In 20 minutes, this antenna became a "go to" for ME | K7SW ham radio

portable operating is probably the most fun part of ham radio to me and in this video I'm going to show you an antenna that maybe you can get some benefit from it's made by chameleon antennas it's the lefs 8010 this antenna is made for 10 through 80 meters it's a multi-band and fed antenna that's not supposed to need an antenna tuner and during this video I'm going to go out and do some testing with this I'm going to go set up the antenna in a couple of different configurations the horizontal end Vis setup the sloper setup at multiple Heights at a location and using the 80 meter section so that you have a full 130 feet the antenna out of the box is 10 through 40 meters with the 63 feet that the antenna is it's got the center insulator which is the line Winder so it's a multi-purpose there and the so239 for the antenna connection antenna itself comes off of the center insulator in a 63 feet long when you add the extension onto this antenna the 67 additional feed now the antenna is good for up to 80 meters in the manual it shows the frequency graph that this thing is matched really good for the hand bands both for the 10 through 40 version and the 10 through 80. so we're going to set this antenna up at different heights two different configurations and do some comparisons and see what this antenna can actually do now for these tests I've been using different radios and different power levels but I've been using battery power for the duration of all my tests now for this test I'm going to be using the antenna down here at this park and I've got trees all around me over here so I'm going to take the antenna the feed point up in the air the 25 feet that it needs to be and I'll try varying Heights of that and then I'm going to take the two configurations both the sloper going from the tree out to the field and then after that test the invis configuration which is taking the end of the n-fed antenna out in a horizontal position what I'm going to be using to get the antenna up in the air up in the tree is the arborist weight line the arborists throw weight and then the rope that goes attached to it when I'm in a park like this I'm less likely to take something that's like a projectile launcher people get a little bit weird about that out in public so for now we're going with the arborist throw line and to make this a little more fun for me so I know what level that I'm at what height I'm at I've used some pink duct tape with marker points and I've marked different heights on it so whatever is on the ground tells me how high it is up in the tree and the marker positions start at 35 feet 30 feet 25 feet 20 feet and 15 feet more than likely the lower the tree is which you're going to be stuck with for this video I'm testing out the chameleon lefs 8010 antenna this is the bigger brother from the lafs that was only 40 through 10 meters now chameleon did provide me with this antenna and the feed line choke for review and when you get this antenna out of the box the package that it comes with the extension line and the antenna Main Line itself come coiled up and they have tie wraps around it but since I've used this antenna a number of times I've wrapped it around its line Winder that comes with it foreign test I'm at 25 feet in the air and the end of the end fed antenna is out as far as it can go for the 63 feet that it is for this test I'm using the aa230 zoom so let's go ban for band here because this is 40 through 10 meters let's check 40 meters with the antenna up in the tree and there may be some interaction with the tree because the feet points right up in the leaves where you know it is what it is if I can show this on here let's just see so the lowest point it's 1.2 to 1 which is 6.53 megahertz the bottom of the band is about 1.75 to 1 in the top of the band is two about two and a quarter to one let's get on to the next band all right 20 meters let's see what this is all right so that's pretty good I mean basically it's a little over one and a half to one for the entire 40 meter band and that's pretty good all right 15 meters the highest point at the end of the band it's about two to one in the lowest end is about one and a half to one I really only care about the lower end of 10 meters so let's see what that does so it's about two to one almost the entire portion of the band that I'm interested in and that is 28.3 to 28.8 for this part of the test it doesn't appear that being 25 feet off the ground and lowering the end of the 10 it makes much difference at all so now we're going to lower this part of the antenna down the feed line is going to go from 25 feet down to 15 feet and let's see what that looks like and that made me have to take the far end of the wire antenna out another five or six feet so that it's stretched out hit a sloping Angle now we're looking at the lower end of the band at 1.75 and the high end of the band is 1.5 so it's a better match being lower to the ground so now if I do a band Sweep with the antenna only being at 15 feet it's significantly more improved meaning I've got a better match for the radio it doesn't mean I'm going to get out farther but at least I've got a better match for the radio I lowered the antenna down to 10 feet off the ground and then extended the end of The Wire out enough so it's stretched out fully like you would for a sloping antenna so in 40 meters it's 1.7 to 1 roughly and the rest