The good thing about the vertical EFHW is that as you only need a small piece of the coax as radial/counterpoise, you can more easily place it higher on the mast. Try putting the half wave up a 12m mast and you gain 3dB. Not much, but it is an improvement over the vertical at ground level

During the Dxww contest a few months ago I made a 10 meter contact to reunion island from northern Illinois which is approximately 10000 miles. My setup was and still is a 5/8 gainmaster roughly 2 meters above average ground at the base, 250 watts, 50 feet of lmr 240 coax and a yaesu ftdx 1200. Couldn’t be happier. What an amazing antenna.

Great stuff. So much easier to understand with the visuals of the software. Thank you.

Love these type of videos Cal, I learn a lot from them, also your pondering on things too. Hoping to do some more experimenting with my set up again sometime fairly soon.

Very interesting stuff. Thanks for doing this !

Great episode! I love that I had seen the ep on radials so really understood that part. I’d love to see more about stacked verticals and phasing.

Good info Callum. Thanks for you're time.👍🏽

Awesome stuff Callum... The vertical phasing is quite interesting. I have a sirio M400 10meter vertical at about 6meters. it does a good job.

Thanks Callum. As always, something interesting and informative delivered with enthusiasm and energy! , P.s. re your comment about the spreadsheet language l once changed a hand held programming language accidentally to Chinese. That was fun!

Brilliant info as usual Professor Callum. 😁👍

Thanks Calum! Always great stuff. I'm getting ready to build a ½-wave (actually, .47-wave) tubing vertical for 20m, using a 49:1 unun and a relay box. With unun in circuit: ½-wave for 20m. With unun out of circuit: ¼-wave for 40m. Yes, I will use radials for the ¼ wave, and they will improve th ½ wave a bit too. 73 from west Texas!

Excellent video. I'm starting to experiment with a monoband 3/4 wave vertical for sporadic E working just need the E's now

That's a timely video for me Cal. Co-incidently built M0MSN Mike's GainMaster today but slightly altered for 28.5 MHz. I will be testing on a 12 metre pole tomorrow so have the option of raising the antenna to half a wave length off the ground. This video suggests that that is a good idea. Thanks. Thanks also for the QSO on 40m today.

Please do more tutorials on mmana. Enjoy your videos

Her indoors calum always says longer is better and she does'nt ever touch my radio equipment 😉😉😉 have a good weekend sir

There’s a bit of a dead spot from 0.85-1.15 wl long for low angle gain. But it just shows what can be done with longer verticals.

If you interview with Ron Burgundy for a spot on the news team, remember to answer Yes to owning a trident. Great video!

Another great video! Always a bit of fun and learning! All the best from Texas! 73 de KI5HXM

Thanks Cal, these musing always make good videos.

I am so glad I found you again. I thought I was subscribed .... I am now!

In the early 1980s we ran a 5/8 vertical on 20m (41ft) with 16 radials. Ran 25w SSB. Worked really well, even a few New Zealand - UK contacts. However recall sunspots were in our favour way back then. We then had children, grandkids. All left home now. Might get back into it again.

Cool vid! Thanks bro

I did an experiment with circular radials on VHF. Effectively a spiral. Came out straight and then formed a circle. Really did work. No maths to back it up though.

Thanks for the demo! From one who has used EZNEC exclusively MMANA is a lot more refined IMO. More demos would be appreciated. Trying to figure out how to add and space wires.

Tolles Video. Eine Software, die ich verwenden wollte. Danke DX-Commander 🤣

great stuff... all nmakes you think... thanks Cal...

Quite good OM, amazing teaching skills. Have you made a video of slowly raising the bottom of the vertical until it is horizontal? W1KRI~Keith

I have been playing with a 3/4 wavelength 20 meter inverted-L, 41 feet is vertical and the remainder horizontal. I have four 16 ft. radials and four 33 ft. radials. The VSWR is good at 20 meters and since there is no matching networks, I use it on 17, 30 and 40 with a tuner. I am quite happy with the performance on 20 and it actually peforms decently on 30 an 40. My plan is to make this a pernament antenna with a better ground plane under it.

Would like to see the same thing but with a horz wire antenna. Good job.

