EFHW 8010 Antenna ?...

[Oatmeal]

I have a couple of those, both are the 8010hp models, and both is right at a 130ft long, end fed antennas from my antennas, like to no if anyone here is using this antenna, if so how high do you have it off the ground ?....

Reason asking me and a friend of mine is going to try and put one of mine up between 2 trees, both are like 60-70ft tall, never had any wires this high off the ground so should be fun....

 

[w9cll]

I am not running that exact antenna but I have a homemade one similar. They work good but get RF into everything.

 

[Tallman]

That's no lie there. My coax connection to the balun Is at 14' and the wire slopes up to 36'. It has been working like a champ since 2013.

 

[fogdog]

I have been using the exact antenna since Dec 2019 with my Icom 7300.
I know, I know, End Fed antennas are not very highly revered here on this forum, and there are a lot of 7300 haters out there also.
Back to the 8010 EFHF 130' wire from my antennas.
Mine is at 10 feet at the feed point end, slopes up to 30' then back down to 10'.
I have it grounded at the feed point end as the company suggests. Used a 10' ground rod.
The antenna works great. The only RF I get in the shack, is when I use my Heil Pro7 headset with the Heil icom mic cartridge. It distorts the transmission at certain frequncies. No amount of chokes, or ferrites have corrected this. I have talked with both Bob Heil, and my antennas engineers several times. It's still hit or miss.
As far as the antenna performance goes, I think it works well for a wire up in a tree. I make contacts everyday, and usually get real good reports. To be honest, I've only made a few Real DX Contacts, but have nearly every US State so far. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat. Are there better antennas out there?, of course there are, but when I make a contact with a operator who has a beam the size of my house and 200 feet up a tower, and we both give each other a legit 59 report, I feel im the winner in that QSO. I don't have that kind of money to spend on that kind of equipment (wish I did), but im real happy with what I have, and there ain't nobody going to come and tell me my station doesn't work. It works well.
I think at 70 feet up, your your going to be happy. I would be.
I check into the USCG (W5CGC) 14.300 MHz Net every week. Sometimes the net originates from Dallas TX, or the San Diego CA area. Doesn't matter, I'm still in their SSB Log. Im surrounded by mountains up to 6280 ft at the QTH in the East TN Mountain's.

73 DE W4MKC

 

[Oatmeal]

Good morning, I have been using one here in the yard but nothing really high off the ground,highest it has been maybe 30ft if this, mostly just to experiment with, ect.....hung it in a zip zag pattern 1st place I worked with it was France, South Africa, and few countries in South America, only RF issues I had with it hanging there was coming through my computers in the shack, when I was on 20m what I have seen from these antennas they seem to favor the direction the tail is in more than anywhere else, and it tuned well like Danny said it would 10-80m bands using the internal tuner, except for 75m band, but there is a mod for this, I never did try it, and I was ok with needing to use a external tuner for that, in which I haven't been on that portion of the band for awhile........

Down here where we live now, still going to have some power line issues, either have to cross them, or cross the house to get to a tree I can use out in the back yard, which will have to due, really don't want to cross the lines, so may have to go with a sloper.....will make this decision today I guess...

Reason I have one of these to start with is all due to the G5RV I used to use at the ol place was destroyed by a storm and thought Id try one to see how it does, and like the idea the coax connection been on the end instead of in the middle, so far been running one of these about 3 years and has worked very well no higher than I have had it...

I have a friend over in Md who has the same antenna I do and he ran a filter on his, and said it stopped the RF issue he had, I never tried it myself, but will see what I'll need to do after we get it in the air, hoping it does ok and won't need anything done to it...

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Are there better antennas out there?, of course there are, but when I make a contact with a operator who has a beam the size of my house and 200 feet up a tower, and we both give each other a legit 59 report, I feel im the winner in that QSO.
73 DE W4MKC

I understand what you are saying but don't forget that the other stations beam that is as big as a house and 200 feet high is part of the reason he copies you 5/9.

 

[fogdog]

Good morning, I have been using one here in the yard but nothing really high off the ground,highest it has been maybe 30ft if this, mostly just to experiment with, ect.....hung it in a zip zag pattern 1st place I worked with it was France, South Africa, and few countries in South America, only RF issues I had with it hanging there was coming through my computers in the shack, when I was on 20m what I have seen from these antennas they seem to favor the direction the tail is in more than anywhere else, and it tuned well like Danny said it would 10-80m bands using the internal tuner, except for 75m band, but there is a mod for this, I never did try it, and I was ok with needing to use a external tuner for that, in which I haven't been on that portion of the band for awhile........

Down here where we live now, still going to have some power line issues, either have to cross them, or cross the house to get to a tree I can use out in the back yard, which will have to due, really don't want to cross the lines, so may have to go with a sloper.....will make this decision today I guess...

Reason I have one of these to start with is all due to the G5RV I used to use at the ol place was destroyed by a storm and thought Id try one to see how it does, and like the idea the coax connection been on the end instead of in the middle, so far been running one of these about 3 years and has worked very well no higher than I have had it...

I have a friend over in Md who has the same antenna I do and he ran a filter on his, and said it stopped the RF issue he had, I never tried it myself, but will see what I'll need to do after we get it in the air, hoping it does ok and won't need anything done to it...

I'd like to know what filter he used to stop the RF. Good luck on your project.

 

[fogdog]

I understand what you are saying but don't forget that the other stations beam that is as big as a house and 200 feet high is part of the reason he copies you 5/9.

Lol! And this whole time I thought it was my massive power (100 watts) making it happen.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Lol! And this whole time I thought it was my massive power (100 watts) making it happen.

No.....you were saying how good your antenna worked because of the signal reports compared to a BIG gun station were similar. I was merely pointing out what the real equalizer was. Also don't laugh at 100 watts. It is only two S-units down from maximum legal power.

 

[Oatmeal]

Good morning, well we hung it up Sunday and it's up about 50-60ft, between 2 tree's here, the antenna is out away from the tree limbs on both ends, and stretched it across the house to stay away from crossing the power lines....I used about 50ft of RG 213 coax I had here, and ended up needing more coax, so went with 100ft of LMR 400UF I had here to reach the shack, so have roughly 150ft on it now...it didn't look to be this far from the shack, but it was....

So, I made sure there wasn't any tuner inline before hooking the swr meter, and the internal tuner was off, then I hooked the coax up, to the ant and to the radio, checked the swr on different frequencies on each of the bands I am legal to use....

And do have some RFI issues, will be working on this, well this is what I have done so far.....

 

[w9cll]

Also don't laugh at 100 watts. It is only two S-units down from maximum legal power.

100 watts and a wire is all you need.

 

[BJ radionut]

100 watts and a wire is all you need.

Life is TO Short for QRP

 

[Riverman]

Life is TO Short for QRP

Life is too short period.

 

[binrat]

Life is TO Short for QRP

So I guess 45 watts but normally 15 is not worthy. but, height is might. Normally setup on top of a mountain of some sorts.

 

[Riverman]

So I guess 45 watts but normally 15 is not worthy. but, height is might. Normally setup on top of a mountain of some sorts.

Worthy in my book, Malen.

If I ran 1000 watts into a yagi at 100', I'd expect to make the DX contacts I do. But doing so with 10 watts into a homemade vertical 4' off the ground is exciting even if the other guy is doing all the work.
In the end, some like the the Red Sox/Yankees while others prefer Class A minor league games; but it's still baseball. Or in this case, radio.