Posted: 8/18/2026 9:18:56 PM EDT
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My primary antenna is 40M EFHW flat top at 40' or so. But, I keep playing with other antennas looking for more gain and lower takeoff angles. I've tried a variety of the KJ6ER varieties, with the Marauder performing well. But, it is a little large, being two 17' whips connected with around 15' or so of wire top and bottom for 20M So, my next foray was into half squares. Then I found limited information on folding an EFHW into a half square. A 40M EFHW would be half the size of a normal 40M half square, so I figured why not. Plus, I have three masts, one at 46' (DX Engineering HD) and two at 20-25' (fence post top rails). The three masts are nominally a triangle. Because of this, and that the half square version only needs to be about 20' high, I concocted a web of string to allow me to turn the antenna. My research says a 40M EFHW folded into a half square would work fairly well on 40M, but would be more of an NVIS antenna than a DX monster. I have used it several days now, and used it on the SSB net tonight. On 40M, it performs about the same as the flat top. It seems to have some directionality and might have some low angle gain. On 20M it performs more like you would expect a half square - longer distance, directional. But, not nearly as good as the KJ6ER Marauder I had up a couple of weeks ago. The advantage of the half square version of the EFHW is it only needs to be 20 feet high, as opposed to 40 ft for comparable performance for a flat top. A note on EFHWs, for those that may not know. Yes, they are sold as only needing a single mast, and can be installed as a sloper. But, performance will suffer. An EFHW performs about the same as a similarly erected dipole, except on multiple bands. So when hung as a flat top, they work very well and do multiple bands. |
