New End-Fed Long Wire Antenna

The new end-fed long wire antenna is up. Here was the plan:

I had bought a 9:1 unun a couple of years ago but never used it. I received refreshed inspiration when I saw the RT-100 LDG Remote Auto Tuner article from K2GOG. I had been considering using a remote autotuner for a while now also. One of the challenges I had with the coil-loaded vertical was needing to go outside for every band change.

Here is the unun and tuner installation:

The ground is a 4’ copper-clad 1/2" steel rod driven, with a #12 ground wire. The tuner is fed from the shack with 50’ of RG-8X.

The antenna wire itself is #26 hookup wire. I have some #26 stealth antenna wire on order from The Wireman. It turns out I am not very good at estimating distances for wires. The 41-foot wire turned out to be shorter than I expected. Perhaps the next iteration will be longer.

The wire is thrown over a tree branch up around 30’. I did this with a 1 oz bank sinker, some monofilament, and a slingshot. It was awkward, but it worked. The antenna wire is secured to the house with some paracord. The next version will use monofilament; the paracord looks ridiculous in comparison to the #26.

Initial results from WSPR on 80m last night look promising:

I will work some CW tonight and tomorrow and report back on the results.

Update: Successful QSOs with Sean KN4ZMA and Buck N4PGW on 80! I briefly had an unusual situation where the ATU was retuning in the middle of transmit but I have since been unable to reproduce it, so I’m not going to worry about it for now.