I own the "big stick", as MFJ calls its 18ft/5.45m loaded telescopic whip antenna. A while back I mentioned it in these posts. Slowly, I came to like this antenna; it takes a very limited space with its 4x16ft radials and I usually bent them as available space dictates.

The MFJ-2286 with included coil is a multiband 6m-40m antenna, the loading coil has simple provision to adjust the number of turns involved in the process, the lengh of the whip can be also adjusted as needed. It takes little time to install or take down and I used it succesfully in my portable setup.

Recently I acquired a loading coil (SB Platinum 1000 from Wolf River Coils) to replace the included MFJ coil, and tried the modified antenna on 80m.

I should mention that 80m band always been hard to work with my antennas, none of them actually designed to work on 80m. My solution so far been to use antenna tuner to match the radio output to the antenna on 80m, try and pray. It worked for both voice (SSB) and digital (FT8), but it never worked good. After 3 years of hamming I had 30+ contacts on 80m, mostly stateside and some DX.

I installed the antenna with the coil in our little patio, next to house, threaded radials along the fence, added one 68ft/21m long radial for 80m band (had to snake it into the bushes outside of the fence) and tuned the setup to 80m with the help of my RigExpert AA-54 antenna analyser (the installation is not ideal due to proximity to the house and placement of the radials, hence the SWR):

I tested this setup on the air and compared it to my other not-quite-80m-antennas; my verdict is that this antenna is usable as NVIS-like 80m solution; the DX use is limited to CW or digital (FT8 and other weak signal modes) as bandwith is very narrow and the signal is weak (there were strange instances of long skip into Europe though). FT8 is a good test because most of the stations have simple vertical or dipole antennas (not beams) for this band. Here is the map showing how the other stations hear my signal (the transceiver, Flex 6300, was around 90W at the time):

And here is the map of recent contacts made with the modified MFJ-2286:

I liked the setup and will be using it from now on. It is not the best 80m vertical antenna, not even close, but for my situation it is a winner.

At my present QTH, the antennas are prohibited by the rules of my HOA. That is, "no permanent visible antennas allowed"On top of this grim issue, I also have very limited space for any HF antenna. I have 2 small patios and the attic, which is also very small, about 21ft/7 m wide and 18ft/6m deep, and the height is on low side, crawl space for the most part. Nevertheless, I managed to install several wire antennas in the attic (40-10m multiband doublet, 17m monoband moxon), and strung the similar doublet along the outer roof edge. I also installed a 35ft/10m Max-Gain fiberglass push-up pole in one of the patios and used it to bring up different light antennas, like "hamstick" dipoles or MFJ-17754 2 band (20/40m) dipole. It all worked somewhat, some better then the others, all depending on the propagation and the location of the distant station. DX-wise, I had most success with MFJ-2220 "hamstick" dipole at 35ft on the fiberglass pole.

Until recently, I had no vertical antennas and was determined to try them one day. Vertical antenna is a good idea if the space for the installation is very limited and it has to go up and down promptly and with little effort. At the same time, not all vertical antennas are very good radiators: first, they usually radiate equally in all directions, having no directivity without additional measures, like setting up a system of vertical antennas with special feeding arrangements, meaning the signal in the far field will be lower when compared to a beam antenna or even to a dipole; second, a good ground system or, for elevated installation, a system of radials required for better radiation efficiency (and I have little space for that). Nevertheless, in Dec 2017 I acquired and installed 2 vertical antennas:

• (1) MFJ-2286 "The Big Stick" portable 17ft/5m telecscopic, base-loaded whip for 10-20m;
• (2) Hy-Gain AV-12AVQ 3-band 10-15-20m vertical.

Here are my impressions after a short test, starting Dec 24th and until the last weekend:

Been a new ham, I build all kind of antennas; in a process of doing this I accumulated long list of internet references I am sharing below. I will be updating it, deleting old/outdated/not important references and adding new. Due to my present QTH the main focus is compact/limited space antennas, but the list is not strictly limited to this subject. It is a bit chaotic as it originates from the text file I have been dumping my findings to for many month, but proven to be useful, so here it is:

