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The Endfed antenna is up but with mixed results.
2 October 2019 | by The W1SFR Endfed antenna is up and things went very straight forward with the install. My options for a location a limited so I ended up having to place the antenna in a tree that beside our mini home and then down to the shed about 40 feet or so away. The antenna runs parallel with the mini home along the north side of the mini home. The feed end of the of the antenna is about 25 feet up and mounted to the tree. The far end at the shed the antenna is about 15 feet from the ground. The coax from the antenna to the shack is about 65 feet in total as the Endfed antenna uses the coax as the counterpoise and Steve W1SRF recommends you have at least 25 feet of coax. The time came to flip the switch on my antenna analyzer and see some SWR results:
Band. Freq. SWR
40. 7.0001. 1.9
40. 7.070 2.5
30. 10.100. 4.4
30. 10.150. 4.5
20. 14.001. 4.5
20. 14.070. 4.3
17. 18.068. 1.5
17. 18.168 1.5
21. 21.001. 1.8
21. 21.070. 1.8
I was a bit alarmed by the results so I emailed Steve W1SFR regarding the results from his Endfed antenna. He came back with positive comments saying my results looked very normal. This is the very reason it's said that with the Endfed antennas you need to use a tuner. The next step was to connect the Icom 7610 to the whole mix and see how things worked. This is where Murphy popped his head up to give me grief! I began to transmit on 40 meters and with the power at 40 watts things started to happen around the shack and house! In the shack my PC was not running but the monitor was in sleep mode. All of a sudden the monitor would wakeup from it's sleep, on my PC desktop I have a program that allows me to post notes on the desktop when I transmitted CW I would see random letters being typed on a posted notes on the desktop, my electronic keyer would send dah's and no dits and finally our new electronic washing machine would just shut down. The other band I tried was 20m and when transmitting CW at about 60 watts the PC monitor would wake up from it's sleep but no other issues. I was wondering it it was the RF coming back on the coax or because the Endfed run parallel with the mini home is about 15 feet away from the home?
I contacted Steve again who informed me that it could be RF on the coax as it's a counterpoise. His suggestion was for me to purchase a 1:1 balun and from there see if it solves the issues. Steve suggested it may or may not solve all the issues and I may have to look at other options for unsolved issues. Well I have a decision to make....do I want to start spending more money and go down a road that may lead me to gaining more "stuff" but still not being able to use the antenna. Now I did get some comments from my blog readers who do have and are using with success an Endfed antenna.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
Band. Freq. SWR
40. 7.0001. 1.9
40. 7.070 2.5
30. 10.100. 4.4
30. 10.150. 4.5
20. 14.001. 4.5
20. 14.070. 4.3
17. 18.068. 1.5
17. 18.168 1.5
21. 21.001. 1.8
21. 21.070. 1.8
I was a bit alarmed by the results so I emailed Steve W1SFR regarding the results from his Endfed antenna. He came back with positive comments saying my results looked very normal. This is the very reason it's said that with the Endfed antennas you need to use a tuner. The next step was to connect the Icom 7610 to the whole mix and see how things worked. This is where Murphy popped his head up to give me grief! I began to transmit on 40 meters and with the power at 40 watts things started to happen around the shack and house! In the shack my PC was not running but the monitor was in sleep mode. All of a sudden the monitor would wakeup from it's sleep, on my PC desktop I have a program that allows me to post notes on the desktop when I transmitted CW I would see random letters being typed on a posted notes on the desktop, my electronic keyer would send dah's and no dits and finally our new electronic washing machine would just shut down. The other band I tried was 20m and when transmitting CW at about 60 watts the PC monitor would wake up from it's sleep but no other issues. I was wondering it it was the RF coming back on the coax or because the Endfed run parallel with the mini home is about 15 feet away from the home?
I contacted Steve again who informed me that it could be RF on the coax as it's a counterpoise. His suggestion was for me to purchase a 1:1 balun and from there see if it solves the issues. Steve suggested it may or may not solve all the issues and I may have to look at other options for unsolved issues. Well I have a decision to make....do I want to start spending more money and go down a road that may lead me to gaining more "stuff" but still not being able to use the antenna. Now I did get some comments from my blog readers who do have and are using with success an Endfed antenna.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].
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