I ended up buying the Wolf River right after watching this video. Today I set up and activated a Park here in KY, and Walt hunted me. That made my day. Thanks for the videos and thanks for actually being a hamtuber that uses his radio! 73 N4RIK
Hey just wanted to let you know that I really enjoy your videos. I just got my gen licence and your videos on antenna builds have been some of the best I've seen. You take all of the "word salad" speak on this subject away and get right to the results. Keep it up! I appreciate it.
FYI: WRC has a Platinum 1000 now that will handle those higher wattages with no issues. It is insulated with a higher temp material with the same tuning characteristics of the regular 1000. I prefer the WRC as they are US based and the customer service is rated excellent if/when you should have any issues. Either way, lots of good info here. 73 😉
There are so many options for coil antennas now and that's a good thing! There's something for everyone, no matter what your budget or operating style.
You talked about using a coil when the antenna is “short” or shorter than 1/4 wave. I am sure you know but lots of guys don’t seem to realize that you can resonate with L or C depending on the length. Shorter than 1/4 can be obviously be resonated with a coil. Longer than 1/4 but shorter than 1/2 wave you can resonate with capacitor. Longer than 1/2 but shorter than 3/4 can again be resonated with a coil. Longer than a 3/4 but shorter than one wave, resonate with a capacitor. Every time a wire goes through resonance (1/4,1/2,3/4,1 etc) the reactance flips from capacitive to inductive or vice versa. Sometimes using a series capacitor can be an easy way to resonate an antenna. I do that with my Inverted L that is a good bit longer than 1/4 wavelength.
I used to have a 19" rack mount antenna tuner which had an SWR meter and a trio of controls... There was one multi-position switch for selecting a coarse tuning coil, one multi-position switch for selecting taps on a fine tuning coil, and a big beautiful variable capacitor.
A friend had motor tuned coil antennas in his mobiles. They worked fantastic once tuned. Once you stopped on a frequency it was good to mark the point on the coil case with a pencil because the tuning was really narrow, but if you stopped on the line you were right on. With the tuning perfect and a 500 watt linear at high altitude, I was told the tips would emit a nice ball of corona.
Hey Walt, Thank you again. You've answered about 5 questions for me that I thought of after we chatted about the telescoping antennas. Always solid info. 👍
I only discovered loading coils two weeks ago. In 41 years I have never used one, other than in prebuilt mobile HF antennas. But the fan dipole in my attic (cut for 17m,12m and 10m) wouldn't tune on 10m and 12m so I decided to try and get 20m on it. I made two loading coils for the ends of the 10m section on carboard tubes and added 30cm of wire after the coil. There is an online calculator for working out the size and it was pretty accurate. I had to add a small amount of wire between the coil and the original dipole, but as its indoors there are no waterproofing issues. It really does work. Bandwidth is not too compromised and I worked from Scotland to Texas about ten minutes ago. I wanted it for CQWW this weekend!
I have used the JPC/PAC 12 for nearly every POTA activation that I have done. I also take a 5.2M whip with it and have compared the whip to the loading coil on 20 meters. The standalone whip is much easier to initially tune but once you have the coil setup it is just as easy. One of my videos from a couple weeks ago shows that whip setup getting over to Europe from a park on 10 watts on the X6100. For the cost they are a great antenna. I have also compared it to a 20 meter dipole with similar results. The dipole is super simple when it comes to setup but the nice thing about the PAC 12 is that you will always have ground under that you can likely stick something in where you will not always have trees to hang a dipole from. I have a video coming out on a tripod I built for it soon.
Good stuff as always, Walt! I use the Wolf River Coils SB 1000 too. I've recently added the magic carpet (two 25' steel screens). I also bought a second collar for mine and have it already tuned for 40m so when I want to switch bands all I have to do is move the jumper. What can I say, I'm lazy! 🤣
Overseas shipping is usually not that bad. It never hurts to shop around. Back during the pandemic I bought an amp from Thomann over in Germany because nobody here in the states had one. I had it in 3 days and even with shipping it ended up being cheaper than going through Sweetwater or the like. I have the WRC sporty 40 and their 17ft whip. Both very solid. It's hard to go wrong with WRC.
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES Sweetwater is great. I tend to patronize an outfit out of jersey more often if I have to go outside my local shop, but I've never had a bad experience with Sweetwater.
You can also 3D print one of these and with some electric fence wire and a few other parts make your own. I recently did that. I have not had a chance to try it yet but your video has inspired me to try it this weekend.
