Erecting the MyAntennas.com EFHW-8010 End-fed Half Wave Antenna and Initial Testing (#295)

This is a great introduction to the end-fed thank you. I use a half-wave end-fed 40 to 10 and it does work extremely well, I have now bought the 80-meter coil to connect to the end.

Haha...no such thing as tampering with my OWN gear...the nerve of some companies is hysterical...if I was...I don't know renting it or just borrowing the antenna on some kind of deranged subscription Ma Bell lease...then sure....but if I want to inspect your work...then I expect to be able to use a common tool to open it up...like a screwdriver or a torx/allen wrench...but if there is some B.S. garbage that is supposed to keep me from opening it up....then you can keep it...and I'll give my money to a respectable competitor! Great video as usual, Dave! 73

KK6LOP, Chris from Kingman, AZ, U.S. I got my license about 7 years ago and I put up an End Fed Half Wave from My Antennas dot com as it was the only hf antenna I could afford at the time. Currently it has one point attached to the highest point on my house top and the other end 10 Feet above a rocky knoll in my back yard so that it's maybe 10 feet higher than the house top end. In between there's about 35 feet to the ground, so it's very much lower than would be ideal according to everything I've been told and yet I've been able to easily contact other hams 2500 miles away and also only 200 miles away but behind a couple of mountain ranges on 100 watts with a Kenwood TS-450 and an MFJ-945 antenna matching unit. I've made pretty much the same contacts with my new ICOM 7300. My best contact so far was from my home in Arizona to a person in Northern British Columbia, maybe 2200 to 2400 miles away. From my experience above I'd have to say, if asked, that the End Fed Halfwave Dipole is an excellent antenna. Mine is the My Antennas dot com EFHW-8010 which as it implies works on 80 and works on 10 and it works on all the bands in between. I haven't folded mine over or cut any off and my radio seems to be just fine with it. I'll hook up my manual tuner and see what happens though. Your video has given me something to think about. If I had it to do over again I'd do the same thing.

As usual, so well done and informative. Thank you.

You make very good presentation materials to show what you are trying to illustrate. Most You Tubers don't come close to the effort you put into what you show.

Nice video. I've had this antenna for 4 yrs. I worked 110 countries on FT8 in about 6 weeks, not trying hard. Pulls in Australia, Japan, etc, from the east coast. I have mine in an inverted L, with the bottom leg at about 70 degrees to clear vegetation, the balun box 5 ft from the ground. Grounded with a rod and using 4 radials - reduces noise. Main length is up 20-25 ft. My SWR is quite a bit better than those shown in the video. I have the same analyzer. The antenna must be cut for min SWR @ 3.55 MHz, according to the designer. I did that, and the SWR there is 1.2:1, rather than 1.6:1 as in the video. Below 3:1 on all the other bands except 30m. At 10.655 it is only 1.15 to 1. At the high end of 30m it is 3.1:1. I folded 6 inches of wire back at the end. I don't think its wise to have such a large amount of wire folded over the end, my opinion is that this contributed somehow to higher SWR values. This wire tends to stretch, so I had to cut even more off anyway. This is a great antenna folks, super easy to put up. Just use a good choke as these antennas are prone to common mode current. Slightly noisier than my 40m doublet, maybe one S unit. I am not intending to be critical, I love your videos Dave and I enjoyed this one. Just wanted to share my experience.

Thanks, Dave. I have an EFHW I'm waiting on an MFJ Window coax bulkhead to put up. I'm encouraged by your results.

Thanks!

I have the EFHW-8010-2K in an inverted L with the transformer on a wooden post 3 feet off the ground (and grounded to an 8' copper ground rod), then going up to a three limb about 30 feet up (and a slight angle, maybe 10 feet forward, then pretty much horizontal for 100 feet. SWR for 10M is about 2.6,:1 12M is about 1.5:1, 15M is about 1.8:1, 17M is about 2.9:1, 20M is about 1.04:1, 30M is about 1.8:1, 40M is about 1.46:1, 80M is about 2.2:1. 60M is 8.7:1 but with an antenna tuner it works. I haven't really cut any wire off yet, just threw it up there and it seemed good enough for most bands (especially 20M and 40M). Others have mentioned Steve Ellington, and if you go check out his page, he has a video on how to, with a relay and some radials, you can actually turn the EFHW-8010 into a 9 band antenna without a tuner ... including 160M and 6M.

Interesting. I have the Mfj version, for 2 years now, and love it. What’s interesting is that I have low swr across all of 80 meters and the same coverage on 10.

Love mine. Up over two years and I've only had to retune it once, for wire stretch. I learned a lesson about not stretching it too tight.

Ive been running a Chameleon Emcomm III with fairly good success. Good ground system, grounded arrestor for coax, choke at Feedpoint, inverted L configuration with the vertical at approx 24’, and then run my RX audio through a Heil Parametric EQ to keep noise floor down. It has been a good antenna for coast to coast from Oklahoma using 95 watts. Getting ready to raise it to 32’ vertical

Good video as usual. I noticed you have the end insulator on backwards. This insulator is designed so that the end of the rope loop passes through the end of the wire loop. The idea is that even if the insulator breaks, the antenna won't come down.

I got the one set for 75m. Keep it rolled on a cable roll. Start with 50’ coax, then the antenna wire, then 50’ of black 550 cord, then 50’ green 550. Keep it with a wrist rocket I modified to hold a fishing reel to throw a medium sized lead weight over a 50’ tree. First setup was in glacier park and made qso’s on 75, 40 and 20. 5/9 to California through an FT-991 pushing 100 watts.

Thanks, Dave. I've purchased the 40 meter version of this antenna, and am getting ready to put it up around the roof-line and see how it does there. Appreciate the review and the tips. 73, KB5RJ

My 80-10 EFHW goes straight up 50 feet and over the top of a red cedar tree. Have SSB contact with England on 80 meters running barefoot. Longest DX is on 40 meters from North Alabama to Kuwait. 73, ND2C

Got same antenna so looking forward to the next one:) mine works great 👍

ThankYou David!

You can modify that antenna to bring 75m lower for usage. All you need to do is cut the antenna wire in half and add a 250 pf to 500 pf capacitor 1 kV or higher. The value can be changed to tweak the resonant point. I am running that right now (homebrewed). I am getting a lower SWR than what you are showing. Though the FT8 think I can agree with, the longer I use FT8, the higher the SWR gets.

I've been using the same antenna here in Eastern Idaho for almost 2 years. It is outstanding. I've worked all around the world on FT8 at 25w. Mine starts at 8ft and goes to 20ft in a straight line west to east. My coax is on the 8ft end. SWR with my built in tuner is less than 1.5 to 1.