I'm a fan of your channel and would like to know when a 1:1 Unun can be used and how. Thanks!

Have you monitored in a separate receiver?

I always identify with a "slant P" (or M) on the end of my call. Ron W4BIN

Thank you Peter. 🙂 I am still trying to figure out which antenna should be the first one I build or buy when hopefully getting my license next month (German class E). The 10m and 15m are the most interesting ones included in that license and I am currently thinking of either buying hamsticks to build hamstick dipoles for these bands, or either building 2 of these T2LTs. As I am new to the ham radio hobby, I am not really sure which one of those is superior, but I tend to think the T2LT is the better choice as it does not have this compromise of that thin wire coil to allow for shortening the sticks (as the hamstick have) and is has these pure Lamda/4 elements instead. Does that make sense, I mean, would you also consider the T2LT being a better choice than hamstick dipoles? 🤔

Thanks for the videos. i must say when i see the radio being featured is from that country I feel like the little boy who didn't get a bicycle for christmas

Thanks Peter very useful info I owned two X6100s but never got good ssb audio reports? CW and digital excellent 73 Robert G3RCE

My portable is either Ziegu x6100 or ft891 with sotobeams bandspringer on sotobeams telescopic 7m mast or a buddistick antenna or moonraker dedicated 20,17,10m whips for magmount on car, all seem to work well love the x6100 everything in one small package

Great video!! Interesting /sm3uae (sweden)

You need to trim the cable ties either with some flush cutting side cutters or a knife. You'll end up with some nasty cuts without doing this.

Great work

nonno va a giocare a bocce

question please Peter. is the feedpoint of a longwire with coax braid counterpoise same as dipole as in the feed point is current maxima please..and if so its in my best interrest to get 9:1 high as please ?

Still use my trusty FT817 and the MFJ Super Q loop

I often use a Xiegu x5105 with a 35' random wire w/17' counterpoise stretched out on the ground. I like to put a BNC to banana jack coupler directly onto the transceiver's BNC connector. This way I don't have any coax losses, and as long as the tuner can match it, I figure I don't need a balun. That's what makes sense to me, anyway. The Xiegu tuners really are remarkable. And the battery lasts a good long while, although recharging it also takes a good long while.

Hi, Peter. Thanks for the video. I really should invest in some ferrite. Can you post a link to the one you use? Whilst I'm at it, i could do with something for the house TV aerial lead :-). Cheers, Chris 2E0FRU

Great video mate, and always interesting to see how others are enjoying the hobby. 73 zl3xdj

Nice video as usual. Since I use an car to get out portable I can carry a bit more weight. My rig of choice is a Yaesu FT 891, LDG ATU, Bioenno 15AH battery and an EF 9:1 antenna. I carry wire for 29ft, 41ft and 71ft to fit what room I have at the location I choose. If no trees are available I have a 30' push-up fiberglass mast. The radio, tuner, antennas and battery all fit in a carry case but the push-up has to be carried separately. If I ever get up to speed with CW I would consider a lower wattage radio. Thanks for the great videos. Steve, K7OFG

Wondering why you were using those slightly odd frequencies?

Nice Video Peter. 🙂

Thanks for posting this video and sharing your experience Peter. Glad to see you are using very little power. That's my situation and I found this video very encouraging. VK5WB uBitx v2 , Chinese 10W autotuner (works well), EFHW and vertical 1/4 wave on f/g squid pole. Least expensive set up Cheers

"Best HF portable" is a bit like "Best car" - it depends on what you want to achieve, weight, whether you have a car with you etc. My lightweight is a TX-500 with the BP500 battery pack and either a Palm key or for digimodes a Raspberry Pi-W and digirig and a Chelegance 750 antenna and the radio fits in a custom small case from Windcamp. I can carry that easily and if I need I can take 60W solar panel with me and plug that directly into the radio (it can charge with up to 50v) If I need a tuner I have a MAT-10 ATU in the same case. I've built my own cables. That is a low quiescent power system and if I want to I can add on a 50W PA but that is more weight plus either a 7Ah or 18Ah LifePo battery. I need the car - you can't carry that. If I want I can take 10m of wire on a SOTAbeams winder and a 64:1 Spark Gap Unun rather than the 750. If I'm in the car I use a drive-on mount with a 12m Spiderpole and a MAT-40 ATU end fed random wire for the higher bands or an inverted Vee for 40m and an FT-857 and a 3 element 2m beam or 6ele 70cm beam. If I want it really compact I have the 817 with a Wonderwand and speech compressor. Or I can use a QDX with a Pi for small digimodes setup. If I had an RV I could have a kW and all sorts of antenna stashed away. SOTA guys are running kits that weigh almost grammes ... It really comes down to what you can carry and what you want to achieve.

Why aren't you using the Elecraft KX3?

I generally use a vertical EFHW and work lots of East Coast USA and EU stations running 50W with an FT-710 on the beach in So California....73, W6QR

A good choice Peter. My choice is the Xiegu G90 and the PAC-12 portable antenna. Normally QRP, but 20W gets you out of jail!

Regarding location. First a low noise location but as important a location with great conductivity. old metal bridges, concrete with rebar in it or anything of long metal. Testing can be done by driving or walking across the location and noting the increase in noise and signal. In places with low ground conductivity, Ive see as much as a 10Db increase driving over a bridge.

Nice video Peter, which portable paddle are you getting in?

The two last videos looks shouted in a wrong gamma or/and colorspace. Standart is REC709. Here I bet special gamma curve or/and HDR mode is used. Without putting it in BT709 somwhere in post prod you'll have whashed colors grey low lights, bad skins tones...

