"Too Many Antenna? What You Talking About Willis?"

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Earlier this spring I did a Blog about taking advantage of the warmer temperatures in the U.S. to do antenna maintenance and construction.  One of my plans was to deploy a Kite Antenna. However, weather conditions have presented wind speeds above the Kite's ratings with lots of severe weather days or days with low wind speeds. As a result, I have had to altered those plans. But fear not; that only leads me to build another antenna.  I have a saying about antenna. They are like underwear. You can NEVER have TOO MANY.

As I look back over my Ham Radio years I wish I had built more of my antenna as a Novice. There is nothing wrong with purchasing commercial made antenna but building your own gives one a better understanding of how that antenna works and quite frankly how antenna work in general.  I have purchased a handful of commercial manufactured ham radio antenna over the years but prefer to build my own when possible.

With today's U.S. Ham Radio License structure, as a Technician Class Operator; making a 10 meter Dipole or even a Vertical is not only simple and inexpensive but one of the most easiest antenna one can make.  It will give you an opportunity to put to practice that knowledge you gained in obtaining your license.

One of the bad habits I've developed over my ham radio yeas is buying kits and placing them in a bin and forgetting about them for months on end.  That is the case with this antenna kit I purchased months ago. The KM3CFT EFHW / Random Wire Antenna Kit,




I have taken advantage of these rainy and windy weather days to build Jonathan's (KM4CFT) Kit.  I choose to build the Random Wire configuration.  As we begin the downside of Solar Cycle 25, HF Band conditions have been changing abruptly and inconsistently hourly, daily and weekly.  I normally don't like carrying along a tuner with my Ham on a Bike operations but with band conditions the way they are; I prefer not having to constantly getting up from my operating position to lower my Linked Dipole or Linked EFHW to change frequencies.  This random wire option makes it so much easier.


I had plenty of wire and other parts to build this kit. This was going to be an easy build to go along with my YouKits HB-1B, Yaesu FT-817 or Yaesu FT-891 since the kit is rated for 20 Watts (Max)






After checking that all of the parts of the kit were present it was time to get started on this build this kit.




This build was going require very little soldering.  The biggest obstacle for me was winding the toroid.  I have been unable to figure out WHY I'm so intimated of winding a toroid and yet I successfully get it done each time.











The only thing left was to solder BNC to board, add brass connections to ends of wire cut a 29' 6" (26 AWG) wire for the radiator, a 17' (26 AWG) wire for the counterpoise and attach heat shrink to board and BNC. From start to finish this build took less than an hour.





Now as Solar Cycle 25 starts to be rather unpredictable I've accept the reality it is better for me to have more antenna options to use with my Multi-Band rigs i.e. (FT-817, FT-891 and HB-1B)

Pictured below is my most recent setup utilizing my KM4CFT 9:1 Unun Random Wire with my YouKits HB-1B, ATU-10 Autotuner, American Morse Equipment Ultra Porta Paddle, and my 10 meter SotaBeams Travel Mast.
















Below Jonathan KM4CFT gives you a glimpse of his tutorial of how to construct this antenna for the Random Wire Configuration. Have fun building this antenna.




            KM4CFT QRP End Fed Random Wire Kit Assembly Tutorial






Location: Louisville, KY, USA

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