Such an excellent way to spend 20 minutes! So informative and so true. A friend bought an old cabin that had been built 120 years ago on Cortes Island in B.C. The previous owner had been a ham and his vertical had been mounted on a pole that was cemented to the rocks at the tide line. Other BC hams told me that he had easily worked the world for 40 years-thanks to the salt water. Thank you Peter! AA7MO
Interesting video. I use a EFHW 10-80m on a 45 degree slope that starts 20 feet up at the shack and runs to the top of a 120 foot oak about 200 feet away. My other HF antenna is a 4btv that I've added 17 and 80m to. I'm in North FL and my soil conductivity is about as poor as it gets. Therefore I have added 120 radials around it each being around 40 feet long. Without the radials it was a great dummy load but didn't radiate or receive at all. It came alive when I had laid out 60 radials but did improve with the additional 60. Now as far as they operate. Some days the wire kills the vertical, and other days the vertical kills the wire. Other days they are equal. Can't explain why but it happens.
Excellent video - perfect timing as I am in the process of setting up my second QTH with a vertical for HF, so I have food for thought! Many thanks for sharing! M7JAS
This is quite a profound video. It's great to hear someone thinking critically and speaking about their personal experiences! The summary: my vertical antenna will never work the same as your antenna because of antenna surroundings and earth differences. 73 de N2MXX NJ USA
Excellent presentation Peter and I very much concur with your findings. I have a multi band HF vertical mounted atop a 50 x 20' steel shed at about 10' high and it is somewhat shielded by trees, it seldom outperforms a horizontal multiband especially as the frequency decreases. My thought is if I were to use a half wave vertical on say 20M it would get the maximum current portion of the antenna where most of the radiation takes lace up above the region where much of the signal is apparently absorbed close to the ground. I will attempt to test that theory in the coming months. Cheers from VK
I have always had a vertical and a horizontal for 10m, I have found over the years sometime the vertical works better and sometimes (more often then ever) better. Even chatting to a group of hams in Wales one day some could only hear me on the beam and other only the vertical. I have also noticed fading, and your description is about right as sometimes switching between vert and horizontal and found that the station comes back on the opposite phase. A Russians hams video on YT explored this further by injection signals from both horizontal and vertical antenna systems to a twin RX radio and yeah the was almost unnoticeable on the meter but you could hear it swishing from horizontal to vertical. I did this on 2 radio's and yes its a strange sound when it rotates phase but it is an useful tool.
I always enjoy your videos; as a life long ham i(50+ yrs) am in my sunset (76yrs.old) of operation. looking for simplicity .Thanks for sharing. 73 Leo.
I had the Moonraker Ampro 20 antenna installed on the roof of the car, parked over a large water reservoir GPS 53.1881, 16.7449 and on s7 - s8 I heard Japan 8500km but I couldn't call out because it was a besieged station. Japanese station broadcasting from a car on the seashore, vertical antenna on a car with a large Russian-made vacuum condenser (I watched it on QRZ) At that time I lived in a housing estate of blocks of flats and I have never been able to make such connections on any small antenna due to the low-hanging antenna. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, it is very important to me! SP3C
Great discussion and great video! There's an old expression: "Vertical antennas radiate equally poorly in all directions." (Despite that, my main antenna is a Butternut HF9V, and I'm very happy with it.)
100% agree about verticals & the enhanced value of elevated radials but one thing to note for low home use of elevated radials in a small garden is the ICNIRP clearances as the ends will be "hot". This "grows" your prohibited area quite significantly.
Oh forgot to say I'm currently running a sigma vertical multiband about 30 feet above the house and also the add on kit which it uses if you are familiar with this one . So far had some good results from it . I also use a g5rv half wave in the attic works well but always a couple of s points down from the vertical .
Hi - sadly your attic antenna will always be suppressed to some extent by the roofing materials, the price of privacy I guess. A friend has that vertical (without the add on) and it’s mounted in the clear as per yours. I was surprised how well it works.
Thank you for your insight. Two years ago I was set up running portable, 100w, with a 17ft vertical, no ground, with 3 radials and tuned coil on 40m. Geographically it was set upon a 4ft tripod and I was on the Atlantic shore (saltwater nearby). I was trying to contact a friend 40 miles away at his well-outfitted home station. No contact at our scheduled time. But, we were relayed from US via a France station hearing our missed calls. France was receiving 59 and was received here 59. It was kind of funny to have help from thousands of miles away. By the way, my furthest contact was woking 40m at 100w from a picnic table in New York state beside a lake. I was using a ~81ft end-fed, 49:1 UnUn, no ground, sloping to a 30m telescopic pole. I made contact with Namibia, 8000 miles.
I operated 10. meters from the edge of a causeway between two small islands, out in Tampa bay with 50. Watts on 40. meters, the antenna was an 8. meter wire in a fiberglass pole (at 45 degrees) with 8. meters of counterpoise on the ground under the pole fed from a "T" type tuner with a 10 dB over S9 report from 150. miles away in three different directions. Ron W4BIN
Hi Peter I recently had the salt water experience when I was down in Cornwall using a Watson multiband brought from your company using it on my car.to my suprise I had fantastic results from stations from all over the globe and had some very good results from being right next to the sea. My location was about 100 foot above the beach but still worked really well even in really bad weather. I just wish I was near the sea where I live 😒
So awesome to see my very god friend Dave, VK5MRD being featured as the VK in this video. I think Peter, you nailed it! A very informative video and very pleasant to watch. 73 de Kevin, VK4KK P.S. VK5MRD has got a small RUclips channel too.
Extremely interesting video, thanks. I've learned quite a lot watching it. The salt water boost is well known, some people including a very popular RUclipsr like to have one or more radials floating on the water when able. But the approach described here is new and interesting, as well as the rationale behind it. I use verticals in portable operation from very open and somewhat elevated spots. They work extremely well and are the easiest to deploy. But you just hinted me at considering a sloped EFHW instead for the holiday QRA in a suburban area. Best 73s and thanks again.
Hi Peter, probably this was one of the best videos about verticals, and I believe you are absolutely correct, i ve tried almost all types of quarter wave verticals, elevated radials, on ground radials, vertical on the roof top with both type of radials with and without balun but simply couldn't beat the traditional dipole..and now I ve finally given up, till the time I wont have a QTH near a beach (which is not possible in this life time 😂) im not going to erect a vertical antenna..
