A birdy dropped a message this morning that the EARC-HI antennas are back in stock and ready to ship. The demand there for a while was beyond the means of production, but they’re caught up.
This is my go-to for an inexpensive, easily modifiable, rapidly deployable, effective antenna. Check out my review, then consider picking up one.
You’ll be glad you did.
Could this be modified with a longer wire for use on 80m?
Yes.
The wire is attached to a ring terminal that you can replace for whichever wire you need.
Ordered it on 25 October, arrived here on 29 October. Looks solid. Haven’t hooked it up yet
Would the wire just be cut the same length as a half wave 80m dipole?
You’d need to put it on an antenna analyzer for sure, but the 1/4 wave resonant length (1/2 of a dipole) should do the trick.
I should add that there’s a second terminal to hook up a counterpoise to the balun, so you can also turn it into a conventional or Off-center-fed dipole if you want.
One of those questions to which I should probably already know the answer:
For HF, does polarization of the antenna matter? In other words if I run this up vertically into a tree, would that make communication on HF (e.g., 40 meters, 20 meters, 18 meters) difficult with someone else who is using a horizontally oriented dipole? What about 10 meters USB if the other party has a horizontally oriented dipole?
It does matter, but it’s not black and white on HF. To keep it from getting confusing, over longer distances (beyond line of sight) you may see a certain Db difference but not nearly as drastic as what you would on VHF or UHF.
HF polarization has much more to do with takeoff angles for desired skip effects. A vertical with several ground radials gives a low angle, so you’ll get the max distance but large skip zones especially on 10m.
Mine is ordered and on its way…
Gonna connect up to tj2b, z-100+ tuner and give it a go..
Also, my Alinco too…
Thanks BB for all you do.
Mine arrived today. I will try to get it in the air this coming weekend, pulled up diagonally (semi-sloping) from my ground rod/lightening arrestor set-up over to a big maple tree with a rope I’ve got over top the highest branches, about 75 feet up there. I guess what I will do is use 25 feet of coax, a 50 foot radiator wire (probably 10 gauge wire, but maybe 12, depends how much 10 I’ve got around) and then I am thinking I need a counterpoise because my coax will be shorter by about 25 feet than my radiator. Will probably go with 30 feet or thereabouts of 12 gauge wire for the counterpoise, dangling down. One of my two big dipoles came down in a wind storm a week or two ago and I’ve got to wait for leaf-off to use my pneumatic fishing sinker shooter thingie to get a rope up over that part of the tree that supports the end that came down. Just one more reason to have this matchbox antenna to serve as a back-up. the dipole that came down is about total length 135 feet, and the one that’s still up there is about 190 feet, so when everything is deployed in the sky I should have some good options. I like to NOT use my best antenna when I’m on the air (except to occasionally check to make sure it is still loads up and tunes OK and gets out OK) because I want to get used to working with less than perfect and then when it really counts go for the gold with the best antenna.