Why End Feed Antenna ?

End feed  half-wave Antenna are pretty much smaller than a dipole  and can be mount in a variety of positions, where  as a dipole are  usually strung horizonal. Yes you can mount a dipole vertically, V or inverted V, but typically they are mounted  horizontally and support by both ends.

• In a EFA, you typically require one end secure at the feedline and the other end secured or even left hanging

• End are typically smaller in size than a normal  dipole of the same  band 

• Also these antenna are easier to  erect for a emergency or SHTF event ( smaller and more compact for carry )

• They are compact and lite to carry  and do not require a construction of a ground plane as required by a vertical 

For QRP operations, a EFA is a hard item to beat :)


Here's a few links to help you understand EFA. The 1st link is a must if you want to get the down and dirty


http://www.aa5tb.com/efha.html

http://www.earchi.org/

http://www.parelectronics.com/end-fedz.php



EARC has a few good EFAs that are quite affordable, but none where immediately available , required a tuner or didn't meet my initial needs. I probably will add one to my collection at some later date.

If interested, you can contact  Charles  at  "chanebuth  AT yahoo.com" for more information and availability of the antennaes that they do offer.

73s

Kf3lix

My Radiowavz EFA initial Review

In this review we will look at the   3band  EFA antenna available from  http://www.radiowavz.com. Cost is aprox 99 usd.

It cost more than the trail-friendly EFA that I reviewed earlier,  but it's made of a higher grade of materials and way more durable. You could leave this antenna positioned as a permanent outside installation.

The antenna is made of durable PVC and if I had to guess ( my eyes can't read the wire labels ) it's 14awg black multi-strand wiring. All components seems to properly selected and position and great  thought was used in making this  EFA. The components are also weather-proofed to some degree to ensure reliability.

The antenna boast a simple pvc end-insulators;

Right out the box, I was able to  tune this antenna on 20m and within a SWR of 1.2 @ 14.007mhz with minor adjustments. And without any fear of breakage from pulling, installing or handling.

The antennae will require a S0239 adapter if your gear uses BNC. This is my only complaint that they don't seem to offer multi-interfaces  for this antennae

This EFA is not as small or compact as  the Par Trail-Friendly but it's still lite weight and small. It will fit into a laptop or  grocery bag with ease.

I look forward with many QSO on this antenna assembly in the near future. I even plan on buying another one also.  This EFA can't be compared equally to  Par Trial-friendly due to the construction but for a meer 20usd more, I believe it's a better deal.

•  If you truly need a  carry in the pocket antenna and w/less-weight down to the ounces, than the Trail-Friendly would be a must

•  If you need something of more durable construction , than I would reccomend this radiowavz

Time will tell by the true radiation pattern that exhibits between the 2  units that I have, and the number or QSO and quality of RST reports.


The antenna seems to be of quality, but I had some issues purchasing.

I purchased this gear on sept 6 and it didn't ship till over 2 weeks. After repetitive contacts that went unanswered via email and phone, I had to call the number on my credit card statement  & leave a message.

Even then, they didn't reach out to  me till almost 3 days later and after the UPS track was sent. So it seem like my  order had processing errors.

For now 73s from Malabo E.Guinea, I hope to have some status on my license soon and possible on the air in the next few weeks.

kf3lix
Ken Felix

My LNR End Feed ANT review

In this post, we will look at this trail friendly antenna. It was purchased from universal radio website.

BTW: You save approx $20.00 iirc by using universal radio vrs  directly


This EFA post a standard BNC interface for your feedline

Body construction is plastic and the size of a box of matches

The end insulator is a small plastic solid rod and lite-weight

And a single stainless steel lug supports the antennae single radial

Now the 1st thing that I need to mention, when they say trail friendly; " they mean just that ". This  single wire with matchbox design weighs about the same as a large celluar phone. It's made from a very light weight wire & components and fits into my go-case ( Pelican ) with my rig and key. You could carry this in  the front pocket of a shirt and not even notice it. The whole assembly wrapped up is about the size of a phone or mpeg player. And next to my galaxy mini, the complete system is small, compact and lite.

I had problems right out the box with 3 things;

1: The thing you wound the wire back up was a little big challenging for me. So I just loop it around the plastic rig and velcro tied it. Trying to wrap it back up in the so-called X format was not happening for me. It's quite time consuming to roll the radial backup as-is. So trying to re-create the "X" was a challenge for me & why bother with it.

NOTE:  You can see my velcro orange tie that I'm using in the background for securing the wrapped  EFA


2:  The matchbox body is plastic and maintains a mount hole for suspending. It's place in one of the worst position and right next to the BNC barrel.  This interference, make it extremely challenging with  insert any type of string or cord.

imho: They should have offset this as represented in this diagram;

3: I could never get this antenna SWR down. Yeap I had a hard time tuning on 20m or even 40m. I sure it was me, but SWR was way over 4:1  Reactance was all over the place,  R all over the place and nowhere near 50ohms.  Needless to say, I was frustrated the 3 times I strung this thing up and tried to tune it over the course or 2 days. I will continue to investigate at my current QTH.



