antennas

Why this idea?

Several years at this HOA QTH has found me working “backyard portable” every time I want to get on the air. That means setting up and tearing down every day. (Various night time critters are why I don’t leave antennas outside after dark.) The limitation of daytime antennas is how I became primarily a POTA Hunter (not a bad thing), but did no operating after dark. For a long time I’ve been wanting a quasi-permanent multi-band antenna that’s useful any time of day.

A few months ago I simulated a flagpole vertical (acceptable within the HOA) at several locations on the property but ended up finding the best location, appearance wise, really sucked for good performance. Hence, no flagpole; find something else.

Hey, aren’t those for vehicles?

Typically, we find the ATAS-120A antennas on RVs, trucks and other vehicles. They are successful for those uses, and my friend Nancy, KD7S, has one on her RV loves it. BTW, Nancy also likes her 650W amp. 🙂 Wander around YouTube and you can find a couple of hams who have used the ATAS-120A like a portable ground mounted vertical, on some low mount with a handful of radials.

I wondered if it would work well mounted on my home, up in the air a bit. … AND, will it work QRP?

Hey, aren’t those for Yaesu radios?

Yes, the ATAS-120A is a Yaesu product and is designed to work with Yaesu radios. Most late model Yaesus include the Up / Down control circuitry, usually with SWR sensing that makes the Up / Down movements automatic. Hit the “tune” button and watch the antenna adjust itself.

Building my own simple(?) manual controller

I own absolutely ZERO Yaesu radios, and my QRP Lab QMX radios certainly don’t include the Up / Down control circuitry. So, … I built my own manual controller. It derives from several articles found online and is basically a voltage divider that accepts 12v in and produces either >10v out (for Up) or <8v out for down.

My implementation adapted a circuit I found online, and is built on a simple breadboard in a plastic project box. Use my schematic if you please, but do your own parts finding and debugging. You’ll learn from it. ;}

Mounting on the house

This offset antenna mast was found on Amazon when I was considering putting the lawn robot’s local antenna in an elevated position. I later ended up using a simple 6′ ground mast for that and had this mast left over for a couple of years. It is perfect for positioning the ATAS-120A at rain gutter height without being (HOA) obtrusive. A “Skyhook” mounting plate and various bits of PVC ingenuity complete the mast.

Rain gutter counterpoises

My looming uncertainty was whether elevated counterpoises could be discovered that make the ATAS-120A an actual antenna. My plan was to run counterpoises inside the rain gutters, out of sight. Yes, before you ask, I did try simply using the rain gutter system as one big counterpoise. Didn’t work; likely because of uncertain continuity between different sections.

My experience with raised counterpoises for the KJ6ER PERformer Vertical Antenna paid off in guessing at good lengths. There’s still part of a spool of insulated stranded copper 14 AWG left from previous experiments at the Casa Easton Antenna Test Range. I started with two 16’9″ counterpoises for 20M and found SWR on 20M was WAY out of bounds. Adding two 33’5″ counterpoises, typically for 40M, brought a lot of SWR harmony. Each of the wires is strung through the gutters, sometimes around corners, and zip-tied semi-taut to the gutter cross braces.

SWR readings near or below 2:1 magically appeared for every band I care about. Maybe this thing will work after all? Maybe it still wants more counterpoises?

First measurements

I make SWR measurements 3 ways:

1. Through the controller. With the antenna connected to the controller, and a NanoVNA connected to the “Radio” port, I maneuver the antenna up or down for the best reading at my desired frequency, usually the QRP CW watering holes for each band.
2. Once a sweet spot is found, I disconnect the antenna from the controller and measure directly with the NanoVNA. There is a DC blocking network in the controller, L1 and C3, C4, C5, that isn’t completely linear and affects readings.
3. Leaving the controller out of the circuit, and the antenna connected directly to a QMX, the Hardware > Tune function provides yet another SWR reading. This one is often very close to that of the NanoVNA. These are the SWR readings that suggested this antenna might act as an antenna. The first SWR reading is with the controller inline, the second without. I didn’t include the 3rd way of measuring in this chart, but use it when on the air later.
   • 7.040 – 2.062 / 1.784 – 31 Ω
   • 10.110 – 1.765 / 2.060 – 78Ω
   • 14.060 – 1.760 / 1.295 – 39 Ω
   • 18.060 – 1.153 / 1.840 – 57 Ω
   • 21.060 – 1.649 / 1.214 – 43 Ω
   • 28.070 – 1.675 / 1.149 – 43 Ω

Does it “antenna?”