Very well presented video Peter. I am lucky being close to the sea, and my vertical antenna works far better than I ever hoped for. Received signals are better on my very low dipole compared to the vertical, but that's down to less noise. As we all know vertical s are noisy, but overhaul a vertical normally out works a dipole on tx, because of low angle radiation, which only very high dipoles can achieve. I would say if you want to work real dx 10,000 miles and more, put up a vertical antenna. My ground mounted vertical and my elevated vertical gave exactly the same results, ground mounted was easier to construct obviously, even standing next to trees and bushes and a metal garden shed, it works fantastic. Verticals, simple cheap and sometimes better than a yagi at the same height.
Great topic Peter, and very thought provoking. I work mostly portable and after many trials with different antennas have settled on a vertical end fed half wave on a 32’ mast, with the 49:1 unun on the bottom. It is even acceptable on 40m, with half the wire on the ground, running away from the mast. No radials to worry about and very fast to deploy. I work next to water whenever I can., for the reasons you gave. VA7SZ.
Having had many wire antennas, loops etc etc .I put up a vertical quarter wave and compared them against this vertical..it blew them all away ..so took the lot down now only have the one ground mounted antenna that gives me all the bands .even worked into new Zealand 3 weeks ago on 90 watts..the antenna is the dx commander classic ...,ps noise level is superb compared to all wire antennas I compared and great for inter g ..😉
Thank you for the informative video , I live in a city where concrete is everywhere and I use fritzel GPA 50 (which is a vertical ) installed nearly 7 meters above the ground and also the only 2 radials that I could install , results are good
Excellent insight. I made a 40m quarter wave antenna 9.46m wire tuned via a 4:1 Unun. First try on 40m using just 50w straight into the Ukraine. Brilliant performer costing around £30 in total. Up the top of Crystal Palace hill overlooking the south. Verticals are really decent but my home brewed EFHW sometimes betters the vertical and sometimes not. Horses for courses. The FT8987 and tuner purchased from Hockley BTW.. G7VAK
@@watersstanton Cheers Peter; used to enjoy my jaunts down to Hockley, see my brother on the way back too. Best to all staff as was. Paul [aka Bertie Windsor]
i live near the sea and get out quite well but when mobile there's a bridge that goes over a large body of salt water and as soon as i hit this bridge the signals increase and i can hear so much better as its out of the noisy estate also.
Hi Many years ago I experienced, together with another ham, this effect exactly. We were listening to a g station transmitting from a beach area in Minehead. He was working stateside neither of us could even hear. My mate has a two element quad at 50 feet and I, a little old attic dipole. I might reasonably be excused from me expecting not to hear. My mate was sick with envy especially given his antenna. The minehead ham was running a couple of hundred watts to a vertical mobile whip!!!!!! We live in a seaside town in south Wales. We are both quite a way from the sea. If I operate mobile on the coast road I obtain similar results to those obtained by the minehead station. 73’s Gw4bcf and gw1mnc
Peter, I also concur that location, location, location matters - but for those of us that have restrictions, we can enjoy a trip to the beach and take advantage of Ken's 'Secret' thanks Peter 73!!
Thank you for the well thought out and well explained video. I am quite new to amateur radio, and currently in the process of figuring what I want to use for antennas for “both” of my setups - permanent installs at home, and a portable solution to take with me since I travel so much. This certainly provides more information to think about as a make these choices, and hope to get things “right” the first time around.
Interesting as ever Peter! I just thought I would chip in with maybe a contrversial idea I have about EFHW versus 1/4 wave antennas. I believe that all antennas want to be 1/2 wave, so we jump through hoops to double the length of 1/4 waves. The way this is done is to provide radials or ground or counterpoise etc but all essentially the same thing. With a 1/2 wave, the antenna is happy so the earthey end of the secondry of the transformer used going back to the radio is sufficient. The real earth (dirt) can act as a mirror wether electrially connected or not. I await tons of negative comments, but thought my comments would be food for thought. Thanks for reading.
Thanks Keith. Yes the ground system is of prime importance with verticals but there are numerous views on the best vs the most practical options. 73 Peter.
Here in the city I get 3s units more signal by just moving same Earchi style antenna from backyard to front yard. Difference being metal fences around backyards and more brick buildings. Front yard area is much clearer although I notice interference on spectrum scope when certain vehicles pass by such as Amazon delivery van. Another topic I suppose. 😉. Thank you another interesting video.
I use a vertical EFHW on the sea wall on 20m and it is easily 3 S-points better to people I work over long distances than the same antenna in a flat, open field half a mile inland. I often work stuff, especially when a band is closing after nightfall, that people inland either can't hear or can't work because you need good low-angle response - we are talking 1-2 degrees, not the 5-10 degree stuff some antenna manufacturers talk about. That isn't really low-angle at all.
Thanks for excellent video (again!). I fully agree - especially that "it depends". I've got 2 antennas: - Multiband GP (7MHz coil loaded and 14-28 MHz linear loaded) by SP7GXP on 7m mast and - Mostly horizontal HWEF 40m long at ca 8m. City, high trees and buildings do not help. DX (PJ, PY, JA, FR) on 15m: GP has much less noise - this makes difference even when S-meter reads same. Same 20m. Local/within Europe: maybe horizontal is bit better on S-meter especially on 40m and noise varies day-by-day. Depends on day and band (40m vs 20m). So I try to switch and ask for the difference (work in progress).
The field from any antenna produces a lot of evanescent RF (from the difference between what can propagate and what the antenna presents) that collapses back on the antenna, which, if it is resonant, makes use of that energy in following cycles. Some of the evanescent field is lost to ground currents and tree currents etc. as well. Verticals lose most to ground currents via radials. Keeping radials away from the ground reduces this loss. Radials don't radiate far field at all if they're symmetrically distributed so they're all evanescent field. Adding N radials reduces the current by N and the loss by N squared each, but you have N of these so the net loss reduction is by a factor of N. Owing to closeness to earth, buried radials require many more than above-ground radials to give the same performance. They're basically there to store half the resonant energy for the next cycle, not to radiate. Hence tuned radials.