Hi Walt, I use a variety of different whips with the slide winder including the 17ft mfj telescopic whip in moderat breezy conditions as well with no real problems the coil hasn't snapped yet😁 , with the 17ft whip you can tune down to 60 meters, thanks for the video.
@@COASTALWAVESWIRESjust a follow up Walt I also have the jpc12 and the chelegance mc-750 both fantastic antenna's and I have made the heavy duty adapter's to convert from M10 to 3/8 24 unf so I could experiment with different loading coils and the slide winder works well with the jpc12 and expands it down to 60 meters as well haven't had the time to test it out on the mc-750 yet, also have the mfj-63 coil wich should take both antenna's down to 80 meters, going to build a coil for the mc-750 for top band just for a laugh 😁.
Great video as usual Walt. After watching your first Slide Winder vid, I purchased the M1ECC Slide Winder and really like it. Mine is the darker emerald-green, which perfectly matches the green of the inexpensive folding "mil-whip" that I previously purchased on Amazon. Since the international shipping is a bit high, I decided to make it worthwhile by purchasing the full slide winder ground spike and six section screw together whip. I really like that the multi-section screw-together whip is easily scalable by leaving off an upper section or two, and that the bottom two sections are both threaded 3/8-24 so you can raise the loading coil up by either one or two segments for mid loading. Like Walt, I have found that combining the sidewinder coil with my existing compact 6 section folding mil-whip makes for a super convenient combo - but I would add that it's nice to ALSO pack it up with at least the bottom two M1ECC screw-together antenna sections, because with this hybrid kit, the 6 section mil-whip can be used by itself for a super quick deployment, or combined with the lower two screw-together sections to raise the loading coil to a mid-loading height for more convenient tuning and higher radiating efficiency on 20, 30, and 40 meters 👍
@@COASTALWAVESWIRES Most people in the UK of around my age grew up at school learning both imperial & Metric, As the Metric system came to the UK When we joined the EU in the early 70's
Really good assessment Walt. As you rightly said, it's not really fair to compare them as they are designed for different use cases. The M1ECC is designed to be small + light to carry & support small whips for lightweight portable operations (SOTA, POTA etc) while the Wolf River is designed to be more sturdy and support bigger whips for larger field day operations (such as club field days where you don't have to carry the equipment very far from the car & want to set up larger antennas). I have to confess that I've never got my hands on the Wolf River coil but have used the Slidewinder a lot for SOTA. Great to go in the backpack with the spike, some radials & a whip. Really quick to set up & easy to carry up a mountain. It's a bit short for 40m & being vertically polarised when working NVIS (which the majority of SOTA contacts on 40m in this region are) isn't ideal. Having said that, I think it's absolutely ideal for the majority of SOTA summits near me. It's become my go to antenna for SOTA & is probably my most used portable antenna. The only big problem comes if the ground is rocky & you can't get the spike in the ground!
Very good break down Walt. With all the variety of portable verticals out there, I think a person really needs to think about their use and the bands they want before buying any vertical. Both of the coils you showed are excellent. I also use a Buddistick. I think they perform a little better due to less ground loss using an elevated radial (s) (on the BP, it's actually the second half of the antenna, forming a "L" shaped dipole). Near salt water, I'd use the ground radials in the water. I stay away from the the Chameleon due to a pretty big loss in signal strength output due to the 5 to 1 transformer. I'd rather spend a few minutes tuning vs. being two to three "S" units down from a resonate vertical. 80 meters...Every coil portable vertical is very weak. Just physics. That said, contacts can be made. Very high "Q" on 80. In any case, I've had great contacts with the portable verticals I've used. All are a compromise, but will get you in many log books. 73 Walt !
Great video. I use a 7 section military man pack whip for use with a homemade coil. For frequencies higher than about 14MHz I just fold a section down and it’s no trouble.
I roll with wolf river sb1000 on the truck with a 78” ss whip on a heavy duty cb spring (good over 100mph and offroad). Always just QRP w/705. Can tune from 10m-80m. Also have a mini, a ranger 80 and slidewinder. The wrc is by far my fav. Found an odd thing, that yields the best swr’s for my truck. Essentially 8 wire radials a few feet long, like a horses tail, just laying on the truck bed, beats any other setup (on my half aluminum truck). Sometimes I just click the collar between the bands (to a “random” length) on the coil and run with the ah705 tuner. All fun stuff to tinker with.
