings. So what you said got me thinking. It would be interesting to know from your test, what other factors such as a TV program came on 2 hours after your first test for example, which could mean you received less stations at that time because people went out the shack and did something else. Or maybe even the population of active HAMs in the middle and West of the country is less. I would also think it would be interesting to know how much aeroplane scatter is playing a factor in the tests. You just have to look at Flightradar24 to see how much reflective metal is in the sky. Thank you for the great video, so interesting as this kind of thing is the essence of our hobby which is to experiment and try different setups as the results are stimulating and thought provoking. Best 73s de David, M0XLS

Hello Steve I have a Palomar Engineering Bullet 50:450 (9:1) HF Unun, 200 KHz-30 MHz, 500 Watts, End Fed Antennas 135' wire. Antenna starts at the SW at 35' to NW at 45'. Farthest contact in SSB Phone is Russia, Italy, Mariana Islands, Canada, Brazil, Spain, & Australia. Using FT-991A w/ a MFJ-993B Auto Tuner and a 150' DX Engineering RG-8X PL-259 Low-Loss 50-ohm Coax Cable Assemblies DXE-8XDX150. Been lucky on this set up based on my QTH. FT8 get farther out and all over the map. Japan dominates FT8 in my location beats the # of QSO on Domestic Stations.

Great information for my next POTA outing.

Actually, I'm not sure the issue doesn't have as much to do with "Ham density" in different parts of the country than just the antennas themselves. I spend most of the year in South Texas and summers in Northern Lower Michigan. I use fan dipoles, OCF dipoles, EFHWs and I have a DX Commander in each location and I get roughly the same results you do in both Texas and Michigan when I run WSPR. The Michigan antennas are on 80 acres in a low noise area, a minimum of 50 feet from the house, usually on long wires at 46 or 50 feet up and in Texas where I have much less space to work my single long wire antenna is at about 43 feet although I'm very close to salt water. And in Texas, I'm in small city and noise is an issue and that isn't great particularly for verticals. But at the end of the day, I suspect there are a whole lot more HAMs in the Midwest, East and Southeast than in the West (excluding California and that's whole different discussion because of mountains). I don't have a problem with POTA QSOs, or QSOs in general, in those Western states but there just not as many to be had.

Nice video! Love this kind of real-world, real conditions, data video stuff. 👍 Nice as a comparison for others to see. ⚡📻

There's a lot of population density to be considered in your plot as well. I found it particularly interesting that neither the RX or TX patterns really changed significantly with your antennas orientation. I've found WSPR more effective in measuring the subtleties your looking to demonstrate. My experience has shown global population densities vs true antenna pattern are easier to feel out at any given moment of propagation on the planet providing some classic graphical patterns of antenna performance and thus full understanding.

Aw Cool.. my first computer was a VIC 20! I found an "introduction to basic - Part 1" tape for it just recently, I think that's probably all we have left of it.

This is great stuff for "Just a newbie"

You are on a roll. I am learning so much from your videos so big thank you for that. I am using a dipole about 15 feet up. I've tried Flat, inverted V and vertical with it. I am running 20 watts and I can't really get any contacts within the US. I am in Eastern Nebraska and most of the FT-8 contacts that I get are extreme south. Mainly into Brazil, Chile Ecuador etc. Not alot into the US. I think I'm going to lower my height and see if I can get more of a vertical take off and hopefully get some US contacts. I have yet to get a single contact north of my location. Ive tried orientating North to South and East to West with the same results. I did go vertical and I got into Hawaii but I think I will lower the height and see what that does tomorrow. Thank you for the insight and I will update my results. 73 my friend

Great idea. Nice comparison and well presented.

Really informative for this new ham. Thank you.

Very cool video, thanks for putting this together. Did you ever find out more why you didnt see more contacts from the west coast?

Thanks... getting ready to setup the ARRL EFHW and trying to figure out the deployment. Wanting to go from NC coast to Europe as a start

HF is so up and down! The next say you could have made it to the west consistently. I have a difficult time heading East with only 10 Watts usually with an inverted V EFHW. Great video!

what band are you using? In Montana 10w on 40m is regional and 20 gets 800 to 2000 miles. I haven't tested various ants and configurations simultaneously, but band selection tends to be more critical than antenna for distance. Your test inspires me to test more.

My 80m-10m EFHW is running E-W, Goes vertical to 40 ft, then across the yard to a tree about 50 to 55 feet. Propagation using WSPR really acts a lot like a vertical, with the exception that I don't see much to the west beyond the US. I might eventually try running the antenna in a N-S orientation to determine how that does, but overall I'm pretty happy with everything.

great video. it was nice to see the difference. I would like to see next how a resonant wire vs non resonant wire affects reception. You wouldn't need to mess with baluns etc if it was a single wire and receive only, we know how resonance affects transmissions.

I like experiments like this. Great video!

