[Elecraft] Advice on First HF Antenna

[Jim Brown]

On Mon,12/7/2015 2:13 PM, CRAIG SCHROEDER wrote:
> I am pretty new ham and a brand new KX3/PX3 owner excited to try my hand at DX'ing!  If you were buying your first HF base antenna, primarily looking for performance on 20 and 40 meters, what would you recommend?

Real hams don't BUY antennas, we BUILD them. Antennas are the most 
important part of any station, and until you get into a tri-band beam, 
it is easy to build better than you can buy, and for a tiny fraction of 
the cost.

First, BUY a copy of the ARRL Handbook and the ARRL Antenna Book. STUDY 
(not quick read, but STUDY) these books so that you understand how 
antennas work. Next, STUDY the resources at your real estate -- what's 
available to support one or more wires up in the air?  If the answer is 
nothing, then consider buying a multi-band vertical. Suggestions about 
that later.

If you can support only one point, use it to support one or two "fan" 
dipoles. Build one fan for 80 and 40M, and hang the center from the very 
top of your single support. If you have two supports widely spaced 
enough, hang it between them. Build a second fan dipole for 20, 15 and 
10M. On these bands, 30-40 ft is a good height. Feed these antennas with 
50 ohm coax. If the feedline will be much longer than about 100 ft, use 
RG8 to minimize feedline losses.

If you're limited to a vertical, go with the biggest Cushcraft R-series 
you can afford, and try to mount it on your roof. HF verticals work 
better up in the air than on the ground. Again, feed it with 50 ohm 
coax, use the bigger RG8 if the feedline is very long.

There are lots of practical tutorials about how to build antennas on my 
website. k9yc.com/publish.htm  Start with the slide show and the short 
written piece about Antennas For Limited Space.

For portable QRP use -- start with plain ordinary insulated wire. #18 - 
#22 is a good size. Unroll a length close to a quarter wave, toss it 
into a tree, using string or rope to hold it up. Unroll a second length 
close to a quarter wave and connect it to the chassis of the KX3. Much 
cheaper and works far better than so-called QRP antennas that you buy. 
If there are no trees around where you plan to operate, buy one of the 
telescoping fiberglass poles designed to hold wire antennas and tape the 
wire to it that you would have tossed into a tree. Connect the second 
wire to the chassis. There's a photo of me on my qrz.com page doing 
exactly this about 12 years ago at a county park near Chicago. The rig 
is a K2.

73, Jim K9YC


> Also, what do you suggest as a high performance field antenna for QRP?