40m End fed half wave
A holdover from the old house. Sort of...
I just recently dug out the ~66' Polystealth wire that I had up as an inverted vee at the old house, and put it up along with a newly built 49:1 transformer. I have this antenna up in the front yard running north to south.
The transformer is at 12' by way of a 10' piece of chain link top rail, with a piece of 1-1/4" PVC slid over it and fastened to the metal pole in a way that gives me a mounting point for the transformer that is 2' above any metal. The mast is attached to my privacy fence on the other side of a 4"x4" post that is firmly cemented into the ground.
The other end of the wire is at 16'. Years ago the previous owners had installed a wood utility pole that is 16' above ground for a night light. Since the light made my bedroom look like it was 12 o'clock noon at midnight, I took the light fixture off within the first couple days of living here! I screwed in a threaded eye bolt, and attached a stainless steel pulley. The radiating element terminates about 9' away from the pole into an insulator made by cutting a 1/2" wide piece of 1/2" CPVP pipe. I then have a length of paracord attached to the insulator that runs through the pulley and down the pole to a spring. The spring allows the wire to "give" when the wind is blowing, or if we get some heavy wet snow.
As is normal with the 40m EFHW antennas, no tuner is needed on 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m. The internal tuner on the Kenwood TS-590S will get a match on 160m, 60m, 30m, 17m and 12m, but no love on 80m. This is also a very good NVIS antenna on 60m and 40m. I am able to make digital contacts on 160m with this antenna.
A Palomar Engineers MAXI-CHOKER common mode choke is installed at the base of the mast, 12' from the transformer. Before using this choke, I would get some RFI in the shack. I would also reset my remote weather station display when using anything more than 50 watts. And I would shut off the computer to my Winlink gateway anytime I would try to use 160m, regardless of power used. This CMC has completely eliminated ANY AND ALL interference I had before.
