Thread by @Brushbeater

(THREAD) Let's talk a little HF and antennas. What's HF? High Frequency (3-30mHz) that allows for regional and even global communications. HF is extremely important for long-distance regional, off-grid communications.

This evening I was contacted by a friend and retired Marine Officer with questions regarding one of his local guy's HF struggles. The learning curve is steep, even more so when you're not in a class with a competent instructor to break down the complex into the simple.

Guy was hearing everything (and everyone) on a statewide EMCOMM net, but not being heard. The "law of reciprocity" in radio is a myth.

Their solution was more power - his Xiegu G90 with 20w of power didn't seem to be cutting it. But the answer was NOT more power.

An amplifier only added to the frustration. No only was he not getting out still, now he's out significantly more money beyond his planned budget.

The problem was, and is, with misunderstanding antennas.

Different antennas have different purposes on HF - vertical for extremely long distance contacts (groundwave / surface wave and shallow takeoff angle) and horizontal dipoles for regional communications (high takeoff angle for skywave)

Turns out he'd thrown a random wire into a tree and hit the tune button. That's a cool feature about the Xiegu, but matching the antenna electrically doesn't do squat for transmitting efficiency. If the antenna sucks, the tuner won't fix it.
brushbeater.store/products/xiegu…

The great thing is that HF antennas are ridiculously easy to build yourself. One of the better homebrew designs is the simple Off Center Fed (OCF) Dipole.

That thing in the middle is a Balun (Balanced - Unbalanced) which is a transformer. I carry the one you'll need:
brushbeater.store/products/4-1-b…

From here, two runs of wire cut to the length indicated in the diagram. This gives you a solid efficiency (1.5:1 or less Standing Wave Ratio, a measure of efficiency) from 3.5-28Mhz, covering much of the HF band. it also makes for a good shortwave antenna.

In class we build these during the HF instruction. Its not more power, its more efficiency with the power you're using. Rarely do we run into problems even on voice (the least efficient mode). Come on out in January. We'll get you squared away:
brushbeater.store/products/radio…