A3- or 5-band end-fed antenna ae eelfacen Iwas very soeptical at fst. | had my share of stories on miracle expensive wonder antennas fer too often, bu ater hearing more and more hams bragging about their great results they had with this, for me a bit strange design, it Safed to raise my interest. (Often this endfed idea has certain advantages like: The antenna can be placed in afew diferent ways like slopingup, —sloping-down, horizontally lke any dipole, inverted, and even vertical, without using any radials Feeding the antenna at the end (or beginning, however you look att) can make iteasier to reach with the coaxial cable ‘You only need 1 or 2 high points to place the antenna, unlike 2 cent fed dipole where you ofen need 3 high points to get it pin the alr in a good way “The antenna is fay easy to bul for use con 3, 4 or even 5 bands, but you need 2 tuner withthe 5 band antenna on 80 to get the whole band with good SWR (instead of 100KH2); for use on 15 metres, you can lise this antenna with just the automatic antenna tuner uil into many rigs today Themulti band antennas wih the shortening coil have a litle less performance on the lowest band and smaller in bandwidth, put ate rather shor, so even people with a ‘smal garden can place such a relative small antenna, ‘What did | build and why? ‘few years ago, | bull vertical cipoe for my fiend Wilie, POOMW. This antenna was fed wth an open wire and a balanced tunes. This Sterna did a reasonable job, and worked well ‘95.40, 20 end 10m (the bands where a Dutch Novice may transmit). But on 40 metes, as it was a vertical, it had trouble reaching other ‘Dutch hams because the radiation angle was ery ow and it was not suited for NVIS use, ‘Also inthis instance, the open wires had to be ‘ater long as the antenna was placed in the packyard and his shack was atthe front ofthe house on the second floor. PHOTO 1; A typical 3 band end fed portable antenna ofthe type described Wile's garden didn't allow us to place a dipole like a GSRV as it was too small However an endfed for 3 bands could be placed perfectly from the mast for his ‘2m/70em vertical toa litle mast in the back of the garden. The 3 band end-fed was 12 metres long and he had space for 16m, so this fit nis needs perfectly We ordered one of the commercial variants on the market. It arrived very soon and perfectly packed and build with go0d hardware, The antenna was very easy to adjust in SWR and the user manual was very clear and easy to use. ‘But with a price of 130 euro (about £100) it was not a cheap antenna, and as | sam it ‘was not much more than a unun (unbalanced to unbalanced transformen with a. litle capacitor, 10 metres of wire, 2 small 34uH inductor and another few metres of wire, | thought I could easily do as good a job and, 2s another fiend of mine in Belgium (ohan, ‘ONSAH) also had a problem in finding an ‘overage to include the higher bands. wsttoguter tot Theva ata eke wowing. Wind te tastonmer FIGURE 1: Unun construction detalis. For ‘mul band use place a high voltage, high current rated capacitor of 100-150pF between points and B. A FT140-43 toroid is suitable for up to SOW - see text for winding details. antenna for 80/40 metres that would fit in his garden, | decided to get to work and try to bulié such an antenna myselt | started atthe Dutch ham internet forum Zendamateurcom and found a long thread about Homebrewing such an ended antenna ~ and, much more important, what was the ‘magic unun’ is made of. The original thread is at 1] and it contains a lt of pictures ofthe balun, shortening colls and even the use of the litle capacitor for mult band use. But be wamed, this thread is in Dutch. PHOTO 2: Prototype unun for 80m and 4Om. A capacitor is aditionally required to increase Febuary 2016So, starting myself Faity quickly | found tow to wind the autotransformer for the unum that takes care of the transformation from a very high Z in the feeding point of the end-ed 5 band antenna, and very fast | found the values of the shortening cals for bath the 5 band end 3 band ended antenna, Figure 1 shows the Cttca information for constructing the unun, while Figure 2 illustrates the element lenaths ‘and col deta My first try For Johan, ONSAH | made te fist prototype just winding the transformer on a. single FT140-43 core (had several ying around). | bought litle ABS box at cur local electrics hardware store and though it was a bit 0 large it id the job well enough. Photo 2 shows the completed unun int box Theunun is simply wound and secured with cable tes. | used solder lugs and litle bots to make life easier had o change anything. AS only needed to use 80 and 40 metres | lft cutthe