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Just installed a 72' end fed and have a few questions.

Low_Boy

Low_Boy

Sr. Member
Jan 21, 2010
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Rochester N.Y.
Wow. purchased this Maple Leaf Studio Qso-King antenna over 2 years ago and just got it up. It is 72' long and is installed as a sloper 10' to about 30'. Are these the numbers I should expect. SWR's pretty bad on 40 Mtr. I tried this with a 20' counterpoise. No ground rod yet I do not want to do that if I can expect worse swr. This wire antenna thing is a bit new to me. Also forgot to mention I used 50' of good quality RG8X coax and a 9.1 balen un.

40 Mtr. 5.5 went up to 5.8 with 20' counterpoise.
20 Mtr. 7.3 went down with counterpoise 5.7 to 5.3
17 Mtr. 2.8 to 2.9 went up to 3.2 with counterpoise
15 Mtr. about the same with counterpoise. 2.9
12 Mtr 3.1 went down with counterpoise 2.6
10 Mtr 2.6 went down to 2.0 with counterpoise
11 Mtr. about the same with counterpoise 3.3 3.4 with.
6 Mtr. bet1.4 and 2.3
2 Mtr. 4.2 to 4.0
160 Mtr 4.2 to 4
80 Mtr 2.2 to 2.0
160 Mtr NO GOOD.
 
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Are you sure you have it connected properly? The insulator for the long wire is necessary. I'll go upstairs to my shack and I will test those bands and see what I get. Do you have an auto tuner in your radio?
 
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I have a autotuner and a MFJ 986. I have made a couple contacts on 80 meter in the same state but about 400 or 500 miles away and one in PA. The tuner does not have to tune much on that band.
Maple Leaf studios is no longer around. Neither is my friend that I used to ask these questions of.
 
Low_Boy said:
I have a autotuner and a MFJ 986. I have made a couple contacts on 80 meter in the same state but about 400 or 500 miles away and one in PA. The tuner does not have to tune much on that band.
Maple Leaf studios is no longer around. Neither is my friend that I used to ask these questions of.
Click to expand...
Do you have a 50 ohm resistive load? Hook your radio up to it and do the auto tune on each band. Some times they get so far out of whack it won't tune in or it takes a long time. I bought a Kenwood TS440 from one of the ham fest near by and was told it was broken because it could not tune in the antenna. I did the above process and that fixed it. Still have not taken the covers of because it is working fine.
 
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Low Boy:
Well you did add the 50ft of coax as suggested. This where EF antennas I differ in theory.
"No Ground or counterpoise required"! This is exactly why this type of antenna requires 50 ft. or more of coax, it's part of the antenna!.
Ok enough there.
Have you tried adding additional counterpoise wires? A couple more, say 33 ft. and 62 ft and check status again.
You also said a 9:1 balun? is this and additional balun or the one supplied when purchased?
Maybe I am confused, (that happens a lot)
The 72ft version is going to be tough to get to work on 160m since it is barely an 1/8th wave long, but that is where the external tuner will be required to bring this in range.
Does seem strange that the MFJ-959 won't bring the antenna in usable range.
Do you have a good ground on the tuner? How far is the ground rod from tuner/ size of wire?
All the Best
Gary
 
I think I am confusing everybody. LOL. My tuners will tune this antenna just wondering if these numbers sound correct this is going by my mfj 259b before I even tried tuning. I am only running the factory 9:1 unun. I can try adding more counterpoise. I have not did anything so far just what was mentioned in posting. Actually the radios internal tuner will tune this.
 
I never checked the swr on my endfed because a tuner is required for most bands, so I didn't bother. If you are wanting to use a counterpoise then you don't want to ground the unun. You can ground it if you are going to use the coax as the counterpoise. Don't lay your counterpoise on the ground or you will have to add many more to make a radial field. Run your counterpoise 180 or 90 degrees to the antenna. A 20' counterpoise is pretty short for 80 and lower. That is pretty much all of my knowledge on the subject.
 

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