I’ve been using homebrew 1/4 wave monoband verticals from 40-10m with elevated radials and I’ve worked fantastic dx over the years..thanks for the great videos Peter 73
Have you created a multi band 1/4 wave antenna that is not a "fan" antenna vertical? I just created my 1/4 wave ground plane antenna, for about a buck and WOW, what a performance difference. ruclips.net/video/Y2-kzqIZrw4/видео.html.
@@frankwc0o hi frank I only run mono band verticals and after a few months on a band I swap over,I regularly work dx ,my main pole is the spiderbeam 12m and can support 1/4 wave from 40m down,thanks for your Chanel link 👍
Hi Peter, Excellent video. I 100% agree with what you said about Garden verticals. I do a lot of experiments on vertical with single , double and triple elements. I stumbled on this after weeks of testing and research while setting up a 3 element vertical array ( second year of testing) . with a single vertical at the back garden, I was able to reach VK, Antarctica & states side with the wspr at 200milli watt. I have then added a reflector and was able to get rid of signals to backside including the Antarctica side and states side. more VK stations started appearing on wspr. this part was excellent for front to back. but the result was not consistent on how far i could reach. the moment i added a director, i could never reach VK. the moment i removed the director, I could. this was tested for 2 weeks and proved. the modeling shows 6dbi gain at 10 degree elevation with director and reflector (3 element vertical). I have 100 radials on the ground. But in reality, it never reaches VK, which means what model shows is not working at all. Just with reflector and driven element, I was able to work Indonesia on LSB though. but overall, compared to my moxon antenna for 40 which only shows 0.3dbi gain at 10 degree, moxon always wins and I was able to work Japan, Indonesia, and UAE with the moxon easily. one would expect if the model shows 6 dbi gain at 10 degree with 100 radials burrried in the ground to reach many dx stations with the wspr protocol, but in reality, this does not happen! so I am kind of disappointed with the results from the back Garden with the verticals.! I might soon switch back to my trusted moxon although moxon is a bit of show in the Garden with wires & support poles! as you said, Vertical is great when erected on an open field / near the beach!
I use an ennvoantenna 43ft with a floating ground plain and seems to work well in 2min walk from seafront but I rearly hear vk but I do extremely well to Southern California so can’t complain thankyou for the insight as I have found that on the seafront field I work a lot of stations with success using a 17ft resonant vertical qrp 5watt so there is a lot to be said about location lol
I live on a 25,000 acre fresh water lake. I am thinking of installing a vertical above the water and using the lake as a ground plane. I realize it isn’t salt water, but the bottom is iron ore rock thus possibly affording some conductivity. I have a vertical and tri band yagi about 200 feet from the water and they perform very well. What are your thoughts on this?
There has been great study over the years re radials buried or raised. You need 300 plus buried/ground radials to meet the performance of 2 elevated radials.
Very good information, hopefully I will have my general license soon and looking forward to HF, will be putting up a vertical and a long wire, I’m 25 meters from a fresh water lake, I know it’s not salt water and hopefully will get a little gain from it
Ok, mystery solved Peter! I take my small 3 band portable vertical with 3 rolled out radials on each band to Florida with me each year. Although not on the beach, the ground water is just a few feet down under the surface and with being only about a mile from Tampa Bay the vertical performs superbly there. I never put 2 and 2 together to understand why! 73 de KQ2N dit dit
Very interesting, I'm tempted to have a go at this, down the bottom of my garden are arable farm fields and nothing else for miles going the other way is the village, so if I put a vertical the farm field end ,I wonder what effect that would have.
Very intersting topic, Peter. To complicate things further: vertical antennas have the tendency of picking up more QRM since most QRM appears to be vertically polarized. I would say antenna s/n ratio can be more important than sensitivity (S points) in a high QRM environment.
I struggle as newbie with some of your videos. But this one was brilliant. You struggle at times to think down to a beginners level as its been so long since you were one. I loved this series of small garden antenna videos. Vertical verses wire. Very very well written and edited. My video request is a video on what's on the market. It can either be specific makes and models or explain how each variant has good and bad points so we can decide what variant best suits our needs and how it interacts with the gardens and houses. Many thanks for this and the other videos. 2e0ded
My antenna is a hybrid of sorts. Its a 20M wire end fed thru a 9:1 unun. The first 10M is wound spirally on an 8M fibreglass pole then the rest is run as horizontal as possible to another 8M pole. On 50W I've managed to get out to the East Coast of America on 20M. Not sure if its low angle radiation but it might be interesting to run it thru sone antenna modelling software.
A very interesting presentation thank you. I am looking forward to building my retirement shack in a couple of years on the beach in the Philippines so I'll let you know how the vertical performs. Pirate radio stations on ships of course made good use of the salt water! 73s
Wishing to continue my tradition of arguing with G3s (my late father was a G3), I was nearly disappointed not to find anything too controversial here. I live not terribly far from Great Yarmouth one of the best places in the UK for soil conductivity. I used to run a ZS6BKW in our small garden but recently changed to a multiband vertical. The comparison has been interesting, the vertical is far less noisy on 40 and 80m, probably due to no part of it being quite so close to the house. Probably the only band where it seems disappointing is 10m. A lowish radiation angle from a quarterwave on 10m at ground level is going to be absorbed to some extent by the houses, trees etc near us. On lower frequency bands subjectively I do much better as you might expect. One area that was surprising for me was how ineffective a small circle of 8 copper ground stakes around the base of the antenna were, I understand the bulk resistivity business but I was surprised to find that these plus a few long radials appear to have an impedance of about 20 ohms at HF despite the good conductivity. I have since added another 16 short radials but not done any more measurements. 73 David
Hi Davic, the reason the ground rods are not as effective as you hoped is because RF flows along the surface of any conductor ore earth plane. So the depth of the rod has no real RF benefit.
@@watersstanton, certainly it has some feel good factor with lightning protection but an RF disaster. Of course broadcasters have for a long time used extensive ground mats around MF verticals, but they do not have fish ponds etc to contend with!
