Tag: antenna theory
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GMRS Antennas: What Actually Improves Your Range
More watts get all the attention, but antenna height and gain do more for your GMRS range than a bigger radio ever will. Here’s what’s actually worth upgrading.
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The Random Wire Antenna: Magic Lengths, Lengths to Avoid, and the Right Transformer
A random wire antenna is one of the simplest, cheapest ways onto HF, but the length you cut it matters more than most people realize. Here is what actually makes one work well.
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Full-Size Wire Loop Antennas: Delta and Horizontal Loops for HF
I’ve written about magnetic loops for tight spaces, but full-size wire loops are a completely different animal and they deserve their own writeup. A full-wave loop is simply a wire, roughly one wavelength long on your target band, formed into a closed shape and fed at one point. No magic, just a different geometry than…
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Stealth Antennas for HOA Neighborhoods: What Actually Works
An HOA restriction does not have to mean giving up on a real home HF antenna. It means getting more creative about what a real antenna is allowed to look like. Here is what actually holds up.
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How to Tune a Vertical Whip Antenna for HF
Verticals live and die by their ground system, not just their length. Here’s the actual process for getting a whip resonant on the band you want.
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Permanent Wire Antenna Installs: Lessons From My Backyard
Everything I built for portable use eventually taught me something different once I tried to leave it up permanently. Here is what actually held up in my own backyard, and what I would do differently.
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What I’d Buy Instead of the Chameleon MPAS 2.0
A modular HF portable antenna kit that beats the $625 Chameleon MPAS 2.0 on both performance and price, built around the CaHR Hydra and a Spooltenna EFHW.
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Building a 1:1 Common-Mode Choke for HF
RF in the shack, unstable SWR, mystery noise: a lot of it traces back to common-mode current on your coax. A choke is a cheap, quick fix.
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Getting the Most from the G90’s Built-In Antenna Tuner
Part of our Xiegu G90: The Complete Guide. The built-in tuner is one of the main reasons I recommend the G90 to people building their first portable HF kit. It’s not just a checkbox feature. It’s genuinely one of the better internal tuners I’ve used at this price point, and it changes what you can…
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What Is a Moxon Antenna? Plus Some Great Build Videos
The Moxon squeezes real gain and a strong front to back ratio into a surprisingly small footprint. Here is what it is, why it works, and where to watch it get built.
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Which Portable HF Antenna Should You Actually Bring?
Random wire, EFHW, dipole, or Moxon. Each one earns its spot in a portable kit for different reasons. Here is how to decide what actually goes in the bag.
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What Is a Yagi Antenna, and Do You Need One?
A Yagi is a directional beam antenna that focuses your signal in one direction for real gain. Here is how it works and whether it belongs in your station.