capacitor that would be required forthe higher bands. However, without a capactor the transformer only needed 2 +646 = 14 windings instead of the 16 windings for the mmutiband versions with a capacitor. Nex, | started building the inductor that ‘would shorten the antenna to 23 metres total length. | calculated the necessary inductance 3s L10uH using MMANA-GAL. | used pieces ‘of ft over copper wie that | found in my junk box. I stopped at LOSuH, checked with my LC meter, because that was the lenath of wie | had handy. | wouid have had to put in anctner solder joint to reach 110uH. 46 tums were ‘wound on an 80mm PVG tube left over fom home DIY prec. | stabilised the inductor windings wth hot melt glue and ated solder lugs, nuts and bolts so 1 could connect both the antenna wires othe inductor The completed prototype inductor is shown in Photo 3. | used other 2.5mm square (AWG13) copper braid wites forthe antenna wites (of course | also found these in the junk box). | hung the antenna from my shack window on the fist or toa lamp-post across the tect. PHOTO 3: Prototype 1054 eal, 45 tums on 80min PYC pipe (se tet. | started with 21 meties of wire between the lunun and the inductor and with 4 metres of wite after the 105,H inductor. | had to start adjusting the long part of the antenna for 40m first and then adjust the wie after the inductor Ina lite over an hour | had adjusted the right. length for a good SWR an the entire 40 metre band (SWR <1.5:1) and a SWR across about 1OOKH2 of 80 metres. | went to Belgium the next weekend $0 | could give the antenna to Johan, ONAH so he could try it and see iit ‘would suit his needs, That was the protalype, During testing and adjusting | compared the antenna with my ‘ther wite antenna and V-ipole and | was intrigued tat such alte stupid antenna didn't work badly tal | also found out that on 8Om would need more ferrite core because although the single FT140-43 core could handle BOW it ot warm with 10OW of carter. So the plan quickly was born to build a second antenna, to see if | could build an ‘auto transformer on 2 stacked FT140-43 (ail had several of those in the sparespart depariment!). Or pethaps even use 2 single FT240-48 and if | could get the antenna to msm 40,2515 1omverson Ie FIGURE 2: Construction ofthe two versions ofthe antenna. The coils are Imm enamelled copper ite close wound on 19mm diameter PVC tube. When tuning, start on the highest band and ‘adjust the length ofthe longer wie, The end marked C connects to point Gof Figure 1. Note that the wire lengths ae for guidance oly: the text contains detall of how to ‘cut andy. owt 239m ours ary 2016 Technical ‘work on the 5 bands it could work, 80, 40, 20, (15) and 10 metres. | alteady knew that it was necessary to use a small tuner for 15, | because even the producer ofthe commercial | product stated this in his website. This second } antenna also would be a vey handy holiday or | field day antenna. | Version 2 | starting building the unun and used a similar ‘case to the fist antenna, | used two stacked FT140-43 cores forthe transformer. | used a | {68pF GKV capacitor (a bit on the bulky sie, but | had them in the junk box and you work with what you have, not with what you would | lke to have}. | hot-gued the windings tothe Cores and glued the transformer tothe bottom ofthe cabinet to get good mechanical stability. ‘After adjusting the antenna length, | found that it needed more capacitance to lower the SINR on the higher bands, so | just soklered an 8OpF 10K in parallel with the 6SpF cap. It | dit ook net, but the now-15pF di the job | ‘ter placing the second capacitor | \ needed to readjust the antenna length again. } (it became a bit shorter atthe fist 20 metre i Jong section) and SWR was good enough and ‘about the same as the commercaly-produced antennas. | had to build a second inductor, for my ‘antenna, but as | an out of junk wire | bought 10m of 0.75mm square (AWG 18) twin lead and tore the wires apart. | wound another coil on the same grey PVC pipe (the sort normally attached to guttering at your home to get of the rainwater. This also came out at 1O5uH, Fixation was done in a similar way as before with hot glue, solder lugs and 4mm stainless | see! nuts and bolts, tO attach the antenna, wires tothe inductor inthe antenna ise. | hung this antenna the same way as | cid with the fist and stared to get the 21 mete part before the inductor set for 10, 20 and 40 ‘metres by checking the SWR, | shortened the wire so the SWR was perfect on those bands. Then | startéd cutting the 4 mete wire after the inductor forthe resonance point on 80 metres, After abit ling | gt the antenna 100% right. | never give precise wire length for the antennas and | will not give them now, though inthe schedule | found on the internet there are precise lengths given. | do not work that | way because velocity factor for ferent wires | and insulation may vary up to 7% so itis absolutely useless to give precise values, as | do not know what type of wire or insulation Jos van den Helm, PA1ZP Pepe eoriionyou are going to use. The lengths in Figure 2 should be regarded as a guide Tiimming the antenna for 40m and up is straightforward but the 80m side must be done in quite shor increments because ofthe effect of the inductor There is nothing magic about the value of the inductor = small variations. (210%) just mean that the shorter wire will be a diferent length and the bandwidth may be sightly diferent. For fun | simulated the antenna in HANA vith the shortening inductor. | found out that the actor is 2 very important aspect in performance so make sure that the Q-actor of the inductor is high enough, by using good copper wires and a nottoo-small diameter cot form and not too-ong inductor. The performance and radiation patterns are always formed by an antenna’s placing and environment, This shortened 5 band antenna works on 80 metres witn about 308 loss against 2 ful size dipole, and with reduced bandwith in SWR, On 40 metres performance isthe same as witha ful size dipale—and that is the same case on 20, 16 and 10 metres, though you get a rather strange radiation patter with alot of lobes because ofthe fatty Jong antenna length, ‘SWR measurements with my 23m long 5 bband enced were as follows: * On 80m, SWR is unity on 3590kHz, but it ‘can be put on any frequency in this band and you can use SOkHz down or up from the centre frequency before you reach the 1.5:1 SSWR points. Itcan be used without an ATU in @ 100kH2 window. My rig's automatic ATU had no troubles at all in tuning the whole 80 metre band, (On 40m, SWR is 1:1 on 7090kH2 with me and the SWR 1.5 points are outside the ‘40m band, so the antenna can be used over the whale of 40m without a tuner On 20m, SWR is 1:1 at 14.150MHz and the 1.5:1 SWR points are outside of the band so again no tuner i required. (On 15m, my antenna is best at 21.65MHz with an SWR of 1.2:1, rising to 1.7:1 at 21.450MHz and 3:1 at 21.000, so you will reed an antenna tuner. The automatic tuner bu into most modem rigs wil do the job, (On 10 metres, SWR was I:] at 27.900MHz and the antenna's SWR 1.5:1 point was at 28.750MiHz, so | could use the most-used part of 10m in SSB and CW without any antenna tuner. If you shorten the longer piece ofthe antenna wie you could have a ‘greater part of 10 metres, but that will make 115m worse and will put best SWR points in 20 and 40 meves a bit higher in frequency. ‘Simulations [imade a few pots of the raciation patterns of, the 23m long § band antenna in MMANA- GAL, All raciation pattems are generated cover average ground and with the antenna horizontally placed at 8 metres height at both feed point and the end. These are shown in Figures 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 show the simulated ‘formance on the bands from 80 to 10m. ‘These figures are with the end-led using a 1105,H shortening coil, but without feed line loss and transformer loss, so you may want to adjust the figures lower by about 148 to allow for the unun and some cable loss. A longer antenna for 80 and 40 if you have more room tad a5 band anton but my garden was able to accommadate Sm more wit, $0 I rebut the 5 bander to a dual band ended for 80 and 40m, The LO5uH inductor was replaced by 2 24H inducor and the lenath ofthe wire between the fedpoint and the inductor was increased to about 23m (about 75 fet The wire after fhe 24uH inductor became bit over Bm (26 feet). Total length was now about 31m (about 100 feed. The changes mace the antenna work much better at 80m, Including ireeasing the 1.5:1. VSWR bandwidth to abost 180KH. Bandwicth in 40m was unchanged and performance was justa bit better (ot not much. The fun part was thatthe SW in all bands from 10-30m was below 3:1 and the tuner built in to my TS-590S could now match the antenna on all bards from 80-6m very easy This was not the intention ofthis antenna a all but just a cxincidene that nappened. | have used this antenna at home now for about two years with rat fun and satisfaction, A trapped version for 80 and 40m | built a trapped version for 80 and 40m. “The performance was about the same as the 32m lang version with the 24uH inductor, 0 Its rather useless to build one with a trap because a trap is lar more dificult to build as 2 simple 24H incuctor, although the antenna performed flawlesdy on 80 