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The DX Commander is an All Band Vertical HF Antenna that covers 9 bands from 80m through to 6m. It is an economical and efficient way of getting on every HF band easily with a nice compact vertical antenna.
The antenna is basically a fan dipole, but rather than horizontal, it is vertical quarter wave elements in parallel on a common driven element base with short ground radials. Of particular interest in this design is the fold over on the 40m element, which acts as a 5/8th on 15m.
The antenna is a breeze to put together and in this video I show my build and review from Callum M0MCX - the DX Commander.
This is a really simple and easy to construct antenna that will get you on the air on the six meter band using only RG-58 coax!
I needed a quick and simple antenna for my WSPR beacon over the summer season. Enter the end fed half wave length coaxial dipole or aka flowerpot antenna!
The design details are available at VK2ZOI's website below:
This presentation explaining the basics of End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) antennas was done at the DATV experimenters night hosted by Justin VK7TW and Hayden VK7HH. Topics covered were the basics of EFHW antennas by Steve Yates AA5TB including lengths, design and installation of the antenna. Voltage and current distribution and the issues this presents, the minimum counterpoise, impedances and turns ratios of end fed impedance transformers.
Hayden VK7HH then took the audience through a great presentation on his experiments with his EFHW. Hayden covered the modification based on the VK4YE design, the testing, and the additional 80m loading coil, the coax counterpoise, and the common mode toroids. This allows a antenna for smaller spaces.
References:
Steve Yates – AA5TB http://www.aa5tb.com/efha.html
http://www.aa5tb.com/efha_wrk.html
http://www.aa5tb.com/coupler.html
Ben - VK7BEN
https://www.vk7ben.id.au/2017/01/09/experiments-with-an-end-fed-half-wave-antenna/
VK4YE
http://sarc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/VK4YE-End-Fed-Antenna-Construction-Project.pdf
Steve Dick - K1RF (The End Fed Half Wave Antenna)
http://gnarc.org/wp-content/uploads/The-End-Fed-Half-Wave-Antenna.pdf
A quick #shorts video on my new end fed half wave antenna. As you can see it seems to be a good start, but requires a bit more tuning.
A more in depth video coming soon.
With the success of my 11 element 2m LFA, I decided to build a smaller 8 element out of spare material I had here at home whilst waiting for the propagation to pickup (note I'm still waiting on you E-Layer!).
The idea behind it was to build a yagi for either portable use, or to replace the 7 element YU7EF at the remote station to see how it performs. I chose the 8 element model detailed on G0SKC's website.
Justin had the details for using 6mm and 13mm tubing, however I only had 6.35mm and 10mm on hand, so I popped the figures into MMANA and rescaled for my material.
The antenna pattern looked good, note the near 30dB F/B ratio and reduced sidelobes. Comparing this to the 7 element I have at the remote station showed a significant improvement. Red is the LFA, Blue is the YU7EF on the remote station.
Anyway... enough theory. I managed to build this up in an afternoon. I took my time measuring and cutting the elements. Some photos.
Another good build requiring little to no adjustment to obtain a decent match. Now to find a place to use it!!