of the Bands 20 meters 15 meters and 10 meters are all just under 1.2 to 1. so the lower I get for these bands the better the match for the radio so this is just an indication that you aren't going to need a tuner if you're planning on putting up an antenna this high off the ground the 10 feet is not very high and you might be in a spot where that's all you've got so now you know that's how that is all right for this next part of the configuration or the test that I want to do I'm going to hook up the extension this is what makes the lefs 1080 be an 80 meter antenna so on the end of this antenna is a loop with a carabiner and a bullet connector so this bullet connector just plugs into the other end of the antenna we've got a support ring with this little Loop and there's a little uh clamp here to hold it all together and the other end of the bullet connector is here and I like the idea it's pretty straightforward pretty simple design you just take this carabiner and snap it into the ring like that and you're good to go now when you hook these two bullet connectors which would not hold your connection if you were just trying to get your antenna to stay that way like for a link dipole that gets pushed in and now when I'm holding onto this antenna to pull it out to its end it's going to be as strong as the rest of this thing so now that we've got like 126 feet of wire out there the first leg is 63 feet and I think it's also another 63 feet out to that end that's a lot of tension 126 feet hanging on the tree pulling from one end to the other so we have a fix for that so I've got a tent stake and some paracord some Nano Court I guess and we're going to pull the end of this electric post and give it some strength give it some ability to pull itself back so at this end of the electric fence post that's that's holding all that weight of the wire that's back there I'm going to use just a standard old tent stake and some more paracord or Nano cord and pull that post back and that'll give it the strength that it needs to pull that wire a little bit more tight I'm not looking for this thing to be Johnny bowstring tight I just want the center of that antenna to be off the ground you know I should show these kind of things more often but what I like to do here is take this string and make a quick Loop out of it so that I can wrap that around whatever it is that I'm doing in this case I'm just going to make this Loop over itself and just tie it around that's a removable knot but it's also secure enough to hold this thing so in 80 meters it looks like the low end of the band is two and a half to one center of the band is 1.2 to 1 and the end of the band is also another two and a half to one so significant dip in the middle of the band and for 40 meters it's looking like the bottom of the band is one and a half to one and about 7.225 that's the lowest part of the band it's one to one and at the high end of the band 1.2 to one that's pretty significant you're definitely not going to need a tuner on 40 meters 20 meters we're looking at almost one and a half to one it looks like it's closer to one point four to one and at the high end of the band where the best matches the upper portion of the band is 1.2 to 1. I think that's significant so again if you don't have a tuner this is going to work amazing for you so 15 meters is about 1.7 to 1 at the low end and at the high end of the band it's about 1.2 to 1. on 10 meters we're looking at 1.5 to 1 at the low end of the band and the lowest point that it gets is 28.68 which is I'm not probably never going any higher than that for most activations that turns out to be 1.2 to 1. again that's really good so for this test I've raised the antenna up to 25 feet as for what the manual says I took the other end of the antenna out and repositioned it so that it's not sagging again and pulled back on the orange stake now the readings on here took the new readings and without going through each individual one they're all super low again 80 meters is probably the highest at just under two to one and that's not bad actually everything else is one and a half to one or less with something like this you can put up in a tree you don't need an antenna tuner just that radio and you're good to go so now that I've gone through all these tests I really want to get this on the air because if you go through this much effort to get an antenna up it's just the right thing to do so I'm going to be using my kx2 and we're going to check some of the bands and see if we can't hear anybody make any contacts so you can see the radio really loves this antenna whether I use the tuner or not there's not much on 40 meters right now but I know the antenna is plugged in or the antenna tuner would be going nuts so the match is really good [Applause] thank you Delta x-ray [Applause] Whiskey Bravo 2 Mike Hotel Juliet California Music City Vienna so thanks over to you k-7 sugar whiskey qrp floor all right so that was the test at this location with the intent at different heights and using the 80 meter extension and not having it on there DX was really good you could hear everybody really loud so I'm encouraged by that the fact that this thing can hear really well I wasn't expecting a lot to be able to get out because I've only got 10 watts with the kx2 and these are not this is not really a good location to be at for getting out I need to probably be somewhere up higher in the mountains well if this part of the