@@grahamauld8894 yes, aluminium, I’ve starting to say it that way at times, lol. There’s some radio voodoo that exists with my truck (newer fore ranger). It just took loads of trial and error to get it sorted. I will say, the wrc provides the most consistent, lowest and most spot-on repeatable performance. The other two wouldn’t yield as low swr #’s. Likely due to the lack of ability to fine tune as precisely with the slidewinder, but the ranger 80, as beautifully built as it is, just always had notably higher swr, sadly in every configuration attempted. It could be maybe reactance with the aluminium kayak rack, but the wrc handles it fine somehow. I had almost given up at one point, then stumbled upon the unconventional grounding method that made it all happy.
Brilliant summary of those two choices. My conclusion? Buy both. The 3/8-24 v M10 issue is big here in the UK where we went metric years ago which is a complete PITA as all the best stuff has the USA thread.
I'm late to this video, but where can I get that mag mount for my Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet Mini? Love your videos. Thanks! EDIT: Found it at DX Engineering. Have a good one, Walt!
Nice overview Walt. I haven’t tried the Sidewinder or Wolf River products yet, but the Sidewinder is in my Christmas list now. I do use the PAC-12 /JPC-12 that you mentioned. I love its simplicity, portability and compactness. And it performs extremely well with my G90. I don’t mind the metric fasteners. (But ya gotta be careful and check the ground spike if you travel by air! I had my spike confiscated by TSA. What was I thinking?!) Looking forward to your take on it. Coil antennas of course have been around forever. I had a HyGain 18V when I was a young teenager going on vacations with my parents. It worked well once it was set up but was much more of a pain to build with the aluminum tubes and hose clamps. And the coil tap was a pain to adjust. Todays manpack whips and telescoping whips are fantastic for travel. On my bucket list when I find some time is to play with phasing of two (or three) simple verticals for directionality. For an HOA resident, it is a much more stealthy way to beam a signal than with a yagi, delta loop or quad. Thanks for the video. 😊Interesting as usual. 73 K8YX
I have a buddistick and I want a wolf river coil! Going to different locations the buddistick coil has to be adjusted and that takes way longer than a simple sliding coil would. I'd prolly make a frankensten buddistick pro with a wolf river coil mini... or throw the wolf river coil on a ground spike I make with connections for 8 ground radials.... Lots to do! And It's coming into the season where I love getting outside!
I think the best of both worlds (and im going to try it soon) is to have the Silver Bullet and replace that clicky PVC part with that clamp which I already found in Lowes for pennies, waiting to add a terminal and test it soon. Then I will have up to 80 meters with a nice slider because I really hate that clicky PVC slider from WRC
I discovered that a Stainless “hose clamp” replaces the collar on the WRC to make tuning S M O O T H ! Easy conversion that is just as easily reversed. It’s a game changer as the WRC often requires two hands to make fine adjustments. The SS clamp eliminates the hassle.
I just got the MFJ 1899, hadn't watched this one yet. I have not yet tried it, but I'm interested in hearing how you mounted it on the pizza pan (I think that's what it is?) and your counterpoise which appears to be alligator clips on the side of the pan. Is that a mag-mount with a BNC connector built into it? Thanks, de KA8VLW, Ken, Michigan
Hi Ken, I did a video on it about 2 years ago. It was one of my first videos and I cringe watching it but here's a link, I go over everything in it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GDkMU8iG9gA.htmlsi=hz5Uca8Ti748F4yl All the best and 73, Walt
Great video. I am using a Clansman Prc 320 manpack British army radio. what I am trying to achieve is a shorter Antenna that can be more user friendly for a hill race that requires 35lbs plus to carry and I would like to send voice or Morse over a good distance. The 2.5 meter whip antenna and spring fitting moves too much and could potentially hit other racers. I would like to know if there is an alternative shorter antenna that could work on Hf 320 2 to 29.999mhz . many thanks J
Thanks! Take a look at the Buddipole Long Telescopic Whip. It’s lightweight and pretty stout. You could adjust the height down to suit: www.buddipole.com/lotewh.html
Love my WRC …. Activated a park yesterday am on 40M with 1.2 SWR. Do you know of a ground spike that will work well with the WRC that is more cost effective than their $50 version? I would leave the JPC12 in the box….. pretty frustrating product…I sent mine back.
Good question but you would need a way of matching the impedance of a 5/8 to the 50 ohm coax. So the answer is yes and no, you could do it if you added an inline transformer (unun) and then tuned it but to be honest that would be a pain