Wondering if you can 'edit' or control the ground part of the beam pattern. I seem to recall if you put up different lengths of grounds in one direction vs another the pattern will change. I have a several thousand acres of woods and ponds in one direction on the back of my property. On the other direction there are some buildings and houses. Wonder if I put up grounds leading towards the forest only and not in the direction of the buildings it would give me improved performance in one direction. Guess to test this I would have to do the same in the direction of the buildings. Wonder if that salt marsh the fellow was standing next to, does he get better performance in the direction over the marsh and worse going the other way? Or because of the size the pattern doesn't care? Anyway great video. It really does confirm wha the ARRL antenna book says...except you added the part about multiple wavelengths away. Don't recall reading that. Good observation.
Hi Peter thanks for the video very interesting, I have a mfj-931 in my QTH I live on the top floor of a block of flats and the 931 has given me a good ground, hadn't thought about taking it out with me might give it a go, have a park close by that has the river wandle flowing through it and is away from buildings, I have an mfj-1644 ATU with a counterpoise tuner that works well with all sorts of vertical antennas. Looking forward to the next one Peter thanks Adam G7CRQ
I feel the elevated vertical works best in a suburban area. I had one on the chimney with 4 radials on 40, 2 radials on 20 and it performed well. Presently I use the GAP vertical elevated 10 feet with no radials. That's a vertical dipole system. For high power I have a log periodic on a tower. On 75 meters I use the off center fed Windom for local NVIS type contacts. They all seem to do the job well. Thanks for the information ! //KE6QK
A very interesting presentation Peter thank you. There is certainly a lot to consider when choosing Antennae and getting a consensus of opinion is nigh on impossible. Incidentally, I’d be happy to hire the Coax for a spot of DX from the south coast, lol. Stay safe and see you for the next video 73 de 2E0TWD
I have a series of end fed half wave verticals that I put up a fibreglass pole for 40M -10M. I don't have a horizontal antenna to compare with but I rarely hear/work stations less than about 1500Km other than locals except on 10M when there's short skip. Perhaps the lack of ground plane helps?
What a great video!!! Thanks Peter and my vertical definitely works better now I am only 1 mile from the beach :) still looking forward to your next spy story video 👍👍👍
@@watersstanton ...HF signals tumble around, unlike line of site VHF... This very is true but if a wave happens to tumble into a horizontal profile just as it hits your vertical antenna, it will fall off in perceived power and "S" value to some extent.
I suspect if you move the horizontal greater than 1/2 WL over ground you will find yet different results It's a Apples vs Oranges thing... You could try modelling..??
How is your horizontal wire aligned? N-S? E-W? Something in between? BTW, Fresnel isn't pronounced as it would appear.. ruclips.net/video/yd-Z8T4mD38/видео.html
As a complete beginner I'm really struggling to find help for idiots like me. My vertical won't tune on 40 metres, but swr is perfect across 80, 20 etc
For the last few months I've been watching YT on Vertical antennas. Funny thing that most will say that you don't have to raise your radials that with enough copper on the ground you can get the same results. It's most likely true, but if you have the antenna base lifted up a few feet and sloping the radials, you will be very surprised at the results for a 1/4 wave ground plane antenna. I did a video recently on this, and I love the results. ruclips.net/video/Y2-kzqIZrw4/видео.html
Thanks Frank. There are also some tech papers that show the antenna at ground level and tge radials slanted upwards with similar clams. That is the method I am currently testing. 73 Peter
just ignore the negativity peter, after all, its all there for the world to see how idiotic their comments are, keep up the content peter love the channel de m1dls
@@brian.7966 I think you were the first... U pipped me... it was a malfunction of the server that glitched me past you......here..take the prize.. tis yours
Such an excellent way to spend 20 minutes! So informative and so true. A friend bought an old cabin that had been built 120 years ago on Cortes Island in B.C. The previous owner had been a ham and his vertical had been mounted on a pole that was cemented to the rocks at the tide line. Other BC hams told me that he had easily worked the world for 40 years-thanks to the salt water. Thank you Peter! AA7MO
Great to hear the story, Mike. Yes some hams would give good money to have an antenna situated there!! 73 Peter.
Interesting video. I use a EFHW 10-80m on a 45 degree slope that starts 20 feet up at the shack and runs to the top of a 120 foot oak about 200 feet away.
My other HF antenna is a 4btv that I've added 17 and 80m to. I'm in North FL and my soil conductivity is about as poor as it gets. Therefore I have added 120 radials around it each being around 40 feet long. Without the radials it was a great dummy load but didn't radiate or receive at all. It came alive when I had laid out 60 radials but did improve with the additional 60.
Now as far as they operate. Some days the wire kills the vertical, and other days the vertical kills the wire. Other days they are equal. Can't explain why but it happens.
Excellent video - perfect timing as I am in the process of setting up my second QTH with a vertical for HF, so I have food for thought! Many thanks for sharing! M7JAS
This is quite a profound video. It's great to hear someone thinking critically and speaking about their personal experiences! The summary: my vertical antenna will never work the same as your antenna because of antenna surroundings and earth differences. 73 de N2MXX NJ USA
I run a Comet CHA-250b and am very happy with the performence. 73 W8GV
Excellent presentation Peter and I very much concur with your findings. I have a multi band HF vertical mounted atop a 50 x 20' steel shed at about 10' high and it is somewhat shielded by trees, it seldom outperforms a horizontal multiband especially as the frequency decreases. My thought is if I were to use a half wave vertical on say 20M it would get the maximum current portion of the antenna where most of the radiation takes lace up above the region where much of the signal is apparently absorbed close to the ground. I will attempt to test that theory in the coming months.
Cheers from VK
I have always had a vertical and a horizontal for 10m, I have found over the years sometime the vertical works better and sometimes (more often then ever) better. Even chatting to a group of hams in Wales one day some could only hear me on the beam and other only the vertical. I have also noticed fading, and your description is about right as sometimes switching between vert and horizontal and found that the station comes back on the opposite phase. A Russians hams video on YT explored this further by injection signals from both horizontal and vertical antenna systems to a twin RX radio and yeah the was almost unnoticeable on the meter but you could hear it swishing from horizontal to vertical. I did this on 2 radio's and yes its a strange sound when it rotates phase but it is an useful tool.
Many thanks Jason. Interesting stuff. Best to have the two options! 73 Peter.