Interesting tests, to be more conclusive you would need to also consider which frequency you are on, especially time of day, grey line etc. On My EFHW tuned for 80m which runs from my QTH West to East 20 feet high rising to 40 feet and sloping away to about 15 feet in the East. On 20m at 1000z FT8 30watts in S England, most of Europe to the East up to Russia heard and worked. Same settings at 1300z I start to hear and work US off the back of the EFHW to the West. Also further out to the East, into Asia and if conditions are good VK on both short and long path in the afternoon. Almost nothing from Africa and the South apart from Spain, Italy. If I change frequency to 18.100Mhz at 1400z and conditions are good, contacts from both E and W including US and South America until Evening when conditions change after Sunset, usually best to QSY to 40m and 80m and similar contacts to those of daylight hours. Also interesting to setup WSPR and do tests with better results on each HF frequency. It makes all the difference on a EFHW. G4PEY

For your inverted Vee does the Grid tracker show DX if it happens...without zooming out?

Thanks Steve all good info.

Question: I live near the shore of Lake Erie. Is it reasonable to assume that I can get pretty good US coverage, maybe excluding west coast, on 40 meters running it sloped north to south?

I have an off center MJF in an inverted V around 25-35 feet off the ground north to south. From SE WI I heard and talked to IL, OH, CA, TX, NY, FL...so just about touching the continental US. For international, Canada, UK, France, Canary Island, PR, Italy...from memory. Mostly between 20 and 40 meters. Happy given my limited space and under 100w of power. I hear stations going over 1,000w and they hear me just as fine from me pushing 50-100w. I had a vertical, thought it would be great for limited space and it just picked up noise and I could hardly reach out far. I may build a dedicated 20 and 40 meter from spare parts to hear if there's a big difference with a tuned antenna.

Being new to Portable operation I was really looking forward to this video. However I seem to miss several items. Where you are located. Why you change the orientation from north south to East West and then the directional orientation on the sloper. Would have loved to hear a commentary on each different configuration, and your thoughts on them! Thanks Brett

Were the NVIS, inverted V and the sloper all a east west configuration? Learned a lot from this. Thank you for the great videos.

Interesting. What about inverted L? I wonder whether the orientation of your coax has any influence on the radiation pattern, since the shield forms a counterpoise. I've been attempting some HF packet radio, without much success, and I wonder whether my main problem is that I'm located in Utah and the packet nodes in CA and CO might be in my skip zone. Maybe I'd be better off with an NVIS antenna instead of the 1/4 wave whip I've been using.

I am in South Dakota, my antenna is a end fed random wire about 53' long 18 ' above ground, 4' above house. Its orientation is East/ West fed at the West end. I have about the same 40 meter pattern as you. de N9TDE

Very good presentation.

From my location, just east of Los Angeles, I find a particular cone of silence and transmit centered on Colombia. This occurs regardless of propagation, transmit power, etc. I am running an EFHW in the inverted L configuration oriented east-west. Have you considered the issue is geographical? I've come to believe my cone of silence is in line with some of the mountains surrounding the Los Angeles area.

A Commodore 64 in the back, you the boss! 😂

I'm in oregon and ran a Radio wavez double bazoka 10m dipole as an inverted V with the feed point about 16-20 ft off the ground. I could regularly hit the Caroline's, Tennessee & Georgia... nothing in my own state really though. California and Washington was about the closest.

I finally settled on a G5RV Jr set up in an inverted V with the center at 14 feet off the ground and the ends down to about 3 feet off the ground. I was able to get the WAC award over the first weekend of using that antenna at 100 watts so I can get DX on it, but it is also close enough to the ground that I get local on-island and within state contacts for our morning HF net here in Hawaii. 14 feet high at the center is giving me the best of both worlds with this antenna.

I’m going to activate Fort Frederica, Georgia in august. Using a G90 with EFHW XTenna I hope to get more DX and finally get Vermont for WAS. I live in San Diego an am going to FLETC for some schooling. Wish me luck!

I have a question may seem kind of dumb. But I really don't know the answer. What is the best size coax cable when you're doing mobile I guess it's called?

I have an end fed strung from the transformer to end @20 ft to a tree to the north and the remainder attached to a fence. It's 66+/-. Oriented from the south going north. My pattern is either Texas or South America, without fail. I don't have the space to orient EW so I slope it from roof level to a horizontal L to the fence again. No real change in pattern. It does matter what band I am on though!

What map software are you using ?

Interesting findings TO! Time to pull out the CAHR EFHW and test a config with 40' running up the pole vertically, and the remainder at an angle tethered to the ground and see what that yields. 73 - KF6IF

Hi, an extremely useful and practical analysis of different antenna types, I’d like to try to do something similar, can you let me know what software you used to plot received WSJT reception, 73

You can clearly see where the NVIS hops are. It creates a wave beginning from your location and the first bounce back to earth is the first wave, then it bounces back to the ionosphere and back again. The more power and concentrated signal the more bounces. All of your antennas tested would reach much further with every few feet you raise them. About 1 wavelength above the ground is great for working the world but many people cannot attain 65ft for the entire antenna.