When I’m completely rigorous, I do a big pile of WSPR runs. So far, only a couple of runs on this antenna, I ran the first with my ZachTek WSPR transmitter, 0.2 w, for 10 minutes at 16:00z on 7/17/25, while we were in a G1 geomagnetic storm with a K-index of 5. The results were 45 spots scattered through mid-USA with the western-most in LA California and the north-eastern-most near NY City. Not the best I’ve seen, but a good start for a very poor propagation day.

How bad was the propagation? So bad that I gave up trying to reach Oregon and mopped the floors in the house. 🙂

Two casual POTA QSOs today proved it does indeed antenna. POTA got me a 539 response from WQ0A Brian Foltz in Kansas City KS. Later in the afternoon, I made one of my very frequent QSOs with WB0RLJ Jim Vaughn in his favorite Chalco Hills Nebraska park. He’s one who gives accurate RST reports and I was surprised with a 559. Both my sidewinder key and my new antenna were working well.

Early AM 40M – still dark. Tuned for 40M, found the band quiet, so sent some CQs into the wild and watched the RBN to see where they landed. Better reach than I expected. Pre-dawn 40M WSPR shows hits all over the USA and on up to Edmonton. Significantly fewer after dawn, as expected.

Too early to tell summary.

A few WSPR runs, 2 QSOs, and some RBN hits aren’t a lot to go on. I’ve watched the YouTube “influencers” gush over new gear with less on the air experience. Yet, so far this performance is very promising for a casual, admittedly compromised, antenna. Will it fetch DX? Nope, but it will be far more available than those that need daily setup and tear down.

Epilog

It’s been up and on the air for a few weeks. I’ve tweaked the counterpoise a few times resulting in only minor SWR improvements. It has given me 2 QSOs on 40m 22 on 20m and 1 on 15m. Overall, it hears well but is soft spoken. Yes, much of that is do to my QRP practices. Most of the ATAS fan boys run much higher power with this antenna. One influencer who really likes it demos it with a 100w transceiver, and of course makes lots of contacts.

It hasn’t met my permanent install, base antenna, expectations, so I took it down. Maybe someone else can make something of it, using it on a vehicle as it was designed, or with higher power? Besides, the XYL thinks it’s time for this 80 year old OM to stop climbing ladders.

The Casa Easton Antenna Test Range has been busy the past few days. About 2 weeks ago, I discovered KJ6ER, Greg Mihran’s, PERformer (Portable, Elevated, Resonant) antenna. Greg describes the antenna in spectacular detail in a frequently updated document. He has extensively modeled the antenna for 40M through 6M. I built mine for 20M through 10M, especially for use with my QMX transceiver.

Bottom line: This one’s a KEEPER! Advice: Greg has a DONATE button as part of his fine article. I suggest using it to recognize his good work.

My problem with elevated vertical antennas

Several hams, WB3GCK, Craig La Barge, and WK4DS, David Saylors, in particular, talk about using elevated antennas atop poles mounted on the back of their trucks. They use them with tuned raised radials and they have great results at QRP power levels.

I’ve tried elevated antennas and raised radials on my own antenna test range and haven’t yet matched their results. However, I’ve not had good measurements for the various components. Guesswork resulted in functioning antennas, but not in the kind of results Craig and David report.

Until…

The KJ6ER description brought it all home for me. KJ6ER, Greg, describes his modelling, includes several tables showing measurements, and offers construction ideas. All are great starting points.

Results

I measured with a NanoVNA, and then with WSPR. Antenna lengths were tuned for lowest SWR in the CW portions of the bands, usually the QRP hailing frequency. I frequently use WSPR to discover an antenna’s potential, and treat WSPR results as a “possibility,” never a guarantee. Each of these WSPR runs were mid to late afternoon in the US Eastern timezone, with each run for 6 minutes. Solar Ham showed this as a typical propagation day, no solar storms.

These are the lowest SWR results I’ve seen in any of my testing.

Band	Radial lth	Radiator lth	SWR	Impedance
10m	80″	114″	1.031:1	50.7Ω
12m	96″	124.5″	1.045:1	51.1Ω
15m	120″	143.5″	1.027:1	48.7Ω
17m	149″	163″	1.049:1	49.7Ω
20m	198″	207.25″	1.041:1	48.1Ω

Compared to other Casa Easton Test Range antennas

Long ago, I crawled around burying 18 radials in the grass. I use that field with either a Wolf River Coils antenna or with Hamsticks, all sitting atop a low tripod. They’ve produced ~almost~ continental coverage, and always enough capability to reach hundreds upon hundreds of mid-continental POTA activators. SWR with those configurations run between 1.3:1 and 1:7:1, never lower.

My vertical dipole, A DX Engineering Transworld 2010 (TW2010) has also offered reliable mid-continental results, and maybe longer reach than the verticals atop the radial field. It’s advantage is quick setup, even tough it does need more than the usual amount of coax for impedance balance … and SWR in the 1.2:1 to 1.4:1 range. The difference is so slight (in actual listening) as to not be noticeable. Knowing what I know of it now, I shouldn’t have spent that much on it.

