Author Topic: Starter antenna  (Read 14264 times)

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ghrit

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Starter antenna
« on: June 12, 2013, 09:58:34 AM »
Does anyone have any experience with things like an MFJ 1775?  I'm thinking to put it on a pole around 25 feet up off the ground and about 12 feet off the house. (Convenient to the deck for lateral support and no radials.)  Gotta start somewhere, and if this will work it's a preferred route until I can get something else brewed.
There are two kinds of ships.  Submarines and targets.
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AD

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2013, 10:45:44 AM »
No forst hand use, but eham give it a decent rating http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/5737
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BTPost

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2013, 11:25:33 AM »
Back in the day, there was a 2 element Antenna, similar to this antenna that had a Reflector, as well to make a compact Yagi type antenna. I had one here in Alaska, and it worked Ok on 40 - 10 Meters. Never had a contact on 6 Meters. I would figure it would still be a poor radiator on 2 meters, but almost anything will get you to a repeater on 2 meters. Higher off the ground will serve you better if you can make that happen.
Bruce in alaska AL7AQ

Tevin

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #3 on: June 12, 2013, 06:49:34 PM »
Does anyone have any experience with things like an MFJ 1775?

I can tell you from using similar setups that "all in one" antennas are a lot like a Swiss Army knife: They can do everything sort-of well, but nothing really well. I am always skeptical of any antenna that can cover that much bandwidth. I think you will find that it works great on one or two bands and not so great on the rest.

Still, I am a big fan of MFJ. I own many of their products and have a lot of faith in them. Are you mainly concerned about space restrictions? This antenna should be ok if you are working within a small area; I would not go with it if I had enough room for something bigger.

I have limited space and run 20m & 40m homebrew dipoles in an "L" configuration (think of an inverted V turned sideways). They work awesome! Cost was about $40-$50 each not including coax.

 


spacecase0

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #4 on: June 12, 2013, 07:52:53 PM »
my issue is the thread name,
don't get a "starter antenna"
get what will work,
a "starter antenna" will often be wrong and cost more than the right antenna
what are you limitations with space and money and we can likely figure out what will be ideal

ghrit

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #5 on: June 12, 2013, 10:37:34 PM »
Tevin - The Swiss Army knife is exactly what I'm looking for at this point.  I certainly do NOT expect performance on all bands at best possible matching for tx or rx, want to poke around and learn.  Trying to pick a single band to live with for a while seems a way to get frustrated in a hurry.

Spacecase0 - the limitations are not knowing enough to spend the time and money to put up a mistake that will do (say) 14.355 perfectly and nothing else at all.  I don't think that "starter" must equal "not work".  I'll listen to any positive recommendations that will permit a taste of more than 1 or 2 bands.  I definitely understand the eventual "need" for something specialized for some as yet unknown capability.  Gotta start somewhere, and barring bad reviews that I haven't seen from people I think I can trust  --
« Last Edit: June 13, 2013, 09:03:03 AM by ghrit »
There are two kinds of ships.  Submarines and targets.
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Tevin

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2013, 09:37:35 AM »
I'll listen to any positive recommendations that will permit a taste in more than 1 or 2 bands.  I definitely understand the eventual "need" for something specialized for some as yet unknown capability.  Gotta start somewhere, and barring bad reviews that I haven't seen from people I think I can trust  --

Ok, now I can better see where you are coming from. Here are my positive recommendations:

For less than $100 you can make two dipoles for whatever bands seem interesting to you, then if you lose interest in a band you can reuse the parts to make a different dipole. This has the added benefit of teaching yourself antenna construction. Since you are a new ham, I suggest starting with 20 and 40 meters because they are the most active and will give you plenty of chances to build up your operating experience. If done properly, they should work well across the band. Honestly, the other bands are not nearly as popular, so by going with the MFJ antenna you are in essence giving up good performance on frequencies you do want in order to get so-so functionality on bands that you will likely seldom use anyway. As in my "Swiss Army knife" analogy, it will never give excellent results anywhere as a tradeoff for working sort-of well everywhere.

