While the efficiency as a radiator of a half wave end fed wire is relatively unaffected by the "ground" return, some sort of "ground" is needed to keep the whole rig from floating up to the RF potential at the end of the antenna. Often a hunk of wire roughly 1/4 wave long thrown on the ground is adequate.
I too have had excellent results with them. 73 Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- From: Elecraft [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Fred Jensen Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2016 12:57 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Small QRP antenna The Summits On The Air crowd, at least one of whom "runs" up mountains, has had very good luck with end-fed half-waves. The transformer weighs next to nothing, and the rest is just wire. Requires no counterpoise, very ground insensitive since it's fed at a voltage node. Also because of that, you need no coax, just an adapter between rig and transformer. The higher you can get the middle [current node] the better, but it will work very well with just about any elevation on the far end. For 40, it's about 67 ft of wire, and is a full-wave on 20 and will work well there. My KX1, when I still had it, had no problem finding a match. My HOA-Stealth here at home is an 80-10 EFHW strung about 6 ft high along the top of a wooden fence. Works surprisingly well. Fred K6DGW Sparks NV DM09dn Washoe County --Northern California Contest Club --CU in the Cal QSO Party --7-8 Oct 2017 ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected] ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