When I was a CB'er here in Tennessee in the 1980's; a couple of fellow CB's had Sigma 4 3/4 wave antennas. These antennas are about 26 feet tall. I had a Maco 5/8 which was about 21 feet tall. I actually did better at local communication but the guys with the Sigma 4's did better at DX (we called it "skip shootin') 😁

I love the guitars on the wall. I have two in my radio shack but i cant play them beyond three blind mice in jazz fusion style. They look good though.

Yes please more detail!

hey callum another great video please keep up the great work ...i have a question unrelated to this video ???? what does a faraday cage REALY do is it worth all the trouble to make one maybe you can make a short video about it there is to much information about it on the net ...what should we believe seems like they all say something different about there usefullness lol

Would be interesting to see a standard half wave dipole mounted vertically in the group for comparison. Thanks!

Very interesting Callum, thanks 🙂 I guess that a disadvantage of long verticals is on receive; I suppose the big high-angle lobes will pick up a lot more natural (cosmic) noise on HF.... especially considering that it is arriving through much less of the absorbtive D-layer, than at low angles. Would be interesting to evaluate! On the other hand, perhaps most peoples' noise is dominated by man-made, unless they are out in the lovely country like yourself! 😀

Hallo Calllum speaking about long antennas you never mentioned and extended double Zepp. 6.25 meters is 5/8 on 10 meters but 6.25 meters x2 is an extended double Zepp for 10 meters with about 3db of gain. It also happen that a 6.25x2meters antenna is a 5/8 antenna center fed on 20 meters. Feeding this antenna with ladder line and in a vertical fashion should give an advantage as a multiband antenna . Since this is not a resonant antenna a 6.25 metersx2 through a 6.5 meters x2 vertical antenna should be a great vertical antenna. To make it single band and using coax a 1/8 parallel line could be connected to a 50 ohm coax and make it a simple collinear 10 meters antenna.

Love your enthusiasm for antennas. I have seriously thought about getting a 5/8th wave CB antenna for the 10 meter band . Looks like it could provide some useful gain . Rob 2E0GQL

Contesters really dislike rotators. Prefer stacks on a switch. So much faster! Would be nice to have a 40m vertical up 20m high though😂

Great stuff Callum!! How is Rolly? Havent seen a video from him for a bit. 👍

Good video Cal. I came across a video of a guy building a 5/8 over 5/8 for I think 140 od MHz. He used a 1/4 wave spacing between the two and wound a 1/2 wave length of copper to join the two elements together so it was 180 deg. Out of phase. By all reports it works very well. Couldn’t understand a bloody word he said. ( Asian ). Mite be worth a go on ya computer. Cheers cock. 👍🇦🇺🥃

Complicated subject. Most large contest stations do not use verticals above 40 meters. They always can do better with horizontal antennas. The exception is if you can’t get that horizontal antenna “high”. All contest stations (good ones) do use verticals or some form of vertical on 160 meters. Almost no one can get “high” on 160 meters because we are talking 270 feet for only a half-wave! 80 meters is the lowest band where it is possible to get “high” but it’s expensive and labor intensive. So some form of vertical as in conventional half square or 4 square. With the 4 square you change directions with the flip of a switch whereas you need maybe two half square antennas for good coverage. 40 meters is where good contest stations with moderate towers go to Yagis and guys like me ( tired of working on towers) go with phased verticals or dipoles at 65 feet. Being on salt water tips the scale to phased verticals! Your videos always make me think and I enjoy them!

Why don't you fly over to Oregon to see Rudy Severns N6LF? Take a couple of cameras and a DX commander for him. Set up a patreon or gofundme and I'm sure many of use would chuck in a few quid to go towards the costs. Would be a perfect way to archive the views on his science for future budding amateurs. Would be a shame to lose his wisdom over a few emails rather than get his thoughts down on tape (or SD card!) :-)

One thing I'd be interested in Cal, if MMANA is programmed to model magnetic loops and what it would make of them?

Good argument for 5/8 - at least on 10 meters where it is practical. But .. what did happen to the SWR ? I see the same crazy numbers when attempting to model an elevated vertical.

Great video, interested in the phased pair, but side by side. Or is that classed as out of phase, I can't remember now. I've seen a guy on YT years ago down under on CW next to a beach. I can't remember his name and I'm certain he said it was directional. Just wondering what it would be like for 10/11m for a out and about antenna? Regards

I've messed with MMANA before, but figured I'd follow along just for practice. Your elevation in the far field screen is 27.6, but mine is 23.9, and I can't seem to change it in a way the calculator actually uses it. I get the same SWR, but different dB at 5°.