Yes it does, vertical, horizontal, vertizontil… yes it matters..,

Nicely done TO

NVIS is there a minimum height above the ground. For HF. 40 mts

What was the orientation of the slooper antenna?

My thoughts on your pattern out to the east could be influenced by the water running down the east side of the USA, De VK3HJW

NVIS are good for in-state QSO Party contests.

WSPR would be a better, and run a few test over 24hrs...FT8, most are not running low power, folks are running a few hundred watts, where are the WSPR folks are a bit more disciplined 5w, 10W, 100W etc. Just a thought. For DX, elevated vertical is the way to go, 40M elevated vertical (6ft from the ground) with two or more elevated radials, I can work VK, NZ and Asia, simple and cheap antenna on a 12M pole. Ground radials, I wouldn't have the patience or time in putting them down. I don't do NVIS, as not interest in Inter EI/EU contacts...

Wouldn't an inverted L give you better results as you have the vertical and horizontal parts???

I have a few comments. When you said the wire was configured north or south or east and west I think you meant that was the way the wire was running. To be clear I usually add that the wire is broadside N/S or E/W so there is no confusion. However with a low half wave antenna it really makes no difference as there is probably no directivity to speak of at that height. As you get closer to half-wave high you then will notice a null forming off the end. The nulls will be much sharper and are what you will notice. On 10 meters my dipoles are high ( in terms of wavelength) and have deep nulls while the pattern between the 3 dB points is quite broad. I use three dipoles on a switch for the 10 meter contest and get dramatic results when switching them! My 40 meter dipole at only 55 feet seems almost omni directive by comparison. Regarding NVIS, as long as you are below the critical frequency, whatever goes straight up will come back down, but that is not to say you will not be heard out to 1000 miles or more. There will be no skip zone. Any horizontal antenna at say a quarter wave high will have its peak radiation angle straight up. However the 3 dB point angle is still going radiate a quite significant signal and will cover a good distance. The vertical should have a good null straight up and and normally be significantly down close in to the antenna. The low inverted V will be very similar to any low horizontal antenna. I would expect no directivity if it’s low and increasing directivity as it’s raised. A sloping half-wave wire tends to skew the broadside pattern a little toward the low end. Again this is noticed more and more as the antenna height increases. It is very difficult to notice 3 dB of difference but 6 dB being an S unit can be detected if conditions are fairly stable. I once tested a horizontal wire, 70 foot vertical and a mobile antenna on 40 meters over about an 8 hour period listening to CHU Canada time signals just above 40 meters. Depending on the time each antenna was clearly the best!

Of course it does!

Where is your location inrelation to the map I am lost based of ur location It would clarify alot

Thoughts?? before this video I have nuthin". I'll get back to you after I watch it.

A lot of uncontrolled variables in your analysis, especially with propagation. As someone else pointed out the density of stations is much higher in the eastern half of the country. I think you should throw in another test for comparison: repeat with the antenna horizontally at 60-75 ft elevation. (My 50+ years of hamming have taught me one thing about hf wire antennas: The more wire you can string together and the higher you can hang it, the better your signal will be.)

Where are you? Really helps knowing the start position

How is the sloper oriented? E W or N S

"the entire state of Wisconsin " great break down!!!!

Your maps look a lot like population density maps of North America, I suspect your signal is going west just fine, there are just less people to receive.

Think about population centers. East and SE are more populated and closer.

You mention FT8 but sounds more like you are referencing SSB. 15 meters, 20 watts, FT8 from DM65, QSOs from Tasmania, Antarctica, Madagascar, Australia, Kenya, .... mornings, and evenings. Heck, I get your ranges on 6 meters and Chile and Argentina on 10 meters .... (all via DX Commander). Best SSB on 30 watts, 15 meters --- Ireland. You need to get away from trees and move to the desert.

A c64 on the shelf?

Why are you wearing headphones? Who is nevis?

What are you saying?

Did you ever figure out the problem to the west?

"Does antenna orientation make any difference?" Yes. Female antennas behave differently than male antennas such as MFJ's "Big Stick". Oh, not that kind of orientation 🙂

It's not pronounced NVIS. It's pronounced NVIS!

This was not good at all, too many issue to address. Also, inverted Vee IS NVIS🤦🏾‍♂️

I have been a ham since 1992 and never heard of a “Nevvis” style antenna before. It wasn’t until you explained the antenna that I figured out that you meant NVIS “Near Vertical Incident Skywave”.

Propagation is everything. This is my transmit from my 66ft EFHW N-S Inverted-V, on my X6100 running 10W on 40m in San Antonio (done 15 min ago): i.imgur.com/l2tObpI.jpeg

This could have been a great video. Unfortunately you didn't stick to a constant direction of the elements and you didn't keep as many variables the same. Changing all those variables makes a comparison as useful giving a bicycle to a fish. Shame 🫠