DIY-built EFHW and EFRW inverted Vees have almost always performed better than the verticals over the radial field. I’m continually playing with variations and am usually pleased with how well they work, especially the ease of changing bands.

Which brings me to the PERformer. KJ6ER, Greg, shows his models demonstrating efficiency factors about 30% better than most of my other antennas, and some directional front-to-back gain. So far, I’ve had delightfully solid results and at least one contact well beyond the normal range of my other antennas, possibly confirming the directional gain. A too-short session yesterday brought a quick string of POTA QSOs at higher than usual signal reports. I’m not quite gushing yet, but I have thanked Greg and remind you to push his DONATE button when you see the same results I have.

Time will tell. (Hey Alaska, are you hearin’ me?)

Bonus material

KB9VBR, Michael Martens excellently describes details of his build and his results below. Pay particular attention to the last / summary section.

After taming the Hamsticks, I turned my attention to effectiveness. How do these antennas compare to another in my collection?

Contestant 1: Hamstick verticals

Contestant 2: DX Engineering TransWorld 2010

P.S. KA3DRR, Scott Morrison, drags his TW2010 around in a wagon he calls Land Rover One. He’s not one of those strong healthy young males who grumble about the difference between a 9 ounce radio and a 14 ounce radio. 🙂

The competition

Some of the YouTube ham personalities review antennas by describing them in manufacturers’ terms, showing how they are assembled, and usually taking them outside somewhere, hooking up 100w SSB transceiver and making a few calls. “See, it works!”

Of course it does, almost everything does. If K0KLB, Kevin Behn, can loads up his grain auger or hay wagon at QRP power and make contacts, almost any other antenna “works.”

I’m more of a data person. Fifty years in the IT business, and the delight of working many of those years in a research laboratory, does that to a person. I like data to support conclusions. So, I use a ZachTek WSPR Transmitter to check out antennas. WSPR is Weak Signal Propagation Reporter, a network of radio stations that listen for specifically coded signals and file them in a searchable database.

For these tests, I set up 12 minute runs for each antenna in midday on May 27. Midday is not optimal for any particular band, so results don’t indicate the best that can be achieved during peak propagation periods. But, the results do show relative performance of each antenna compared to another. Yes, there are those who say propagation conditions vary constantly, and I agree. Running 6 tests as close together as possible is the best that I can do to mitigate constant change. I collected results using the wspr.rocks site, one of several that collect WSPR data.

There are three rounds of tests, each individual test running for 12 minutes:

• TW2010 set for 20M vs a 20M Hamstick with a radial field in the grass
• TW2010 set for 15M vs a 15M Hamstick with 3 loose radials on the ground
• TW2010 set for 10M vs a 10M Hamstick with 3 loose radials on the ground

	Spots	Avg SNR (dB)	Max KM	Spots @ Max
TW 20M	190	-17	3808	1
HS 20M	121	-18	3808	1
TW 15M	103	-17	6466	4
HS 15M	88	-18	6466	6
TW 10M	72	-18	4251	3
HS 10M	50	-20	4213	4

Counting spots, the TW2010 performed better than each comparable Hamstick. That’s not really a surprise since well tuned dipoles usually outperform 1/4 wavelength verticals. The margins for numbers of spots are 35% better on 20M, 15% better on 15M and 31% better on 10M.

As for reach, the Maximum Kilometer distances are almost identical, with outliers for both antenna versions. At max distance, the Hamsticks have more hits which seems a disparity from the overall spot counts. The SNR averages are only 1 to 2 dB difference, with the Hamsticks showing a stronger average. So, why is it they have a lower number of spots? Tis a puzzlement…

For the graphic record, here are 6 maps corresponding with the 6 runs.

Turning from data to reality, I’ve made 6 QSOs from my Florida QTH to Oregon: 1 with the 20M Hamstick, 2 with the 20M TW2010, 2 with the 20M Wolf River Coils 17’whip, 1 with the 15M Wolf River Coils 17′ whip , most on different days, different times, different RSTs. so, yes all of these antennas “work.” 🙂

In the end, a subjective question remains: Is it worth paying about 6 times more for the TW2010 than for my collection of Hamsticks?

UPDATE 10/20/24: Two recent events happened recently with the TW2010.

• A QSO with Paul Butzi, W7PFB out in the woods in Washington state. I’ve been chasing POTA for a long time, and WA is a LONG way from FL. Paul and I made a faint QSO, via the TW2010 and my QMX on my end and 10W into a a Chelegance MC-750 on his end.
• The next day, frequency agility worked very well on the TW2010 as I made QSOs on all of its bands, 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m, 20m. Yes, I have Hamsticks for each of those bands, but band switching was easier with the TW2010’s “U” plugs, even faster than the Hamstick quick disconnects. Good propagation days and beautiful fall weather brings out POTA activators on all bands.