I always enjoy your videos; as a life long ham i(50+ yrs) am in my sunset (76yrs.old) of operation. looking for simplicity .Thanks for sharing. 73 Leo.
Glad you like them! Many thanks. 73 Peter
I had the Moonraker Ampro 20 antenna installed on the roof of the car, parked over a large water reservoir GPS 53.1881, 16.7449 and on s7 - s8 I heard Japan 8500km but I couldn't call out because it was a besieged station. Japanese station broadcasting from a car on the seashore, vertical antenna on a car with a large Russian-made vacuum condenser (I watched it on QRZ)
At that time I lived in a housing estate of blocks of flats and I have never been able to make such connections on any small antenna due to the low-hanging antenna.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, it is very important to me! SP3C
Great discussion and great video! There's an old expression: "Vertical antennas radiate equally poorly in all directions." (Despite that, my main antenna is a Butternut HF9V, and I'm very happy with it.)
Fascinating video. I am a newish amateur radio enthusiast and I always learn something watching your videos. Thank you!
Glad to help
100% agree about verticals & the enhanced value of elevated radials but one thing to note for low home use of elevated radials in a small garden is the ICNIRP clearances as the ends will be "hot". This "grows" your prohibited area quite significantly.
Oh forgot to say I'm currently running a sigma vertical multiband about 30 feet above the house and also the add on kit which it uses if you are familiar with this one .
So far had some good results from it . I also use a g5rv half wave in the attic works well but always a couple of s points down from the vertical .
Hi - sadly your attic antenna will always be suppressed to some extent by the roofing materials, the price of privacy I guess. A friend has that vertical (without the add on) and it’s mounted in the clear as per yours. I was surprised how well it works.
Thank you for your insight.
Two years ago I was set up running portable, 100w, with a 17ft vertical, no ground, with 3 radials and tuned coil on 40m. Geographically it was set upon a 4ft tripod and I was on the Atlantic shore (saltwater nearby). I was trying to contact a friend 40 miles away at his well-outfitted home station. No contact at our scheduled time. But, we were relayed from US via a France station hearing our missed calls. France was receiving 59 and was received here 59. It was kind of funny to have help from thousands of miles away.
By the way, my furthest contact was woking 40m at 100w from a picnic table in New York state beside a lake. I was using a ~81ft end-fed, 49:1 UnUn, no ground, sloping to a 30m telescopic pole. I made contact with Namibia, 8000 miles.
Many thanks John. It proves verticals can be great antennas as long as you understand how important the location is. Thanks for watching. 73 Peter,
@@watersstanton Peter, I forgot my call.
73 de N1DEL - John
I operated 10. meters from the edge of a causeway between two small islands, out in Tampa bay with 50. Watts on 40. meters, the antenna was an 8. meter wire in a fiberglass pole (at 45 degrees) with 8. meters of counterpoise on the ground under the pole fed from a "T" type tuner with a 10 dB over S9 report from 150. miles away in three different directions. Ron W4BIN
Hi Peter I recently had the salt water experience when I was down in Cornwall using a Watson multiband brought from your company using it on my car.to my suprise I had fantastic results from stations from all over the globe and had some very good results from being right next to the sea.
My location was about 100 foot above the beach but still worked really well even in really bad weather. I just wish I was near the sea where I live 😒
So awesome to see my very god friend Dave, VK5MRD being featured as the VK in this video.
I think Peter, you nailed it!
A very informative video and very pleasant to watch.
73 de Kevin, VK4KK
P.S. VK5MRD has got a small RUclips channel too.
Extremely interesting video, thanks. I've learned quite a lot watching it.
The salt water boost is well known, some people including a very popular RUclipsr like to have one or more radials floating on the water when able. But the approach described here is new and interesting, as well as the rationale behind it.
I use verticals in portable operation from very open and somewhat elevated spots. They work extremely well and are the easiest to deploy. But you just hinted me at considering a sloped EFHW instead for the holiday QRA in a suburban area. Best 73s and thanks again.
Hi Peter, probably this was one of the best videos about verticals, and I believe you are absolutely correct, i ve tried almost all types of quarter wave verticals, elevated radials, on ground radials, vertical on the roof top with both type of radials with and without balun but simply couldn't beat the traditional dipole..and now I ve finally given up, till the time I wont have a QTH near a beach (which is not possible in this life time 😂) im not going to erect a vertical antenna..
never say never 🏖
Very well presented video Peter. I am lucky being close to the sea, and my vertical antenna works far better than I ever hoped for. Received signals are better on my very low dipole compared to the vertical, but that's down to less noise.
As we all know vertical s are noisy, but overhaul a vertical normally out works a dipole on tx, because of low angle radiation, which only very high dipoles can achieve.
I would say if you want to work real dx 10,000 miles and more, put up a vertical antenna.
My ground mounted vertical and my elevated vertical gave exactly the same results, ground mounted was easier to construct obviously, even standing next to trees and bushes and a metal garden shed, it works fantastic. Verticals, simple cheap and sometimes better than a yagi at the same height.
Many thanks Brian
Great topic Peter, and very thought provoking. I work mostly portable and after many trials with different antennas have settled on a vertical end fed half wave on a 32’ mast, with the 49:1 unun on the bottom. It is even acceptable on 40m, with half the wire on the ground, running away from the mast. No radials to worry about and very fast to deploy. I work next to water whenever I can., for the reasons you gave. VA7SZ.
Many thanks David. I am currently away from home using a sloping dipole like that. 73 Peter.
Great video and I have always liked working with vertical antennas and had good results over the years. 73. KV5P
Having had many wire antennas, loops etc etc .I put up a vertical quarter wave and compared them against this vertical..it blew them all away ..so took the lot down now only have the one ground mounted antenna that gives me all the bands .even worked into new Zealand 3 weeks ago on 90 watts..the antenna is the dx commander classic ...,ps noise level is superb compared to all wire antennas I compared and great for inter g ..😉
Many thanks for the info. 73 Peter
Thank you for the informative video , I live in a city where concrete is everywhere and I use fritzel GPA 50 (which is a vertical ) installed nearly 7 meters above the ground and also the only 2 radials that I could install , results are good
Nice to hear.