What I did notice tho, positioning of this antenna seem to play a big part in the tuning. I found this position was less impacting  and the father the insulator was from the support structure the better

I will most likely get a setup and erected antenna in  this fashion

I have a small palm like bush that I will use to secure the antenna & approx  6ft up in the air. This is the highest that I can achieve. Not ideal,  but it's all that I have to work with at this time.


NOTE: This antenna is not made no-where as strong as the radiowavz. It could easily be snap or broken and should not be permanent fixture.

And lastly, you don't want to apply a lot weight in your support rig. Fishing  Line would be most ideal for supporting this insulator. Remember the material constructions of this unit is less than a 2 packs of cigarettes if I had to guess.

The qrp-rig+key+ant can fix in a pelican 1170 case

73s from kf3lix 

HAM Gear that will be used & getting ready for going active

Here's some snapshot of the gear that I will use.


1st the rig;

And the rig with straight-key

For antennae I'm using either of these 2 End Feeds Antennae

http://www.radiowavz.com/html/end_fed_h_w.html
http://www.lnrprecision.com/endfedz/

note: I will do a initial review on my 1st take on these END-FEED-ANT


For power we will use a 240volt AC-DC power supply that's snatch from an old Juniper firewall that I had.

note:  Due to this country being EU standard, I swapped all of my single 120volt power-supplies to dual 120/240 volts

You will need a US powercord adapter or  locate a EU powercord. The receptacle on the wall is either of the 2 circle-plug or 3 plug fashion

To make things easier on obtaining the license. I laminated my Extra Class FCC license sheet at Fedex-Kinkos

This should make things look more professional and probably less questions from  the local folks at the communication ministry

As a matter of fact, I got lamination crazy,  and did a few other misc cards.

African call sign

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_call_signs_of_Africa

The blue above is E.Guinea, I hope to have a 3C callsign & to operate here on the Island of Bioko  & in the city of Malabo.

Introduction

Hi

In this blog I will post my radio experiences while in W.Africa and my attempts at gaining a 3C ham radio license in the West Africa nation of Equatorial Guinea.

As the name might miss lead some, this country has NO land mass that carries any part of the equator. It's primarily north of the equator or slightly south ( Annobon  Isle ). UTC+1

A 3C license is a pricey license when compared to my  USA/FCC license. At over 240.00 usd, it's very pricey when you compare it to our  meer 18usd for a 10 year FCC license.

A good thing tho;


"this make the number of licensed operators small and exotic. And this location is always a hit within the DX community"


E.Guinea or in my shorthand " EG ";  is in the ITU DX  zone of 47.   Sao Tome, another rare and smaller African country, is also in this same zone.

EG ranks #18 within the 50+ African nations & only due to oil exploration. But it probably have less than 100 license operators if that, and  probably way less active operators if I had to guess.

The government is very restrictive and shy about radio transmissions, And mainly  due to the  past president activities and the recent failed coup d'etat back in 2004 iirc.

After my custom encounter at Malalbo International, I'm very much surprised that my radio was not confiscated, myself beaten and thrown in jail (just kidding on the last parts  ) . 

Out of my  4  baggage containing a laptop, tablet and other electrical devices, only the  ham radio was  scrutnize  . At one point,  the custom official called  it a "tactical radio".  Only after I quickly briefed &  corrected them, but they still poke and pushed buttons on it to make sure it was not alive. When and only after a capitan came over,  did they start to calm down.  I  was given the signal to go ahead & I was on my way out the door.

I was very much relieved when my sponsor shuttled me out of the front doors of the airport, and only after our Toyota Hilux was a few kilometer away from the Airport, did I start feeling safe & relaxed.  At any moment, I was awaiting for a change of heart and feared a few official or Nacional Policia would chasing me down and  confiscating my unit or even that late night knock on  the door at my habitat.

I only could fear the worst;  if I had brought my icom7200 and the attention that thing would have made :)


About me;

I'm a American  Extra-Class license operator, who's  working for a small IT Network/Security consulting group. We are consulting on various projects ranging from ;  DSLbroadband, ITSecurity, GSM/celluar, Wifi and IT-networking.

You can find more about them here;

http://innovatechge.com/

and follow my other life here;

http://socpuppet.blogspot.com/

I mainly operate the  Digital modes ( PSK  / Olivia / MSFK  /Contestia  / RTTY ), but for this trip. I brought my reliable ten-tec 4020 QRP rig. I'm also attempting to conduct a some what of an informal bake-off between a few End-Feed Antennaes.

I will mainly work 20meters, so anybody  that plans to work me,  must be in in the 14.000-14.023mhz range since this is where my Antennaes  are currently tuned at.  I did bring my antennae analyzer ( funny how they didn't even notice that thing at customs, or if they did it was not an eye-catcher   :) )
So maybe I might re-tune one ant to be on 40meters at some later date.

I'm a straight-key operator, but I do have some considered problem copying,  so go slow on me. I plan to spend my 1st year here do nothing but CW, & to get better and more proficient at it.

I will proactively post my  schedule when available, and when my internet  access is working, but most likely I will work the Sat/Sun portions of the week.

Stay tune, & more is to come from kf3lix here in E.Guinea. Soon I hope to say & if I'm lucky; "that I  have a 3C??? callsign" .

For now stay tune and 73s

KF3LIX
Ken Felix