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TOPICS

• DIPOLES AND DOUBLETS
• LOOPS
  • Magnetic loops
• YAGIS
  • Moxons
  • Portable hexbeams
• ZEPPS AND J-POLES
  • J-pole and horizontal Zepp
  • OCF Colinear for 80m (Rus)
• VERTICALS
  • Half-square and bobtails
• ON WIRE ANTENNAS
• ON ANTENNA TRAPS
• TOOLS, TIPS AND STUFF
  • DIY VHF/UHF antennas
  • DIY Band Pass Filters

last updated Mar 01, 2018

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ON ANTENNA TRAPS

• http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/java/trap.htm
• http://www.iw5edi.com/ham-radio/?how-antenna-traps-work
• http://www.w8ji.com/traps.htm

YAGIS

• 2 element beams
• 2 and 3 element mini yagis
• 2 el trapped beam
• Loaded Yagi for 20m
• 20m half-size 2 element Yagi
• Mini Horse Yagi (portable 3 element wire beam)
• Short boom Yagis from Raibeam

  Moxons

  • Moxon Antenna Project Website
  • Lightweight wire moxon
  • Notes on construction
  • Trapped 40m moxon
  • Loaded 40m moxon
  • Trapped multibander moxon
  • 17+20m Moxon
  • Vertical wire moxon
  • Moxon beam notes
  • Moxon calc
  • Wire moxons

  Portable hexbeams

  • Portable HexBeams, readymaid
  • Hexbeams antenna parts
  • Portable HexBeams, how-to I
  • Portable HexBeams, how-to II
  • Portable HexBeams, how-to III (** Note: this one!!)

DIPOLES AND DOUBLETS

• Multiband Dipoles Compared (ARRL Publication)
• C-pole portable verticals
• C-Pole
• Compact rotatable dipole (Cushcraft D3)
• "Cobra" (folded dipole)
• Fan dipole I
• Fan dipole II
• Doublet antenna fed with ladder line
• Space saving dipoles from AlfaDelta (readymaide) (** Note: narrow BW on 40m->needs tuner)
• 10-40m in an attic
• Hamstick dipole in vertical configuration (*Note: My 40m at 30 ft hasn't confirmed this so far...no contacts)
• Nice OCFD
• Folded skeleton sleeve antenna
• The K4VX Linear-Loaded Dipole for 7 MHz ("ladder line dipole")
• short 80/40/20/15m inverted-V doublet ("NJQRP Squirt")
• G7FEK antenna: short 46ft/14m multiband 80-12m EF dipole
• Linear loaded dipoles

LOOPS

• Horizontal loop multiband antenna
• Horizontal loop antenna, modeling
• Portable Delta-loop 30-6M 300W or 1KW, readymade
• DIY 80 m spiral loop antenna

  Magnetic loops

  • Good read!
  • Magloop from Slinky coil
  • Another good read on magloops
  • DIY high power magloops
  • Good work, with construction details (**Note: mine like his 80m, from copper straps)
  • Magloop project report from M0UKD
  • Thick 4" loop for 40m by Alex PY1AHD
  • Nice read on Magloops, with references
  • Receiving loop
  • Another Receive-only loop
  • The Rockloop (QRP)
  • Foil loop from Japan
  • Some detail on building
  • Yet another square loop
  • Square magloop details, in Russian
  • Big loop, ferrite coupling, in details
  • another qrp loop made from RG213
  • Material - Heliax AVA Coaxial Cable
  • Multiply loops antenna
  • Copper strap for building magnetic loop - 1.5"/25'
  • Copper strap for building magnetic loop - 3.0"/25'
  • Copper strap for building magnetic loop - 2.0"/25'
  • Copper adhesive tape
  • Remotely controlled capacitor for Magloop tuning control
  • High voltage air gap calculator
  • Capacitors for Magloop tuning control

ZEPPS AND J-POLES

• J-pole and horizontal Zepp
• OCF colinear for 80m (RUS)

VERTICALS

• MFJ Wip 17ft
• MFJ-5904 RF Design box
• MFJ air wound coil for the telescopic 17ft wip
• On portable vertical
• On radials
• Modifying hamstick for 500W (**Note: the coil is here)
• 40-10m Twinlead fishing rod vertical
• Aerial 1/2 wave vertical end-fed vs proper dipole
• Instructions for EFHWA
• EFHW, detailed discussion
• Multiband vertical no radials (coax as a counterpose) (*Note: "3132 9:1 balun" is probably 9132 9:1 Unun)
• Linear loading for vertical antenna ("Flagpole antenna")
• Shortened vertical for 40m (2/4 height)
• Short helically wound vertical for 20m
• Short helically wound vertical for 160m
• Short (2m) indoor multiband vertical antenna

