At my location with the lot size, the best antenna for me is an Endfed. Now I am not at all complaining because just a short time ago I was in a condo using the MFJ 1788 loop antenna. My first Endfed antenna was the
W1SFR 6m-40m. I will once again repeat myself saying this antenna is great I have kept mine for portable operations once the summer comes. The top rating for this antenna is 100 watts and since I operate digital at power levels that could be beyond this antenna rating. I did not want to overdo it and lose this great antenna. I then purchased the
DXextreme Endfed from DX antennas. Mine is the 33-foot version which is the shortest but is the right size for my lot. While using my W1SFR Endfed on FT8 I monitored it's results on
PSK reporter and captured these results with pictures. I wanted to see if there were any noticeable differences in results between the two antennas. The new antenna went up on February 28th and I have been monitoring PSK reporter and taking pictures of the new antenna results. The mode of operation has been FT8 and the power output for both antennas was 60 watts. The location for the new antenna was the same as the old and the old antenna was 35 feet long and the new antenna is 33 feet long. I was not really expecting any differences but I was surprised when I compared the results.
The first comparison was 20m during the day between 14:15-14:45 local time. The first picture is from W1SFR's Endfed antenna at 14:16 and the second picture is at 14:40 from the DXextreme Endfed antenna.
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| W1SFR 20m |
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| DXextreme 20m |
To my surprise, the DXextreme antenna seemed to make it into Europe and a few other spots the W1SRF EndFed did not. I do have other pictures from other times as well that show the same results but I did not want to fill the post with them as I have other bands to show.
The next band is 30m and again these pictures are from early afternoon at 14:50 local time for W1SFR's antenna and 15:40 using the DXextreme antenna.
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| W1SRF 30m |
Once again I noticed that my spots in Europe were more with the DXextreme antenna over the W1SRF.
Regarding 40m I was happy with the W1SFR antenna compared to my balcony mounted MFJ 1788 back in the condo as I really had no luck reaching Europe on 40m with the loop antenna. The W1SFR allowed me to get into Europe and I was happy with that. But the DXextreme really opened things up for me overseas.
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| DXextreme 30m |
Overall I am very happy with the performance of the new antenna it also allows me to rest at ease knowing I am not overtaxing the W1SFR Endfed in the digital modes.
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| W1SRF 40m |
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| DXextreme 40m |
4 comments:
WOW! That's quite a difference Mike! Very interesting. I bought an EndFed Long Wire from WireAntennas.co.uk and now that I've got two receivers in the 7610, I think I'll try connecting it this weekend if the weather stays dry. It'll be interesting to compare it to my G5RV.
73, Tom, M7MCQ.
Good morning Tom and nice to hear from you, I found it very interesting to see the difference in the reports on PSK reporter. I tried to keep the compares during the same time of day and the solar conditions were around the same too. I was not able to do an "A" "B" antenna switch test as I can only have one antenna up at a time. This for sure would had been more accurate for sure but I was not able to do it.
73 Tom and have a nice weekend and stay well.
Mike
VE9KK
Hi Mike,
How was your first Maritimes winter? It looks like the DXextreme takes the victory. I like to use the "show snr" option on pskreporter. The tags then show both the time and signal report. It may be a bit cluttered but it is nice to have all of those reports in front of you. Gives you an idea of where you are strongest and where the signal drops off.
73,
Paul VA3ZC
Good afternoon Paul always nice to hear from you, yes as you mentioned showing the SNR would had been best....but hind site is always 20/20! I did go back to PSK reporter but it seems to show data that is 24 hours and earlier, as for the winter yes we made it. It’s now COVID 19 stay well Paul and have a good weekend.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
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