W4KAZ

EFHW Experiment Part 1
EFHW Experiment Part 2
EFHW Experiment Part 3

UPDATED 2021-04-08
Transformers???

On a whim I decided to wind a transformer using two FT-140-43 cores.  I went with the same 2:1 ratio as the first transformer.  SWR testing using this second version showed that all transformers are not equal.  The SWR readings taken using the new transformer with the antenna wire as it was trimmed with the larger transformer did not have similar results.  It turns out the new transformer would require re-trimming the wire lengths to bring the 40m band into the same SWR curve.  Since I had the 80m coil&tail attached using .250 quick connects, it was easy to add wire.  Doing that allowed bringing 15m and 10m to good matches.  20m also found a sweet spot but only on the 6.5:1 tap.

New Version?

Without re-tuning the wire no good matches were obtainable on 40m.  Instead of making any permanent changes to the working 40m loaded antenna/transformer combo I am making a different wire based on a 30m wire length.  It will include a quick connect to allow the antenna to cover 20m by detaching the section of wire beyond the ~34 foot 20m wire length.  That will provide an antenna capable of 30m/20m/15m/10m.  This may become a simple way to add a permanent 30m antenna in the w4kaz antenna farm. 

Maybe I get ambitious and add a second link to include 17m, just for grins.  Does an easy tune 30m/20m/17m/15m/10m antenna sound good?  One could just as easily add quick links for each band.  Using the antenna as a full wave on the 2nd harmonic provides radiation patterns that might be more useful, but either choice provides a method to cover each band.  The initial lost opportunity cost is the need for the transformer.  For quick and dirty field construction a simple wire dipole or vertical would still be easiest – but mostly monoband, as fan dipoles can sometimes be difficult to tune.

Future ideas

Thinking about trying a different twist on using the FT-140-43 size cores by pasting three of them together for a transformer, and trying the transformers out with 3:1 turns ratios.  I have enough of the FT-140 size on hand to do this but used my last two of the FT-240 size.  My first test antenna seems to be a success, so it just need to be put on the air some to get an idea of how it fits in.  It is always good to have the option available.

20m/30m Constructed and Trimmed

Using the transformer built from a pair of ft-140-43 toroids sandwiched together, an antenna for 20m/10m is now built.  It includes a simple wire tail that can be attached as a link to extend for use on 30m/15m.  It should be a simple matter to prepare a wire for adding 40m use.  With the 40m wire 15m should be use-able with two configurations, either 30m or 40m.  If 15m is open that might add some interesting changes in radiation pattern when switching from a full wave to a 3/2 wave.  May as well add a jumper for 17m too(later-much later). 

TAP Cheat Sheet, 30m/20m/15m/10m

Taps 20m/30m linked EFHW (jumper to attach 30m/15m)

*(j)= jumper attached for 30m/15m

Other ideas and observations

LINKING – Thinking about creating a “linked EFHW” out of curiosity.  If 10m were reliably open I would pursue the idea seriously.  The different patterns of radiation going from 1/2, fullwave, 3/2, 2xfullwave would be fun to work through.

Using taps on the transformer —-After testing with two different tapped transformers, using the taps makes it simple to obtain a good match.  More on the air testing is needed, but at this point trying to obtain good matches using a single transformer ratio seems futile.

Different cores = different wire  With both transformers I found that the length of wire needed was unique to each configuration.  The lesson is to build the transformer and tune the wire to the actual transformer being used.  The ft-240-43 transformer pair would not match the wire cut for the ft-140-43 transformer pair.  Need to build more transformers to see if a pair of identically built transformers(size and number) will both match the same wire.  Best guess is that will work.  But don’t expect transformers with different toroid sizes, or different number of toroids sandwiched together to all work with a set size of wire.  Be prepared to test or trim.

Wire droop not ideal   Pulling the wire as taut as possible not only shifted resonance slightly, but improved the SWR match on every band.

 End Fed Half Wave Experiment – Part 1,  End Fed Half Wave Experiment – Part 2 

The “Tune-up-ening”

The first attempts to tune up the real antenna did not go well.  I found from the trap dipole project attaching the wires beyond the trap was needed to get the higher bands tuned properly.  This worked against me here.  With the high impedance on the end fed I was better off tuning the 40m antenna segment without the coil and 80m tail attached.  Unfortunately, I wasted a lot of time experimenting/snipping before I decided to detach the inner antenna from the coil.

Once taking that step, I found I had probably trimmed too much off.  Tuning for 40m without the coil proved simple enough.  After that the other bands were easier too.  I was also able to re-attach the coil and 80m tail, and find tap settings and tail lengths to allow operation with good matches on 80m and 20m.  With the 20m tails attached 40m operation on the upper edge is possible.  With tails 40m SWR was a bit high on CW segment, although possible with a tuner.  10m seemed unaffected by the coil and tail.  15m provided low SWR only with the coil and tail detached, but SWR of 2:1 up to 3:1 with 80m coil and tail.

