End Fed antenna question

[PA5COR]

Yes you can.
A wonderful first antenna is a coax-fed 40 meter inverted vee. If you were to feel really adventurous, you could feed the 40 meter inverted vee with ladder line .

[PA5COR]

Yes you can.
A wonderful first antenna is a coax-fed 40 meter inverted vee. If you were to feel really adventurous, you could feed the 40 meter inverted vee with ladder line and, using a tuner, use it on 40-10 meters.
If fed by coax use a current balun though, better is feeding it with ladder line and tuner.
This antenna will also work FB (“fine business”) on 15 meters as a 3/2 wave dipole. and have gain.

Just make sure that the enclosed angle of your inverted vee is at least 90 degrees. And, although plenty of purists might disagree with me, when you adjust the length of your new inverted vee for minimum SWR, anything less than 2.0:1 is fine at HF. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
The basic inverted V is about as efficient an antenna as you can get. Feed them with coax of the appropriate size and length and work the world.
If you want to get on the bands without tuner and losses use the "cat whisker" version, for every band hang the appropriate lenth dipole 10 inches parallel to the longest dipole fed at the same feedpoint.
That will ( with some pruning) give you very effective resonant dipoles fed with one feedpoint, if you have the 40 meter dipole in forget the 15 meter dipole the 40 meter dipole works as 3/2 dipole anyway.

( Added some stuff I forgot in the former post)

[KJ3N]

Side question: Is a 40m inverted V fed with coax easily used on 30-10m with a tuner?

Simple answer; no. It should load on 40 & 15 without much trouble, but everything else will have an astronomical SWR. With enough coax, you might be able to get the tuner to load the setup, but the losses from the mismatch would mean you'd lose all your power (or most of it) in the coax. Very little would actually get to the antenna and radiate.

Running EZNEC 5, I get the following SWR on the other bands:

30m: 60:1
20m: 97:1
17m: 67:1
12m: 48:1
10m: >100:1

As Cor suggests, running a 40m dipole fed with ladder line (straight to the tuner, if possible) is a much better choice.

[W5BRM]

OK just ordered this:
http://www.gigaparts.com/Product-Lin...FJ-18H050.html
http://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-213udx050
http://www.dxengineering.com/parts/mfj-4600.

Still need to get a tuner and split bead ferrites for the coax. When I get some more $$$, I was thinking the MFJ 969. I was looking at other tuners and this one seems to be the best for the buck. Not sure after reading the eham reviews though. Not sure if the low reviews are genuine or just LETS HATE ON MFJ type of entries. I was also thinking an autotuner but I don't see any that have balanced line ports on them so I don't see that as being an option

Ordered both ladder and coax because I also plan on putting up a 2/440 antenna at some point.

Also bought some ceramic dog bones so I can stop using those plastic tie straps

[KJ3N]

When I get some more $$$, I was thinking the MFJ 969. I was looking at other tuners and this one seems to be the best for the buck. Not sure after reading the eham reviews though. Not sure if the low reviews are genuine or just LETS HATE ON MFJ type of entries.

Most of the low reviews of MFJ tuners (and other products they make) has more to do with the quality of construction, more than anything else. The design of their tuners are fine. Where they "fall down" has more to do with a solder connection not done correctly (sometimes not done at all), or hardware not tightened sufficiently.

A few of the low reviews also have to do with trying to make an MFJ tuner do what it wasn't designed to do in the first place. This is not a problem specific to MFJ. You have morons who insist on trying to load their 80m dipole on 160m (or 40m dipole on 80m, etc), then wonder why a 200-watt tuner starts arcing when they pass 100 watts through it. Hint: most tuners rated for 200-300 watts won't tolerate that either, not just MFJ.

I was also thinking an autotuner but I don't see any that have balanced line ports on them so I don't see that as being an option.

Two options: A) Buy an LDG tuner and get one of their remote baluns (RBA 1:1. or RBA 4:1). B) If the radio is an Icom, look at the AH-4. If a Yaesu, look at the FC-40. Both of these tuners can work with ladder line.

[KG4NEL]

With a good 1:1 current balun, it really doesn't matter what kind of autotuner you use. The trick is getting a good one, because voltages can get scary high (especially if you're running QRO).

Cebik's article on backyard wire antennas is worth the read - http://www.pc5e.nl/downloads/antenne...0antennaes.pdf

[PA5COR]

Make sure you make the connections on the ladderline watertight outside since the ordered ladderline is steel core with copper on it.
The thin copper layer will wear off fast and steel rusts like h*ll.
I use the MFJ 993-B and the legal limit MFJ 998 autotuners.
Both gobble up what I throw at them and do what they need to do tune and forget.
Even accidentally put 600 watts through the already tuned MFJ 993-B ( 300 watts) and it didn't smoke.
Both were opened on receiving them and checked for loose contacs forgotten solderings etc, nothing found.
Both had the same problem though it took 2 weeks for the small lamp lighting the analog meters to pop.
Replaced them and added resistor on the 998 bringing down the voltage to 7 volts on a 12 volt lamp, still works after 24./7 on for 3 years.
The 993-B I replaced the lamp bu 2 white LED's shining through a yellow paper which gives almost incandescent colour on the meters.

The MFJ 993-B has a balanced port internally ( just a balun) and can feed coax or ladderline as you chose.