Excellent insight. I made a 40m quarter wave antenna 9.46m wire tuned via a 4:1 Unun. First try on 40m using just 50w straight into the Ukraine. Brilliant performer costing around £30 in total. Up the top of Crystal Palace hill overlooking the south. Verticals are really decent but my home brewed EFHW sometimes betters the vertical and sometimes not. Horses for courses.
The FT8987 and tuner purchased from Hockley BTW.. G7VAK
Great hear from you. There are advantages when ground slooes away. Maybe cover tgat soon. 73 Peter.
@@watersstanton Cheers Peter; used to enjoy my jaunts down to Hockley, see my brother on the way back too. Best to all staff as was. Paul [aka Bertie Windsor]
Wonderful video . Could you discuss further re ground tuning units
i live near the sea and get out quite well but when mobile there's a bridge that goes over a large body of salt water and as soon as i hit this bridge the signals increase and i can hear so much better as its out of the noisy estate also.
Yes it proves the point! Great to hear from you. 73 Peter.
Hi
Many years ago I experienced, together with another ham, this effect exactly. We were listening to a g station transmitting from a beach area in Minehead. He was working stateside neither of us could even hear. My mate has a two element quad at 50 feet and I, a little old attic dipole. I might reasonably be excused from me expecting not to hear. My mate was sick with envy especially given his antenna. The minehead ham was running a couple of hundred watts to a vertical mobile whip!!!!!!
We live in a seaside town in south Wales. We are both quite a way from the sea. If I operate mobile on the coast road I obtain similar results to those obtained by the minehead station.
73’s
Gw4bcf and gw1mnc
Peter, I also concur that location, location, location matters - but for those of us that have restrictions, we can enjoy a trip to the beach and take advantage of Ken's 'Secret' thanks Peter 73!!
Yes good advice - what about starting piers- on- the-air! 73 Peter
Thank you for the well thought out and well explained video. I am quite new to amateur radio, and currently in the process of figuring what I want to use for antennas for “both” of my setups - permanent installs at home, and a portable solution to take with me since I travel so much. This certainly provides more information to think about as a make these choices, and hope to get things “right” the first time around.
Glad it was helpful! 73 Peter
Interesting as ever Peter! I just thought I would chip in with maybe a contrversial idea I have about EFHW versus 1/4 wave antennas. I believe that all antennas want to be 1/2 wave, so we jump through hoops to double the length of 1/4 waves. The way this is done is to provide radials or ground or counterpoise etc but all essentially the same thing. With a 1/2 wave, the antenna is happy so the earthey end of the secondry of the transformer used going back to the radio is sufficient. The real earth (dirt) can act as a mirror wether electrially connected or not. I await tons of negative comments, but thought my comments would be food for thought. Thanks for reading.
Yes, there are 1/2 wave verticals and they are usually center fed, making them a vertical dipole basically.
Thanks Keith. Yes the ground system is of prime importance with verticals but there are numerous views on the best vs the most practical options. 73 Peter.
Here in the city I get 3s units more signal by just moving same Earchi style antenna from backyard to front yard. Difference being metal fences around backyards and more brick buildings. Front yard area is much clearer although I notice interference on spectrum scope when certain vehicles pass by such as Amazon delivery van. Another topic I suppose. 😉. Thank you another interesting video.
I use a vertical EFHW on the sea wall on 20m and it is easily 3 S-points better to people I work over long distances than the same antenna in a flat, open field half a mile inland. I often work stuff, especially when a band is closing after nightfall, that people inland either can't hear or can't work because you need good low-angle response - we are talking 1-2 degrees, not the 5-10 degree stuff some antenna manufacturers talk about. That isn't really low-angle at all.
Many thanks for your input. 73 Peter.
Thanks for excellent video (again!). I fully agree - especially that "it depends". I've got 2 antennas:
- Multiband GP (7MHz coil loaded and 14-28 MHz linear loaded) by SP7GXP on 7m mast and
- Mostly horizontal HWEF 40m long at ca 8m.
City, high trees and buildings do not help.
DX (PJ, PY, JA, FR) on 15m: GP has much less noise - this makes difference even when S-meter reads same. Same 20m.
Local/within Europe: maybe horizontal is bit better on S-meter especially on 40m and noise varies day-by-day. Depends on day and band (40m vs 20m).
So I try to switch and ask for the difference (work in progress).
Many thanks for your message. Good to hear from you. 73 Peter.
The field from any antenna produces a lot of evanescent RF (from the difference between what can propagate and what the antenna presents) that collapses back on the antenna, which, if it is resonant, makes use of that energy in following cycles. Some of the evanescent field is lost to ground currents and tree currents etc. as well. Verticals lose most to ground currents via radials.
Keeping radials away from the ground reduces this loss. Radials don't radiate far field at all if they're symmetrically distributed so they're all evanescent field. Adding N radials reduces the current by N and the loss by N squared each, but you have N of these so the net loss reduction is by a factor of N. Owing to closeness to earth, buried radials require many more than above-ground radials to give the same performance. They're basically there to store half the resonant energy for the next cycle, not to radiate. Hence tuned radials.
Thanks for that. Gibe me salt waters anday! 73 Peter
I’ve been using homebrew 1/4 wave monoband verticals from 40-10m with elevated radials and I’ve worked fantastic dx over the years..thanks for the great videos Peter 73
Have you created a multi band 1/4 wave antenna that is not a "fan" antenna vertical? I just created my 1/4 wave ground plane antenna, for about a buck and WOW, what a performance difference. ruclips.net/video/Y2-kzqIZrw4/видео.html.