Hi Peter,my go to portable gear is still my ftdx10,slidewinder coil with chameleon 17ft whip and a magic carpet.also my trusted 40-10m efhw on a cheap 7m pole strung out.

Great video, many thanks!! Robert K5TPC

The David Attenborough of Ham Radio

The pl-880 is great

How about i dipole antenna. I tried to like your video but is was not letting me enjoyed your prospective on things that i am interested in HAVE A GREAT DAY

Just park up in a nice quiet spot and run a mag loop or dipole on a tripod rather than mag mounted vertical? Thanks for your insights.

What I hear regularly is "I have high receive noise, a good earth will cure it". Yet, I have never seen any evidence for that. Most noise seems to be picked up by the aerial system. Earthing seems to have become a bit of a superstition. It's different in the southern USA where you need lightning protection.

I think a Miracle Whip is a can of cream or cheese, a play on words. Propelled by nitrous oxide or laughing gas.

I also found adding an external speaker really made a big difference on my new 6200

Should the common mode choke be nearest the antenna or the equipment? Can I put one on each end? Any benifit to this? Thanks

Nice explanation on random wire antennas. I especially liked, “ Random doesn’t mean random.”

Great presentation. We rarely think of way ground wire in terms of wavelength and we should. Never thought of the 1/4 wave wire trick for RF in the shack. I wonder if that would help with other devices being effected by RF on wires like alarm systems and garage door openers. Might be worth an experiment. Here in the states, the National Electrical Code Requires any ground rod to be bonded to the rod at the point the electrical service enters the building. In the Motorola Standards and Guidelines for Communication Sites (R56) also requires the same bonding. Nothing in either mention RF as a reason. Here in the U.S. we use 60 Hertz for power and 1/4 wavelength (using the standard antenna formula) would be 776.5 miles long (!!) so the chance of of having a 1/4 wavelength ground wire for our AC power anywhere is pretty remote. But as you and K6WX state, at the upper frequencies we use, a 1/4 wave ground wire is not uncommon and with 10 meters and up, multiple 1/4 wavelengths may likely occur. And as lightning acts as a high frequency signal (essentially a pulse of energy with a very fast rise time, short duration and fast decay) it too may see our ground wire as a 1/4 wave (or odd multiple of) wire which could look like a high impedance and find a lower impedance path through our equipment.

@14:43, the wire's coming through the window. Is the window completely shut on the wire? I'm interested in doing similar,but the last time I tried that, my SWR was sky-high.

How about K6ARK’s end fed half wave antennas that he made me. Why was 4:1 chosen over 49:1? “#1) SMA connector, 4:1 unun on an FT37-43 toroid, and 20m of 28 ga wire that can be laid on the ground in a loop or just strung out as a long wire. As a loop, received signals will be notably stronger on 20m, and possibly 10m as well. #2) BC connector, 4:1 unun on an FT50-43 toroid, and 15 ft "radiator" and 7.5 ft counterpoise 26 ga copper clad steel antenna wire. The 4:1 matching units will make for a better match and less loss if you decide to connect a length of coax. Wires are connected to the matching units with 2mm banana plugs. You can swap wires between the matching units if you want, or even remove the counterpoise from the 2nd unit. It won't affect RX performance all that much. If you want to TX with it, #2 should tune up on 40-10m with a G-90, KX3, KX2, or KH1. I would recommend staying under 10w SSB and 5w CW/Digital.”

Thanks for the fair review of this radio. Since it can transmit full power into a higher SWR how long before the finals blow?

I just got my 10m pole so I can tape a 29” wire, I didn’t do it today because it was windy. It is a Haverford brand in NSW, it is a squid pole. Another youtuber used a hose clamp on the lowest pole held up by 3 tent guy ropes and tent pegs. It looked rather good.

Isn’t 7.030 cw only? You mentioned it was a known QRP cq frequency.

Question: (new tech here) but what size toroid chokes are the best to keep in hand? Love your content btw 73 N0CKL

Very interesting, is the length of the balanced line mandatory? Why a 4:1 balun? I have always seen 1:1 baluns with the balanced line. Thanks for the reply. have a nice day. (before Brexit I bought many things in your shop in Friedrichshafen.)

I have two EFHW antennas. One I built with a homemade 49:1 Unun and the other was made using an Unun purchased on Amazon. Both of them are tuned for 40 meters through 10 meters. I installed them in a upward slope from a few feet above ground to a tree about 20 feet high. My problem is my G90 Radio waterfall shows an evenly spaced series of noise bands on all bands. Noise is quite loud and the noise bands are fairly wide. What would you recommend to eliminate this noise? Using a vertical whip in same location, I do not get this noise.

Great video, I wonder if it would’ve worked on 80m too?

XIEGU G90 ground wired to power supply ground which is house ac ground. Couldn't hear anyone without it. Also sunk an 8' copper ground for the static/ lightening arrester attached at the 9:1 unun via 9' #6 copper. See anything wrong with this ? KJ5GUN '73

Great video Peter! the mysterious and elusive "earth", took me years to get my head around it and restrict my efforts to things that were actually do-able! One aspect you only tangentially touched on, bonding equipment together. It made me think about those rigs that are 12V powered. Whether intended for vehicular or base operation, you can not assume the negative lead is connected to chassis and so you dont know for certain about its earthed status. Similarly, the power supplies for 12V rigs, again you cant assume the negative output is chassis or earthed. What anyone needs to do about these rigs and PSUs will be different depending on whether you are addressing RF grounding or power safety earthing. 73 de G0AFV