Replies

If ya have the scratch for a decent tower and a nice multiband beam you'll be good to go for DX on 40 & up. Elevation isn't a big factor at HF, radiation angle is the key. A vertical mounted on the ground against a good radial system will have a low angle and work DX. Full size dipoles high enough off the ground to NOT work against it will have a low angle of radiation and work DX. Beams (basically dipoles working through and against directing and reflecting companion dipoles) high off the ground will have a low angle plus gain and really work DX.

Everything is a compromise of sorts though in real life, there will be an issue be it high cost, difficult maintenance, and narrow bandwidth for your tower and beam, not enough room for your full size 80M dipole (actually you ought to be able to fit one). Narrow bandwidth and difficulty in achieving that perfect ground for your vertical, and so on. But some kind of metal in the air will almost always get you something so it's a matter of degree.

The Scotch in me really likes to mess with wire antennas because they are cheap and simple. I put up a "full size" G5RV multiband dipole which is 103' long overall plus a approx. 30' long 450 ohm ladder line feed section that hangs from the center. With a tuner it will work on any band 80M and up. I have it mounted inverted vee style with the apex 30' off the ground and the ends about 10'. That's obviously somewhat lower than ideal but it has worked great on 80M, 40M, and really great on 20M (it's true design frequency). Hasn't been enough openings above 20M yet to see what it'll do there but most of the guys that have them use them on the big three mentioned above quite successfully.

They are a love/hate thing though because that 450 ohm feed section does actually radiate as part of the antenna and some guys automatically think it's wrong to have radiating feedline. But that's the design and because of that it's especially important that all of the feed section be kept off the ground and away from metal for it to work right. A couple of other tricks help too that are actually easier to do than explain in this space.

My next antenna project is going to be a a 40M NVIS (near vertical incident skywave) antenna. It's an interesting design because it's mounted at a specific close distance to the ground on purpose, to work against the ground and have a high radiation angle. The idea is to eliminate most of the DX (especially broadcast stations and the noise that comes along with them) and reliably work closer stations out to 300 miles or so without interference from the foreign broadcasts or most of the noise. To me that sounds like a great tactical design (and it is, coming from WWII German forces and Vietnam era US forces).

I have seen you talk about that EF-40 before, so it sounds like you're good to go on 40. Heck you don't even need a tuner (but should get one anyway). I don't know what the magic is in it but it sure reviews great. I'm gonna have to find out if something like that will work in NVIS configuration, because I envision some interesting ways to package it. And it looks like it's Scotch cheap too.

So really you need a rig and a ticket and you're ready to go. Lots of good, basic 100W solid state rigs vintage 15-20 years are going fairly cheap on Ebay. I was shopping not long ago because my FT747 was giving me fits. But I finally located a factory installed booger of solder on the filter unit that was concealing a bubble of air that was causing my intermittent loss of RX. Touched it with the iron and it dropped to the solder pad where it belonged and it has been no trouble since. Seems they just throw together some of that lower priced stuff and as a result they need some fixing from time to time. But we are talking hobby grade stuff. So I shouldn't complain. The old Yaesu is close to 20 years old and that's the only trouble it has given me. The frustration was making so many attempts to find the problem before finally finding it.

Also I bash around R/C nitro monster trucks and they cost about as much as a cheap HF rig, and they NEVER work right out of the box.