@@frankwc0o hi frank I only run mono band verticals and after a few months on a band I swap over,I regularly work dx ,my main pole is the spiderbeam 12m and can support 1/4 wave from 40m down,thanks for your Chanel link 👍
Hi Peter, Excellent video. I 100% agree with what you said about Garden verticals. I do a lot of experiments on vertical with single , double and triple elements. I stumbled on this after weeks of testing and research while setting up a 3 element vertical array ( second year of testing) . with a single vertical at the back garden, I was able to reach VK, Antarctica & states side with the wspr at 200milli watt. I have then added a reflector and was able to get rid of signals to backside including the Antarctica side and states side. more VK stations started appearing on wspr. this part was excellent for front to back. but the result was not consistent on how far i could reach. the moment i added a director, i could never reach VK. the moment i removed the director, I could. this was tested for 2 weeks and proved. the modeling shows 6dbi gain at 10 degree elevation with director and reflector (3 element vertical). I have 100 radials on the ground. But in reality, it never reaches VK, which means what model shows is not working at all. Just with reflector and driven element, I was able to work Indonesia on LSB though. but overall, compared to my moxon antenna for 40 which only shows 0.3dbi gain at 10 degree, moxon always wins and I was able to work Japan, Indonesia, and UAE with the moxon easily. one would expect if the model shows 6 dbi gain at 10 degree with 100 radials burrried in the ground to reach many dx stations with the wspr protocol, but in reality, this does not happen! so I am kind of disappointed with the results from the back Garden with the verticals.! I might soon switch back to my trusted moxon although moxon is a bit of show in the Garden with wires & support poles! as you said, Vertical is great when erected on an open field / near the beach!
That is very very interesting. Thanks so much for sharing it. 73 Peter
I use an ennvoantenna 43ft with a floating ground plain and seems to work well in 2min walk from seafront but I rearly hear vk but I do extremely well to Southern California so can’t complain thankyou for the insight as I have found that on the seafront field I work a lot of stations with success using a 17ft resonant vertical qrp 5watt so there is a lot to be said about location lol
I live on a 25,000 acre fresh water lake. I am thinking of installing a vertical above the water and using the lake as a ground plane. I realize it isn’t salt water, but the bottom is iron ore rock thus possibly affording some conductivity. I have a vertical and tri band yagi about 200 feet from the water and they perform very well. What are your thoughts on this?
There has been great study over the years re radials buried or raised. You need 300 plus buried/ground radials to meet the performance of 2 elevated radials.
Thanks Billy. That claim of 300 vs 2 has not benn supported by my exoerience. Great to hear from you.
Very good information, hopefully I will have my general license soon and looking forward to HF, will be putting up a vertical and a long wire, I’m 25 meters from a fresh water lake, I know it’s not salt water and hopefully will get a little gain from it
Best of luck! 73 Peter
How would you compare an EF OCF dipole (with sides of 55 feet and 11 feet) up about 22 or so feet? Say one from Palomar Engineering?
Ok, mystery solved Peter! I take my small 3 band portable vertical with 3 rolled out radials on each band to Florida with me each year. Although not on the beach, the ground water is just a few feet down under the surface and with being only about a mile from Tampa Bay the vertical performs superbly there. I never put 2 and 2 together to understand why! 73 de KQ2N dit dit
OK Gary, glad to hear from you. 73 Peter
Very interesting, I'm tempted to have a go at this, down the bottom of my garden are arable farm fields and nothing else for miles going the other way is the village, so if I put a vertical the farm field end ,I wonder what effect that would have.
Very intersting topic, Peter. To complicate things further: vertical antennas have the tendency of picking up more QRM since most QRM appears to be vertically polarized. I would say antenna s/n ratio can be more important than sensitivity (S points) in a high QRM environment.
It is indeed often claimed that verticals suffer noise. At my QTH the opposite is true. So location of the antenna also plays a part. 73 Peter.
I struggle as newbie with some of your videos. But this one was brilliant. You struggle at times to think down to a beginners level as its been so long since you were one. I loved this series of small garden antenna videos. Vertical verses wire. Very very well written and edited. My video request is a video on what's on the market. It can either be specific makes and models or explain how each variant has good and bad points so we can decide what variant best suits our needs and how it interacts with the gardens and houses. Many thanks for this and the other videos. 2e0ded
Thanks for your comments which are noted, 73 Peter.
My antenna is a hybrid of sorts. Its a 20M wire end fed thru a 9:1 unun. The first 10M is wound spirally on an 8M fibreglass pole then the rest is run as horizontal as possible to another 8M pole. On 50W I've managed to get out to the East Coast of America on 20M. Not sure if its low angle radiation but it might be interesting to run it thru sone antenna modelling software.
Thanks for sharing. 73 Peter
A very interesting presentation thank you. I am looking forward to building my retirement shack in a couple of years on the beach in the Philippines so I'll let you know how the vertical performs. Pirate radio stations on ships of course made good use of the salt water! 73s
Hi Philip. that location should work extremely well. Yes please let us all know how will you get on with your beach location. 73 Peter
I am curious why you do not use PSKReporter to contrast and compare your vertical with horizontal....
Wishing to continue my tradition of arguing with G3s (my late father was a G3), I was nearly disappointed not to find anything too controversial here. I live not terribly far from Great Yarmouth one of the best places in the UK for soil conductivity. I used to run a ZS6BKW in our small garden but recently changed to a multiband vertical. The comparison has been interesting, the vertical is far less noisy on 40 and 80m, probably due to no part of it being quite so close to the house. Probably the only band where it seems disappointing is 10m. A lowish radiation angle from a quarterwave on 10m at ground level is going to be absorbed to some extent by the houses, trees etc near us. On lower frequency bands subjectively I do much better as you might expect.
One area that was surprising for me was how ineffective a small circle of 8 copper ground stakes around the base of the antenna were, I understand the bulk resistivity business but I was surprised to find that these plus a few long radials appear to have an impedance of about 20 ohms at HF despite the good conductivity. I have since added another 16 short radials but not done any more measurements. 73 David
Hi Davic, the reason the ground rods are not as effective as you hoped is because RF flows along the surface of any conductor ore earth plane. So the depth of the rod has no real RF benefit.
@@watersstanton, certainly it has some feel good factor with lightning protection but an RF disaster. Of course broadcasters have for a long time used extensive ground mats around MF verticals, but they do not have fish ponds etc to contend with!
Great video Peter, thanks👍🏻
Glad you enjoyed it
Great video. How far away from a large body of salt water can you be and still have a beneficial effect? Would 2km or 3km be suitable?
Sorry, no. You need to be very close, 4 or5 metres. There is some benefit up to around 50 metres, but after that the benefit fades away.
Wondering if you can 'edit' or control the ground part of the beam pattern. I seem to recall if you put up different lengths of grounds in one direction vs another the pattern will change. I have a several thousand acres of woods and ponds in one direction on the back of my property. On the other direction there are some buildings and houses. Wonder if I put up grounds leading towards the forest only and not in the direction of the buildings it would give me improved performance in one direction. Guess to test this I would have to do the same in the direction of the buildings.
