[Elecraft] Miniature self-supporting HF antennas

[Rick M0LEP]

The one I got bitten by was the one reviewed here: 

  http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/1378

It isn't too bad for the top end of HF when most of the adjusting coil 
is not involved, but performance drops off dramatically once more than 
about a third of the adjustable coil is exposed. If you've got 100 watts 
(or more) to drive it with then I guess you might get somewhere with it, 
but with the KX3 it might as well have been a dummy load on 40 metres, 
never mind with the add-on coils for the lower end of HF.

On Mon 20 Jul David Gilbert wrote:
> In general, properly built coils aren't nearly as bad as you say they 
> are.  It is possible to build coils with a Q of several hundred, and if 
> you do the math you'll see that the resulting loss is essentially 
> trivial.  It all depends on the rest of the antenna, and yes, a very 
> short antenna with a crummy coil in the wrong place is going to suck.  
> But some of the best antennas on the market right now use coil loading 
> very effectively.

-- 
73, Rick, M0LEP   (KX3 #3281)