Neighbors near me in this HOA location are very tolerant of my “backyard portable” vertical antennas. The antennas are not obtrusive in appearance, use little space and work reasonably well considering they are not multi element yagis on a 60′ tower.

For some time, I worked with Wolf River Coils verticals on 40M, 30M, 20M. I use them on a tripod sitting over a radial field of 18 radials, each about 16′ long. While reasonably effective, changing bands is really fussy. Get out the NanoVNA, adjust the coil, adjust the whip length, repeat until good enough for the transmitter to be happy. Wash, rinse, repeat…

Some will suggest a multiband vertical instead. Even though I had a good experience with a fellow ham’s 6BTV, I’m not willing to live with its equally fussy tuning and losses, esp when it’s hidden inside a flagpole and every adjustment is a sequence of: lower the pole, uncover the antenna, adjust, re-cover the antenna and re-raise the pole, quite an ordeal.

So, I had the idea that I could acquire a collection of Hamsticks (40M, 30M, 15M, 10M) tune ’em once, install quick-change adapters on them and have band changes within seconds. BZZZZZZZZZT! A couple of them worked OK above my radial field. The others wouldn’t. We read frequently that more radials are always better, and Callum tells us that up to a certain point that’s true.

More radials: It Ain’t Necessarily So

Gershwin tried to tell us… I spent a lot of time yesterday trying each of these HamSticks in different configurations. My goal was to discover the configuration of each with the lowest SWR, as indicated by a NanoVNA.

Of course, these measures of goodness are simply SWR numbers from a test device. On air performance is the real test. I’ve already made on-air contacts with all of them. My next round of measured testing will be WSPR runs.

Till then, this chart sums up my test results. I’ll be using he bold entries to make band changes fast, easy and tuner-free.

Band	No radials	3 x 11 ft	3 x 33 ft	18 x 16′ field
40M	3.65	n/a	1.718	1.387
20M	3.52	n/a	1.082	1.085
15M	1.718	1.139	1.572	2.132
10M	1.595	1.483	1.583	1.656

If you have been following along with my antenna experiments, you know that I always work with temporary outdoor / field antennas and have been searching for a solution I can make more permanent. It needs to be always available, and frequency resilient.

The idea that I’ve harbored for a long time is a multi-band antenna in the attic. Never mind that certain people don’t want me climbing around in an attic which is likely more complex than the simple one we had “up north.”

The very successful EFHW became the ideal candidate. It performs well, even if its signal strength is about 1/2 an S-unit lower than my best verticals. I remade the original with heavier, more durable, wire and field tested it several days. Like the original, it performed well, with no need of a tuner, on 40M, 20M, 15m, and 10m. All I needed was someone to hang it in the attic.

After a good bit of searching, a good guy known as “The Village Tinker” suggested a certain “low voltage” installation firm (cable TV, ethernet, etc. ) They agreed to do it for the simple price of a one hour service call. A couple of guys came out and I described what I wanted, emphasizing that as high as possible was my desire. I handed them the antenna, complete with the 49:1 transformer in a box, and a simple center hanger that I had been using outdoors. They had the job done in about an hour and we exchanged a check for a receipt.

Results: the 4 band antenna that needed no tuner is now a 4 band antenna that needs a tuner for 3 of those bands, doesn’t hear very well, and has an S-5 noise floor! Sigh!!! I have made a few QSOs with it. The signal reports are lower than with other antennas, and the noise, apparently from other things running through the attic, makes it uncomfortable for listening and decoding CW. It certainly will not be an everyday antenna, maybe an alternative on rainy days.

What happened? I asked one of the installers to show me, on a overhead picture of the house, where the antenna ended up. It wasn’t as high as I expected, nor did it run quite as I expected. By that time, we were out of service call time, and I didn’t ask that he go change anything. What had really happened? He put the center hanger, a simple little plastic triangle with a few holes, as high as he could (not very)… when he came to it … If were installing it, I would have scooted the hanger along until I could get it up to the peak of the roof line. Because he didn’t use some of the distance going up, he had more wire left at the far end, and simply routed it around a corner. The antenna is not the inverted vee I wanted, but a bent horizontal that’s not very high. That speaks to the “doesn’t hear well” aspect. The difference in resonance points and in ambient noise floor is most likely due to the nearness of all the other kinds of wires and ducts in the attic space.

Should I ask for another service call to relocate it up to the top of the roof line? With the unpleasantly high noise floor, I think not.