  Half-square (phased verticals)

  • One from Hy Power Antenna Company, premaid
  • "Using the Half-Square Antenna For Low-Band DXing" ARRL pub. 1996
  • Post on HS in QRZ forums
  • Half-square, half-square double and bobtail
  • Bobtail
  • Bibliography

WIRE ANTENNAS

• Wire Antennas For HAM Radio
• 40m wire antennas comparison

TOOLS, TIPS AND STUFF

• Unit Circle Coordinate Calculator
• Helical Coil Calculator
• Testing coax
• On photon model in electromagnetic theory
• Soldering PL-259
• On coax chokes
• Good and Bad Parallel Feedline Lengths
• Soil parameters
• Battery power
• Tree hanging tools and tips
• Antennas in trees
• 22mm Mirco Swivel Block
• Collection of PDFs, many on antennas
• Telescopic fiberglass masts (**Note: mine is MK-6 HD 43.3 FT Mast)
• On SWR/resonance I
• On SWR/resonance II
• On limited space antennas
• "In Practice" pages by GM3SEK
• On RFI in shared living
• MFJ-1622: Portable wip 2-40m
• Another portable multiband vertical
• Compact (8.5') multiband sticks
• 500 W Hamsticks
• Hamsticks: HS vs Procomm vs Workman (** Note: also read this)
• $150 Portable wip 10-40m
• $140 Portable wip
• $269 500W 10-40m portable vertical (Alfa Antenna Promaster Jr.)
• Short wire antennas (also read this post on ULTIMAX)
• Portable Tri-Bander
• Notebook antenna
• On SWL
• $2 4ft fiberglass post with wire clips

  DIY VHF/UHF antennas

  • 2m vertical
  • Quick and simple 2m grounplane
  • DIY 2m dipole antenna
  • Dual-band J-pole
  • 70cm-10m beams
  • simple 2m ladder line
  • Multiband antennas HF VHF
  • Spiral Tak-Tenna

    DIY Bandpass Filters

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYiM2cqUNk8
  • http://www.n1nc.org/Filters/
  • http://www.kg4jjh.com/pdf/Contest Bandpass Filters.pdf
  • http://www.kg4jjh.com/bpf.html>www.kg4jjh.com/bpf.html
  • http://www.iceradioproducts.com/filtersrf.html
  • http://www.morganmfg.us/>http://www.morganmfg.us/
  • https://www.dunestar.com/store/product-info.php?HF-Triplexer-Filter-pid6.html

Unsorted...

        HF Beacons, transmission schedule
        https://www.ncdxf.org/beacon/index.html#transmission

	Isotron compact 40m antenna
	 http://isotronantennas.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_4&products_id=4

	Hentenna
	 http://www.hamuniverse.com/hentenna.html
	 http://www.hamuniverse.com/6mhenk5uss.html
	 http://www.hamuniverse.com/iw6dfw%202m%20and%2070cm%20hentenna%20project_DRAFT.pdf

	Wire
	 https://www.amateurradiosupplies.com/category-s/260.htm
	 http://thewireman.com/index.html

	Antenna tuners
	 http://www.sgcworld.com/store/index.html

	LDG antenna tuner
	 http://www.ldgelectronics.com/c/252/products/17/49/4
	 the one with batteries: http://www.ldgelectronics.com/c/252/products/17/9/1

	Ugly balun
	 http://www.hamuniverse.com/balun.html
	 https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-8x
	 https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-pl259

Intro

This is the second post on phased verticals. If you have not seen the first, here it is >>Half-square antenna....
After half-square antenna, I checked few similar configurations, adding phasing lines and vertical elements. Here is the popular antenna, usually called "double half-square":

As you see, it is basically 2 half-square antennas put together and fed in the center. The length of the phasing lines is still L/2, so left and right radiators emit in phase:

I am going to test a stealth antenna hidden in the trees close to my condo building. For that, I am looking into half-square design which supposedly will be able to provide some directivity/rejection at low height I am limited to. Here in this post I will be dumping my finds and 4NEC2 models.

The basic design we'll start from: