Pocket-sized all-band EFHW

[N8TGQ]

My portable park operations need very small equipment because I walk, bus or ride my bicycle to get to them.

This is the smallest EFHW antenna I have made so far. The "ears" on the winder let me make a half hitch type knot to lock the length of wire at any point I want.

I spent an afternoon with my nanoVNA and tied a knot in the wire st the resonant point for each band. I measured all bands, 40 to 2 meters.

Now I can just unspool the wire and lock it at the band I'm using. The coil of wire at the end doesn't affect the antenna much, and any of those effects can be tuned out by adjusting the wire length.

When I tune my antenna, I'm really tuning it!

 

[Ham4CW]

Wow, that is one tiny HF antenna!

Those nanoVNA's you mentioned are really handy devices if you experiment with antennas a lot.

I originally bought a really small nanoVNA, and a few years later I obtained a nanoVNA H4 (much larger screen and wider frequency coverage). I still have my first VNA (miniVNA), but it does not get used much these days because it requires a PC running Java in order to run the control software, plus it has to be directly connected via USB.

The newer versions of the miniVNA have internal batteries and Bluetooth, though they still do not seem as convinient to use as the miniVNA's.

My only gripe about miniVNA's is the tiny SMA connector requiring the use of various adapters.

73, Mark...

 

[N8TGQ]

Thanks for doctoring my post, Mark!

Don't even get me started on SMA connectors. Who except the beancounters thought that was a good idea? I tried to put SMAs on coax 2 times and that was it. I use an adapter or buy coax with SAMs attached. Then I hope they hold up at the parks.

I feel the same way about BNC connectors. I have managed to put a few of them on, but it's a major pain.

I replace them all with RCA plugs when I can. If it was good enough for my HW-7 and MTR-3b, that's good enough for me. Easy to solder, they come apart and go together easily and you can just stick the stripped end of the wire in the jack in a pinch.

The last great thing is I get the jacks for 10 cents and the plugs for 20 cents at the local electronics surplus store, which is 2 blocks away!