Id love a flat 24-32mhz version ,can we see 27mhz or 29mhz line of sight fm operation of antenna Callum?

It's not how long your antenna is, it's how you use it. 😊

I know I'm a little late to this game, but, how would you stack two or three verticals? Is coax mandatory for the hire up ones? Very curious. Thinking about stacked vertical kite antenna. Thanks very much.

Callum, Have you experimented with a random length (nonresonant) vertical configuration? Popular in a horizontal configuration, there are nonresonant values that would make a vertical arrangement practical but necessitate a matching circuit.

Hey Mate, You aren't writing with a drum stick there. lol And by the way Did you try a 7/8 wave to see what would happen? I run 2 verticals here with a co-phasing harness made from RG-11 and a T connector into a run of LMR-600 to the shack. The verticals are the original Avanti Sigma 4's at 75 feet. And they deem to beat the 3 element beams pointed to Australia by at least 1db when I switch them. de W4DRA

question. For example, I make a vertical antenna for 40 and 20. like the antenna you offer, and I make I instead of 8 (radials 4 for 40 and 4 for 20). 8 radials with, for example, a tap on them all, so that one length of the radial is suitable for 40 and the tapped part is made suitable for 20 meters. So basically a combined radian. (the antenna sizes are randomly chosen). in fact, this also happens with youre radiators, right? PS. Informatief channel. 73 Marcel pd1mm.

Another thought: Those highish-angle lobes, on 10 metres, could offer an interesting experiment for short-skip meteor-scatter? I tried MS once on 10m with a modestly-equipped Belgian station, and we completed in about 2 minutes! I guess that it would probably need a major shower for the high-angle stuff to show up in any useful quantity. If anyone is interested in doing a test, during one of the showers, let me know! Could be fun actually seeing the meteors which are pinging for us! 😀I'm in south Oxfordshire; anyone, in the range of about 100 to 300 miles from me, could be in with a ping!

Good evening everyone, quick question. Watching Cal's videos, when he models various antennas, several of them have negative gain, such as -5db. If someone was to feed 100W into a -5db gain antenna, what would effective power be? I assume 0db gain would be 100W effective, and +3db would be 200, so what would -5db be? Thanks

Stacking/phasing decreases the vertical beanwidth, think squished donut.

Can we have some parameters that define "better" please? Easier to match? Higher gain? Less current at the base? Do you want those nasty high lobes that appear past 1/2 wave? Is it wider Q you want? Etc etc....

can i connect ham radio to marine band antenna at the top of a 15 meter aluminum sailboat mast?

Interesting. I have a question...perhaps you know the answer (?). A center-fed dipole is said to be 75 ohms impedance. Can it be fed off-center...or modified somehow... and match to 50 ohms?

Is it possible to exchange 10M in classic or signature 9 to 30M ??? Just keeping 80invL

Some recent testing revealed that increasing the number radials, up to 16 radials can increase gain significantly, more than 16 radials does not. 1/4 wave and 5/8 wave antennas respond to radials, while 1/2 wave antennas don't respond much to radials. Besides not gaining much low angle gain with a 1/2 wave antenna, a 1/2 wave can suffer the most from ground loss, compared to 1/4 wave and 5/8 wave antennas. The ideal height of elevated 1/4 wave and 5/8 wave antennas is at least one antenna above the ground to the bottom of the antenna. To minimize ground loss with a 1/2 wave vertical, it needs to be at least one full wavelength above the ground to the bottom of the antenna. Antennas longer than 0.65 wavelength long begin to increase their radiation angle and lose their low angle radiation. Elevated 1/4 wave antennas can increase gain with sloping radials, but 5/8 wave antennas have best gain with 90 degree, flat radials. A 10m 1/4 wave, when elevated should be at least 8 feet above the ground. A 10m 5/8 wave when elevated should be at least 20 feet above the ground. A 10m 1/2 wave should be at least 16 feet above the ground. Radials don't help the half wave's gain much, but might help with frequency range.

Is it dB of dBi? 0dbi is -2.15dB 😉 or is it a wrong conclusion?

What is your radio call sign?

Thought you was going to do a 80m or 160m antenna. 😂

Google a "Franklin" antenna". 😎👍