I'm not trashing the MFJ antenna or trying to talk you out of it, and I know this response does not completely address your concerns, but I want to point out that any dipole that costs $250 should work a lot better than "just ok". I do admit to having a personal bias against all-in-one "DC to daylight" antennas and would not use or recommend them unless physical space limitations ruled out everything else.

If you are comfortable with the MFJ and understand the limitations, then I say go for it. I think you will be satisfied with it until you get experienced enough to gravitate towards a "favorite" band or two that you will want to use all the time.





 

« Last Edit: June 13, 2013, 09:55:44 AM by Tevin »

Rick

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2013, 08:42:40 PM »
I went with the MFJ 1796. I am on the second floor and pushed it up another ten feet. It works quit well with my FT 100 and antenna tuner. I have had it for years.

ghrit

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #8 on: June 15, 2013, 08:33:43 AM »
If you are comfortable with the MFJ and understand the limitations, then I say go for it. I think you will be satisfied with it until you get experienced enough to gravitate towards a "favorite" band or two that you will want to use all the time.
Exactly the goal, thank you.

Rick, I'll have a squint at the 1796 later today.  Probably won't worry a lot about 2M (my h/t hits the repeater) but 6 has an unexplainable attraction for me; cannot tell you why, dunno myself.

Idle side note:  I had been thinking to have something up for field day, but looks to be out of reach from a timing standpoint.  If nothing else, I'm a highly successful procrastinator.  Whatever, I'll be at the local club's setup to see the Elmers and chat them up for other cues and clues.
« Last Edit: June 15, 2013, 08:38:44 AM by ghrit »
There are two kinds of ships.  Submarines and targets.
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ghrit

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #9 on: June 19, 2013, 12:39:01 PM »
Pulled the trigger on the 1775 yesterday.  Fingers crossed that it'll do what needs done, and double crossed that it'll get here and be up and functioning by field day, tho' I have my doubts about that.  Trimming the whiskers is apt to want a meter I don't have ---

Thanx for all the good words, I'll be back for more.
There are two kinds of ships.  Submarines and targets.
KB3ZMF        FN21dy
Amateur Extra Class,  VE
www.survivalmonkey.com

Quiet1

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #10 on: June 19, 2013, 10:31:30 PM »
Please keep us posted, ghrit.  I'm really interested in how this all-rounder performs.
North of the salt, south of I-10.

AD

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #11 on: June 20, 2013, 02:54:22 PM »
Put a call out to local hams to borrow a meter to help you trim. 
The only dumb question is the one that did not get asked!!

ghrit

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #12 on: June 20, 2013, 11:50:32 PM »
Put a call out to local hams to borrow a meter to help you trim.
Headed for the club field location and see if one shows up for the portable setups.

BTW, the antenna showed up this evening via UPS.  There aren't two parts hooked up to each other.  This might take a few minutes just to assemble.  Hope the directions make sense ---
There are two kinds of ships.  Submarines and targets.
KB3ZMF        FN21dy
Amateur Extra Class,  VE
www.survivalmonkey.com

ghrit

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #13 on: July 08, 2013, 09:14:32 AM »
Update, just to let you know I've not forgotten y'all.

-Assembled it.  Some of the parts are rather crudely cut and slightly misaligned, but all goes together as described even if not as straight and square as the pictures show.  (Assembled in the basement to stay out of the rain, of which plenty here recently.  You remember the old joke about building a boat in the basement?  Well, it's a good thing my basement garage door is on grade.) 
-Mounted on a piece of pipe lashed to the deck rail, about 14 ft above the ground, and a dozen feet from the side of the house.  This is temporary, of course, the final location will be some ten feet higher, more or less.

Got things all together and flipped the switch on the ps and xceiver.  Smoke test passed, nothing burned up.

Bear in mind that green isn't really an apt description of my hammism.  If there is a more descriptive term for a no nothing newb, apply it to me NOW.  What follows is heavily colored by that.

