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We may never come this way again

✇W2LJ QRP - When you care to send the very least!
By: QRP - When you care to send the very least!
8 August 2024 at 11:53

This is going to sound very weird - but here goes. I was driving home the other day and I heard the Seals & Crofts song with the same lyric - "We may never come this way again." And oddly enough, it brought to mind MFJ and how perhaps we may never see the likes of it again. It's very odd how my brain works, sometimes! Scares even me!

I got to thinking that if there was any MFJ product in particular that I liked, now would be the time to try and find it. Stock is depleting and there haven't been any announcements of an interest coming forward to take on the torch, as it were.

I really, really like my MFJ-1982LP End Fed. Coupled with Dave KD2FSI's MFJ-1982HP, these have been our Field Day antennas for years now with nary a complaint from anyone from SPARC. And the fact that they let us place high in our category every year doesn't damage their reputation any. I've also used it for the Skeeter Hunt and FOBB with satisfactory results. The SWR is excellent on all the bands and really the only band that requires the KX3's autotuner is on 30 Meters.  And even there, it doesn't take the KX3 a long time to match it up. I realize that it's not a tr-band Yagi up at 50 feet, but I'm never going to have one of those, anyway. You play with the hand that you're dealt.

So I decided to try and find one for home, as a replacement for the W3EDP. I found a HP (high power) version at GigaParts. Not only does the LP version seem to be out of stock everywhere, but I do turn up the power to 85 Watts to participate on the St. Max Net on Sunday evenings.


So I purchased one. This antenna is 132 feet long so there might be some finagling to get it to fit in the backyard. I'm thinking I might have to bring the last 20 feet or so down as a sloper. That's not the end of the world, and I'll find a way to make it fit. I had a full sized G5RV up at one time - this should be not much more difficult than that to make fit.

My OCD notwithstanding, from early on in my Novice days, I have found out that antennas don't have to be "perfectly" installed in order to work. My very first antenna was a MOR-GAIN fan dipole. In no way, shape or form did that antenna get installed with the two legs in a straight line!  It was a sharp, horizontal "V", and my Ham friends would come over and look at it and ask me, "How in the world do you make contacts with THAT?" But I did and it served me well for years!

So this is the current configuration of the W3EDP:


If I move that mast all the way back to the corner of our lot (or as far back as I can get it) and make that run a hard "L" instead of  a shallow "V", that will "eat up" more of the wire. Then I'd run it to the other mast at the extreme right back corner of the yard and if there's any wire remaining, I would bring it down as a sloper along the property line on that side of the yard, thusly:


Anyway, that's the plan - and you know that saying about plans, mice and men. But I do want to get this done before Winter sets in. I know, it's still August, but time flies, and before you know it .........

One thing I do know, though. Before any installation, that UNUN will get opened and the solder joints double checked and re-enforced if necessary. I like MFJ products, but you learn from experience.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Hootowl Sprint

✇W2LJ QRP - When you care to send the very least!
By: QRP - When you care to send the very least!
27 May 2024 at 16:12

I got on the air last night for the Hootowl Sprint. Activity was not the busiest, but that was probably because the CQ WW PX contest was dominating the bands, especially 20 Meters, I called "CQ QRP" there for a while with no joy. I did hear Mark WB9HFK calling CQ with a FB 599 signal and worked him.

40 Meters afforded me an unoccupied frequency on which to call CQ and I worked another four stations. Not the greatest total, but at least I was on the air. After the fact, I looked up my call sign on the Reverse Beacon Network and this was where I was being heard:


20 Meters was taking me into Europe and 40 Meters was getting me down into the Cayman Islands.

The antenna for the night was my W3EDP. I don't think I've really talked much about how it's set up. My backyard measures only about 50 X 50 feet. Not a lot of real estate back there so I had to get creative. This is how it's laid out:


It's anchored on the side of the house near a second floor window:



The coax runs from the balun down to the window that's on the shack side of the shack side of the basement. From the anchor point, the wire runs out to a mast that I have hose clamped to the chain link fence on the edge of our property.





The wire used to go out to "Ol' Mapely", but the tree which straddled our properties got infested with carpenter ants and became a real cause for concern that given a powerful Nor'Easter or Sandy type hurricane, it could fall on either ours or our neighbor's house, so we had to take it down. We came to that decision after having an arborist come by, who only confirmed our fears. Darn! Trees are an Amateur Radio Op's best friends!

From the "center mast", the wire pivots as per the aerial view and goes to another mast at the far right hand corner of the backyard where it terminates. The masts are military surplus fiberglass.


This photo doesn't show much which indicates that except for that middle mast, which is hose clamped to the fence, the antenna itself is pretty darn stealthy. That really isn't necessary, as at QRP levels, i never get any complaints from the neighbors and I'm not in an HOA situation. 

I would guesstimate that my W3EDP is my weapon of choice probably 75 - 80 percent of the time. It's longer than a classic W3EDP which is about 84 feet long. I had one of those and took it down and replaced it as the wire terminated about half way between the middle mast and the far mast. I constructed this one with about another 25 feet of wire so that it ends just a few inches from the end mast. Even with the additional wire, the KX3's autotuner matches to it quite easily and without any fits. It loads on all bands from 160 Meters to 6 Meters without any difficulty. If you don't have a lot of back yard space, maybe my layout (or something similar) can work for you. Is my solution an ideal solution? Not a chance in a million - but it works and I make contacts with it. So as they say, any antenna is better than no antenna.

On another note, I read where beginning with New Jersey's 2025 fiscal year, which starts on July 1st, that it will cost to get into certain NJ State Parks. This may be a concern for NJ POTA activators. There are several guys who check into the nightly Middlesex County Chat Group Net who often relate their experiences of repeatedly activating Cheesequake State Park and the Spruce Run Resevoir. Starting July1st, it's going to run $5 each time they want to enter those two parks or several other very popular NJ State Parks. The state will offer an opportunity to purchase a 1 year pass for $50. Luckily, the two parks I like to activate - Washington Rock State Park and the Edison Memorial Tower will remain admission free.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

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