Best vertical HF antenna

[e350]

Hi I 'm after some advice on best vertical HF I haven't got a clue what to go for..
Thanks in advance...

[NoiseBoy]

Id probably say anything that is a big 1/4 wave long piece of metal with lots of elevated radials. But you probably need to be more specific.

[mangina]

There is no "best" HF vertical ..

You can spend £600 on a bit of ally with fancy traps etc and use no ground return and it will be pretty much useless..

you can use £2 worth of wire stuck up a pole with a decent ground and it work better .

any vert will only be as good as the ground you provide under it , no ground , no radial verts simply perform badly.

My advice would be spend the money on a decent external remote tuner and bury loads of wires under the lawn and spend a few quid on a pole with a wire running up it .. The bit we see as the antenna , the bit heading skyward is only half the antenna , the important bit is under that which people never see.

[simon26OD004]

as said ^^^ unless you can get a good radial system in then most verticals for HF are not very good at all, if you are limited on space I would go for a cobweb.

[Adriano9966]

HF verticals do indeed work my logbook proves this ......but they are a massive compromise without an effective ground !
However if like me you dont have a garden and just a small back yard then you need to compromise. The HF360 on my chimney works quite well especially on 10/12 metres but it can be quite noisey on the lower bands.I wish I could get a cobweb on my chimney but I am really unlucky there because there is a massive great gable wall in the way however I would go for the cobweb myself if I could. I am presuming you dont have a garden and if you have an attic you could always build Something in there (space permitting)for the lower HF bands.

If you do have a garden then you have more (better choices)available.
Hope that helps you

[e350]

thanks for all the comments , my back garden is not that big about 20m long 10m wide , so I was thinking to get one vertical on the back the house and a long wire end feed.

SIGMA SE-HF-360 Fibreglass Vertical Antenna + SIGMA SE-HF X-80 & SE-HF-360 PLUS KIT

and

SIGMA LW-40 HF Top Band 160-6m Wire Antenna


I'm doing the right thing ? Monday I'm off to have a look and hoping to buy my first HF rig

Yaesu FT-950, FT-2000 or TS-590 , TS-2000E ?????

[mangina]

Both those antennas are end fed so BOTH require a ground EXACTLY the same as a vert . The end fed wire antenna you posted is ( apart from maybe the transformer ratio) the same thing as the vertical antenna you shown .

You could put the vert up and run coax to the shack with no radials and it would " work" But the "other half " of the antenna would be the braid of your coax which you don't really want .. By the same rule the end fed wire WILL require a ground or again the caox shield becomes this ...

Don't get me wrong many people use those antennas with differing degrees of success but you can't change antenna basics ..

can you not fit a simple inverted V doublet in the space ? be cheaper and a lot better .

[northern35s]

thanks for all the comments , my back garden is not that big about 20m long 10m wide , so I was thinking to get one vertical on the back the house and a long wire end feed.

SIGMA SE-HF-360 Fibreglass Vertical Antenna + SIGMA SE-HF X-80 & SE-HF-360 PLUS KIT

and

SIGMA LW-40 HF Top Band 160-6m Wire Antenna


I'm doing the right thing ? Monday I'm off to have a look and hoping to buy my first HF rig

Yaesu FT-950, FT-2000 or TS-590 , TS-2000E ?????

There isn't antenna yet invented that will work well 160m - 6m, if you don't have the space then forget 160m, in fact I'd go as far as saying if you don't have the space then forget everything below 40m, dipole for 40m and a cobweb for the rest, you'll be more than happy with that little lot, and it will take a long time for you to fully understand those bands and how your antennas perform.

I assume because you've included three predominantly HF only rigs, you've no interest in VHF DXing, so exluded such antennas

[JGR]

Basic fundamentals of an electromagnetic wave is anything will transmit to some point even a piece of spaghetti but it is the efficiency that is the main issue.
And do not be mislead by SWR as a dummy load offers a 1:1 but is a useless antenna. I am sure you have come across the wavelength formula right eg 142.5/f= length in meters and this figure cannot be altered, it can how ever be made to behave in a manner that is physically shorter than intended, but you are only offering a system that is inefficient.

There is lots of choices on the market that will give you the available bands but they all require a grounding system to balance the antenna eg 1/4 resonator needs a 1/4 ground so that it in effect becomes a 1/2 at the desired frequency.
Also bear in mind that with a vertical the signal strength from a distant station that is transmitting on a horizontal plane will be some what down on your receive.

My advice is try to fit a horizontal antenna in the space you have as this will offer the best chance of what you need especially for HF.

I know this has caused more questions than answers but they are all valid points and need to be taken on board.

As for my choice a ground mounted Hustler 5BTV with lots and lots of ground radials and they do not need to be 1/4 lengths as the ground naturally detunes them any way, just lots and lots as long as you can get them.

[Yaesu]

If i were you i would definatley put the wire up and give further thought to the vertical.

I had a vertical - The GP-2500F, and it did not work very well, at the time i thought it worked ok, but i put up a 20m long wire and i compared the two.

The difference was huge, i took down the vertical and e bayed it, the wire was head and shoulders better in every way.

The wire has acheived contacts all over the world including Tasmania - over 11000 miles away.

The wire i went for is this one http://www.radioworld.co.uk/catalog/113 ... 53a1e9df53

[GW0DIV]

Horizontal/vertical cross polarisation are not important at HF, once the signal has been refracted by the atmosphere it could be twisted to any angle. A vertical antenna will waste less enegy on NVIS propagation than a horizontal antenna but will pick up more noise.

[mangina]

you would be hard pushed to better a simple dipole costing pennies and would out perform most things you can buy at 100 times the cost .. ok only mono band but they take minutes to build and can be changed quickly .. or even feed a few off the same feedpoint in a "fan" dipole arrangement ..

[JGR]

Horizontal/vertical cross polarisation are not important at HF, once the signal has been refracted by the atmosphere it could be twisted to any angle. A vertical antenna will waste less enegy on NVIS propagation than a horizontal antenna but will pick up more noise.

Sorry but practical experience has shown that the ionosphere has not varied the polarity of any signal that I have received on the vertical, they still show a marked loss on receive compared to my beam or the doublet.

But I agree on the point of the horizontal picking up less noise, and the vertical being more efficient for NVIS and low angle of take off.

[JGR]

you would be hard pushed to better a simple dipole costing pennies and would out perform most things you can buy at 100 times the cost .. ok only mono band but they take minutes to build and can be changed quickly .. or even feed a few off the same feedpoint in a "fan" dipole arrangement ..

Could not agree more with the comments above and if you use ladder line for the feeder and create a doublet then you can make it a multi band, well they are all a compromise as nothing is ever really multi band.

[mangina]

Yep a doublet is also a great antenna and can be made very cheap even with open wire feeder as this is easy to make and is not critical in the spacing of the wires .. i'm always impressed with simple dipoles and always resort to throwing them up ..