First up, play with the xceiver, learn a bit of the knobs and buttons, try to spin the dials and find something to listen to for a bit.  Success!!  Speaks Spanish, but at least the receive works and the coax isn't dangling someplace--.  As expected due to time of day, QRN is very high, a 5 on the meter.  The antenna is supposed to be good for 2, 6, 10, 15, 20, and 40.  My xceiver won't do 2, so the obvious didn't happen.  Eventually over several days, was able to find signals on all the rest of the listed bands, plus on 80 and 160 however unintelligible.  Skipped listening on WARC bands, didn't seem worth the effort.

Transmit testing, well that's part of the learning process, too.  I am not mic shy, had plenty of practice on CB years ago.  Still, I'm unsure of what is going on out there in the world of other bands, other power settings, other modes.  So --

Pushing the auto tune button on all bands got the expected results, off scale and/or out of range everywhere except 20 meters where it came on scale top to bottom without trimming the capacitance whiskers.  Knowing just enough to be dangerous, keyed up and tried calling BTPost several times over the next couple days with no luck.  Also did CQ a couple times with no response.  (Tried several different power settings with the same success.  Also spun the mast from E-W to N-S to see if that made a difference, it didn't.)  It's worth the note that yesterday, got hit with heavy rain.  After the rain quit, I hooked things up and got nowhere.  Even on 20 meters, the SWR was out of range.  I guess the coils on the antenna do not like wetness.

There you have it to date.  Next up, study on the external tuner and see if that will drive things into compliance, even at way reduced efficiency.  At this point, I've not found a borrowable antenna analyzer, but will keep looking.  I have to think that actual tuning of the antenna will be worth the effort.

ETA 7/9:  Did some reading on antenna trimming.  Several sources say to start trimming on the highest freq first on multi-band antennas.  The directions for this antenna tell me to start on the lowest.  Now, I am for sure confuddled and befused.  Perhaps worth the note, the external tuner was able to drive the SWR on 20 meters well down, like under 1.5.  Knowing that is just fooling the transmitter, trimming is yet to be done.  Then the power company called and tells me that there will be interruptions to the power this afternoon, so shut everything down and did housework instead of useful stuff.  Rats.
« Last Edit: July 09, 2013, 12:12:52 PM by ghrit »
There are two kinds of ships.  Submarines and targets.
KB3ZMF        FN21dy
Amateur Extra Class,  VE
www.survivalmonkey.com

ghrit

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Re: Starter antenna
« Reply #14 on: July 17, 2013, 02:35:37 PM »
Experience teaches, so they say, but sometimes the lessons are obscured by irrelevancies.  Spent some time trying to figure this multi band stick full of whiskers out.  The instructions give typical SWR for the out of the box assembly.  Thing is, the frequencies they cite are not usable with my xceiver; they are locked out.  So I bumped the freqs into range (top and bottom of the ranges) and gave the auto tuner its head, then ran the manual tuner and compared the results. 

Out of the box, 40 meters shows low SWR across the band, top to bottom with little loss of power out.  That is exactly opposite of what the O&M said would happen.  Ah iz confuddled.

Out of the box, 20 meters shows SWR less than 1.5 across the band.  Good to go.

Out of the box, 15 meters is also less than 1.5 top to bottom, good to go.

Out of the box, 10 M won't go below 2, and the xceiver seems to be dialing power back.  I think 10 won't be really too awful useful pending trimming.

Out of the box, 6 M is unusable; SWR over 3 and the power is dialed down automatically.

Another miscellaneous observation:  Weather affects SWR.  Did not know that, but harbored a strong suspicion that rain and snow will bollix things up to a fare-thee-well when the coils get wet.
Also, bearing in mind that I'm a Schultz here, none of the above necessarily reflects reality, just my perception of it.  It's probably obvious to you, but the antenna and xceiver can both do things that the other cannot.  Example, the antenna can do 2M, but the xceiver can't.  There are some others in the same category.

Off we go --
There are two kinds of ships.  Submarines and targets.
KB3ZMF        FN21dy
Amateur Extra Class,  VE
www.survivalmonkey.com