Antenna Stuff

The coil as wound measured out to 77.5uh, resonant at 3.85Mhz with 22pf of capacitance.  It is ~63 close-wound turns on a mystery plastic coil form of ~2 inch diameter, wound with 16ga solid insulated wire.  The final wire length in the 40m section is xxft(zz.zm).  The 80m tail is xxft(zz.zzm) in length and the portion for ssb(75m) is xxft(zz.zm).  To make the choices more flexible for POTA or other portable uses, I have a series of jumpers in several key places.

The first of the jumpers is installed near the feed point.  The antenna was trimmed at the feed point for ease-of-access reasons.  Since I ultimately decided I had over-trimmed before detaching the 80m coil&tail, it seemed easier to insert a jumper there.  This will also allow  having an easy method of re-tuning on the fly if it seems necessary in different deployment configurations. 

The next set of jumpers comes at the junction between the 40m antenna and the 80m coil&tail.  There are two more jumpers on the 80m tail itself, positioned to allow choosing between a mid-band SSB section centered at around 3.8Mhz or a CW section centered at about 3.575Mhz.  The lower section will allow use on both CW and in the lower 3.600Mhz SSB segment.

The antenna can be deployed with or without the 80m coil&tail.  I found that the matches in the 40m and higher segments are much with the tail removed/detached. 

All Taps NOT Ideal

As described in previous posts, the transformer brewed up for this project has multiple taps, not the fashionable 49:1 single solution.  It turned out having the choices of taps gave better SWR matches than any single tap.  In fact, only one of the taps worked well for the 15m/10m bands, the lowest impedance 4.5:1 tap.  For 40m and 80m, the 8.5:1 tap proved the best choice.  20m SWR curves favored the 7.5:1 tap, although the 6.5:1 tap proved useful with the 80m cw configuration.  When configured for 80m CW the 6.5:1 tap provides better than a 1.5:1 SWR across all of 20m.  

TAP Cheat Sheet

Taps 40m and up, bare wire,  NO 80m coil&tail

Taps with 80m SSB section

Taps with 80m CW section

 Test Deploy

All tuning was done with the antenna strung up using two Jackite telescoping poles as supports.  A 31 footer is used for the vertical portion, and the feed point is at about 4 feet off the ground.  The horizontal runs out about 40 feet to the second mast, a 28 footer.  The second mast supports the weight of the wire and the loading coil, probably the heaviest portion of the antenna if used.   I ran a 7 foot long counterpoise wire, and a six foot long coax jumper angles down to ground level from the feedpoint to the first choke, eight turns of coax wound on a ft-240-31 ferrite(another 6 foot jumper for that). 

The short section of straight coax jumper will likely be a second counterpoise for the antenna.  The first choke plugs into a second choke constructed of 10 turns of a 14ga wire pair wound on a second ft-240-31 ferrite and mounted in an enclosure.  From the chokes a fifty foot long lmr 240 feedline is attached, and all testing was done at the end of the feedline.  That simulates the most likely portable deployment.

FWIW, SWR results did not change when the fifty foot section of coax was removed.  Will be a curiosity to find out if altering the shape of the deployed antenna changes SWR. 

Additionally, I toyed around with inserting pieces of wire as jumpers to lengthen the 40m section.  These jumpers are inserted close to the feedpoint on the vertical section.  I inserted them to try to improve 40m SWR when the 80m loading coil&tail were linked in, as 40m SWR was too high for CW operation without tuner with tail attached.  This turns out to be a useful compromise solution.  It will allow using either 40m or 80m without adjustment, and 20m/10m can be used with tap change.  15m is the odd man out in this configuration, but could maybe be used with a tuner.

Stress Test Awaiting

Following are some key down stress tests to gauge how well the RBN can hear and to see if there will be any heating in the ferrite cores when at 100w levels.  Perhaps a POTA operation would be better.   No “SWR creep” was found when I did 60 second key down tests on the dead bands at 1800Z.  Both extreme ends were tested at 60 second key down, 80m and 10m.  Then a series of test transmissions that consisted of three repetitions of the test string: “V V V TEST W4KAZ W4KAZ W4KAZ V V V”. 

RBN Spots from 40m EFHW at 1800Z on 2021-03-11

The RBN spots from 1800Z show decent results, not too dissimilar from what I am accustomed to seeing from the permanent wire dipole antennas.  The test antenna is deployed in a much-less-than-ideal location.  The test EFHW horizontal section is running parallel to the horizontal tail of my permanent 160m inverted L, and it is only about 20 feet away.  So I’m not too concerned with the locations of spotting stations.  I expect to try a POTA activation soon, which will maybe be more interesting.

RBN Spots from 40m EFHW at 2345Z on 2021-03-11 

Likewise the above set of RBN tests run later, near to and just after local sunset  @2330Z, show fairly typical results. 

RBN Spots from 40m EFHW at 2345Z on 2021-03-11   *

I expected 80m results to be poor but they were maybe better than my low expectations.  Nothing great, but certainly good enough for an easy to deploy portable antenna.  Better to have some 80m capability than zero capability. 

Next Question:  What happens if I use a different transformer?

see part4   EFHW Experiment – Part 4

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