and 40m. The tap inductor was tuilt on a 40mm PE pipe with enamelled copper nire and an BOpF 2kv large FIGURE 3: Ended simulated performance on 80m. high current capacitor inside the PE tube. Of course, al materials were found in my junk box 0 it as just the idea, | had to ty it This antenna was about 34m long, comprising about 207 between the feedpoint ‘and 7.1MHz trap and anoter 14m of wire after the trap. ‘A 4 band version 20.3m long This 4 band version, using only about 20.3 meters of wire and without any inductor, can be used inthe same way asthe 5 band version ‘on 15 metres with a tuner Bandwidth of tis version on 40m Is enough forthe entire band without tuner. Performance on 40m is about the same as afl size 40m dipole, The 3-band version with a 35uH inductor and the 12m length has about 100KH2 bandwidth in 40m and about 348 less performance than the 20m long 4-band version, Higher power considerations Higher power versions can be made using a F7240-43 cote forte transformer, capable of witstanding up to 250W PEP on 80m and 400W PEP on 40m and above Two stacked FT140-43 cores are good for 200W PEP on 80m and 300W PEP on the higher bands, Winding the FT240-43 is done in the seme way a3 a single FT140-43 or two stacked FT140-43, | always usod Imm enamelled copper wites to wind the auto transformer (urn) on the eoes, Do not forget to scratch of the enamel atthe ends before tying toler tis wie Good ideas Ifyou are going for the mult-band version (3, 4-05 bands), oniy start adjusting wire length with the capacitor in place, otherwise you will have to readjust again after placing the capacitor Its a good idea to use a 1:1 curent balun with this antenna, The best place for this is about 3m from the feedpoint ofthe antenna, so comman-made currents willbe reduced, I's a ES ( re \ ce (60: 5 10401* 068 (orzo polaaston) ib 2748, Rear Atm 12089, lw 6009 Frog 3650 ie {ev 8969 (Rea GAD 0.90 m neg) Fetnuary 2016ca. 671 cB1= 08 (orzo plaster) FR -SopaB. eer Az 12009, El 6030 / reas 7 oo ie — er 88.649 eal GND 000m hit) Ga: 588481 = 068 (Vorca pelareston) FE 0680 Fer Az 120%9, Elev 6049 Frey 14150 We ‘Ber 48809 (Real GND 0.00 eit) FIGURE 5: Ended simulated performance on 30m. (Ga: 667 cB 08 (erica piazaton) 1B 0148, Rear Am 12009, Ele B99 Frog 21.20 Wie ‘Bl 34.949 (Rel GND 000m eight) er Fe -001 Rear Azim 120, Ew 6000 Frog 25 00 wie or 272 dp Real GNO 000 m neh) FIGURE ?: Ended simulated performance on 10m. February 2016 worth knowing though that while experimenting, with tis 5 band antenna | had no problems at all with RF in the shack or problems with RF detection inthe microphone of my rig, | tested the antenna with only 5m of RGB coax and 11000, with the transformer box hanging a foot outside my shack window. I naw use a single FT240-43 core for the 2c] cument balun wit 12 windings of R38 coaxial cable as found on the website by Steve, G37x0 121, Summary ‘These end-fed antennas are relatively easy to build and the 5 band version, only about 24m long, isa nice smal antenna, The 3-band ‘version for 40,20 and 10m sony about 12m long so itis nice and compact. How well do they work? About the same a8 2 shortened dipole of the same length. Ifyou build ful size version, the antenna will perform as wel as a full half wave. dipole onthe lowest band ofthe ended Overall performance of the 5 band 24m Jong 80, 40, 20, 15 and 10m band ended {s about the same as the performance of a ZSBBKW, but there are no troubles hanging, the ladderine part of the ZS6BKW and, as | explained before, enced antennas are often quite easy to hang in small gardens or, like my g2rden, ina very nan-symmetrcal fashion, ‘Do nol forget placement of any antenna is very important. You can very easily destroy the performance of any antenna by puting it in a totally wrong place and atthe wrong height For horizontally polarised antennas for 40 and 80m, | would say keep the entie antenna atleast 5m (15 feet) above ground, also keep the ends of the antenna at least 6m above gjound. This will reduce ground losses very much in any wire antenna, For horizontally polarised antennas on higher bands, try fo get them at least a half wave up from ground ~ the higher the beter. Conclusion | only once tought an HF antenna and was so clisappoined init performance that | aromised ‘myself to only use homebrew antennas jn the future. | now build all my own antennas for HF, VHF and UHE.| have built over 200 and have given away over 100 of them as | could nat Possibly keep and use them all myself, Lots of ‘antenna parts were recyced from one design 10 another, Ithas been fun! WEBSEARCH 11 vw. zencamateurconWiewtope p= Bkt= 6682Astart=5 (2) ww karina neveSchokes!