Wonder if that salt marsh the fellow was standing next to, does he get better performance in the direction over the marsh and worse going the other way? Or because of the size the pattern doesn't care?
Anyway great video. It really does confirm wha the ARRL antenna book says...except you added the part about multiple wavelengths away. Don't recall reading that. Good observation.
Hi Peter thanks for the video very interesting, I have a mfj-931 in my QTH I live on the top floor of a block of flats and the 931 has given me a good ground, hadn't thought about taking it out with me might give it a go, have a park close by that has the river wandle flowing through it and is away from buildings, I have an mfj-1644 ATU with a counterpoise tuner that works well with all sorts of vertical antennas. Looking forward to the next one Peter thanks Adam G7CRQ
I feel the elevated vertical works best in a suburban area. I had one on the chimney with 4 radials on 40, 2 radials on 20 and it performed well. Presently I use the GAP vertical elevated 10 feet with no radials. That's a vertical dipole system. For high power I have a log periodic on a tower. On 75 meters I use the off center fed Windom for local NVIS type contacts. They all seem to do the job well. Thanks for the information ! //KE6QK
Yes interesting observation.
A very interesting presentation Peter thank you. There is certainly a lot to consider when choosing Antennae and getting a consensus of opinion is nigh on impossible. Incidentally, I’d be happy to hire the Coax for a spot of DX from the south coast, lol. Stay safe and see you for the next video 73 de 2E0TWD
Many thanks Paddy. 73 Peter
VK3YE (on RUclips) has been operating QRP for years while at the beach, including wading in it with a ground wire trailing behind him.
I have a series of end fed half wave verticals that I put up a fibreglass pole for 40M -10M. I don't have a horizontal antenna to compare with but I rarely hear/work stations less than about 1500Km other than locals except on 10M when there's short skip. Perhaps the lack of ground plane helps?
Thanks for the info. 73 Peter.
Hi Peter, where is the link you described in the video. Geoff vk3sq
Could the signal have vertical polarzition?
What a great video!!! Thanks Peter and my vertical definitely works better now I am only 1 mile from the beach :) still looking forward to your next spy story video 👍👍👍
OK Andy. Take care. 73 Peter
I was going to invest in a multi-band vertical, but lashed up a 20m mono-band over the weekend, my efhw won hands down
Yes, this is clearly the experience of many. 73 Peter
Excellent explaination and precise coverage. Thanks
Many thanks. 73 Peter
Every day is a learning day. Great vid Peter thank you. 👍🏻👍🏻😏
I was reading another post about someone just being near brackish water and getting excellent results
Many thanks fir comments. 73 Peter.
very helpful. Thanks for the video. Explained things well.
Glad it was helpful! 73 Peter
Your signal strength will also depend on how the signal is polarized.
HF signals tumble around, unlike line of site VHF.
@@watersstanton
...HF signals tumble around, unlike line of site VHF...
This very is true but if a wave happens to tumble into a horizontal profile just as it hits your vertical antenna, it will fall off in perceived power and "S" value to some extent.
Put me down for a few hours when you get that salt water vertical up Peter LOL
Just need permission, the time, etc etc. !! 73 Peter
My vertical VHF/UHF antenna can reach hundreds of miles thanks to the club repeater. HF has only been able to go 1,800 miles with wire EFHW.
My hustler vertical works very well BUT nowhere near as good as my cobwebb antenna at 40ft and clear of all the houses (2-4 s points down)
Podcast with video not sure
That case of hearing the Scotish station is due to backscatter, the signal coming back.
W2JD
No it was not back scater.
What a great, common sense analysis. Thank you.
Many thanjs. 73 Peter
I suspect if you move the horizontal greater than 1/2 WL over ground you will find yet different results
It's a Apples vs Oranges thing... You could try modelling..??
Modelling is not a real world test for this.
Thanks Peter, very helpful.
Very welcome. 73 Peter
Very interesting , thanks Peter 👍
thanks Peter ,interesting video. 73's from PD5EL
Hi Peter, what vertical do you use ?
4BTV, 20m monoband and or 20m and 17m trapped vertical.
😅 I live with less than ideal conditions at my shack - but I still enjoy the hobby.
Polarization is also a factor.
another great video & tnx! 73 de WA4ELW in TN 🇺🇸 dit dit 😃
11 minutes. Why would he need a ground plain he's next to a lake
HAHAHA I like that idea... renting out the coax and antenna on one of those platforms HAHAHA.
How is your horizontal wire aligned? N-S? E-W? Something in between?
BTW, Fresnel isn't pronounced as it would appear..
ruclips.net/video/yd-Z8T4mD38/видео.html
Two antennas N-S and E-W.
As a complete beginner I'm really struggling to find help for idiots like me. My vertical won't tune on 40 metres, but swr is perfect across 80, 20 etc
For the last few months I've been watching YT on Vertical antennas. Funny thing that most will say that you don't have to raise your radials that with enough copper on the ground you can get the same results. It's most likely true, but if you have the antenna base lifted up a few feet and sloping the radials, you will be very surprised at the results for a 1/4 wave ground plane antenna. I did a video recently on this, and I love the results. ruclips.net/video/Y2-kzqIZrw4/видео.html
Thanks Frank. There are also some tech papers that show the antenna at ground level and tge radials slanted upwards with similar clams. That is the method I am currently testing. 73 Peter
just ignore the negativity peter, after all, its all there for the world to see how idiotic their comments are, keep up the content peter love the channel de m1dls
Many thanks for your support. 73 Peter
I love your presentations Peter- Really FB OP to post all of them- best 73 de Paul N0AH
Many thanks
Interesting and enjoyable, thank you. "In theory, theory and practice are the same". 73.
Glad you enjoyed it
4X4MN
FIRST
I wanted to be first :(
@@brian.7966 I think you were the first... U pipped me... it was a malfunction of the server that glitched me past you......here..take the prize.. tis yours
@@gabrielsansar6187 ah thank you so much, I have been waiting for 14 years to be first, thanks again, :)
Excellent video sir! W8OKN