video was helpful for you let me know in the comments down below if you'd like to see this kind of a test to let you know what's going to work for you before you get out in the field so you can know what gear you don't have to take what you can get away with all right the antenna is now in the invis configuration and that is the feed point is up 25 feet in the air here and then down field I've measured off 25 feet up in the tree this tree happens to be in the right spot for me so both ends are 25 feet up in the air I've used my arborist throw weight to get the line up over the tree in each case 25 feet is not a big deal so that was an easy toss in this configuration I am using the 80 meter extension so it is the 8010 setup from the way the book says and because the tree supports are that strong I'm able to use the antenna in a flat top configuration now based on the manual this says this is the invis configuration and we're going to test that out the trees are just about the right distance I mean we're talking five feet apart so that couldn't have been a better spot for me to do this test as far as orientation goes I'm set up with a far end of the antenna with a Northwest and then Southeast configuration so I'm headed towards Europe and this time I'm going to try this antenna after we do some of the readings see if I can get any DX this morning okay here goes the first test with the antenna up in the invis configuration and let's see what we get unfortunately the graphs didn't save as I was recording these as I went along but the end result for me was that it wasn't a whole lot different than using this antenna in the sloper configuration now in 80 meters we're starting off at the low end of the band um at three to one and when it exits the other end of the band the high end of the band it's also three to one in the middle of the band is 3.77 that's what it shows here at 1.42 to 1. now I'm 40 meters at the beginning of the band I'm looking at just under 1.4 to 1. the lowest part of the band The Center is 1.23 to 1 which is pretty good that's a 7.180 and of course exiting the band at the top it's just under 1.5 again that's totally doable without a tuner now for 20 meters just starting at the low end of the band I'm starting at just under two to one and exiting the band at about 1.3 to 1. and for 15 meters we start at the lower end of the band at 1.7 to 1 and we're exiting at 1.2 to 1. and for 10 meters we're looking at uh entering the band at about 1.6 to 1 and at the end of the band for me which is going to be 28.83 which is as high as I'd even go for 10 meters that's about 1.2 having your antenna lowered like this isn't an optimal setup but it's a pretty common thing when you're used to setting it portable out in the field so now I'm going to pull this back up to 25 feet in the air we're going to stretch this out to make it a good flat top and we're going to try hooking up the radio this time I brought the 857 and a battery so we have some power to get out so for 80 meters it's too late for me now everybody's gone it's too late in the day the noise level is S7 which isn't too bad I'm used to being a little bit higher and now we're going to try 40 meters to see if there's how that's going to turn out so that's interesting on 40 meters the noise level is S1 that's pretty awesome I don't know if that just means I'm not going to hear a lot of signals but to start off with it's a good sign [Applause] you don't think that'll have it back on until this afternoon so uh God know Brian today relaying this sounds like a big noise floor but it's not even registering it's below S1 kilo 7 Sierra whiskey you are stick with CR whiskey a kilo 7 Sierra whiskey Kevin is that you it is thanks for helping me with that [Applause] hey thanks to 7-3 [Applause] intermittently really good into Caldwell Idaho I guess the band's up and down today all right so that's pretty cool so this antenna seems to work really well at least for conditions today I'm really impressed with the noise floor being so low and where I'm at I'm at this park where electrically it's always been known to me how noisy this place is all right little rainstorm has passed I got the gear back out and I'm on 20 meters and we're gonna see if we can make some more contacts [Applause] 141 5 Soviet it has that control for this session the Ole Miss 20 meter so that's S7 right now and if I change the frequency it goes down to S1 so I know the antenna is working I don't know how far it's working but it is working yeah who's the other part of the park I'm not sure I'm going to be able to copy a tower [Applause] Tango x-ray November got you you're about a five by two got it uh uh kilo 23.84 in Maine all right 73s you have a great afternoon enjoy your time out there in the park as well there we go whiskey nine Sierra Bravo Echo good afternoon the tequilo zero eight one six in Texas over kilo seven Romeo Charlie Romeo QR set K7 sugar whiskey really call Papa a golf for probably [Applause] kilo 7 Sierra whiskey [Applause] kilo zero eight one six and Texas over yeah fantastic you're also you're a five nine plus here into Utah with this test antenna so uh thanks for your activation in 7-3 thank you I do appreciate it you have a good one number three kt9 Romeo Fast Track parks on here QRS kilo 7 Sierra whiskey [Applause] Sierra whiskey please copy about a 5x7 into park k-43-24 over yeah thank you for that park on the Peaks you're five nine five nine here into Utah so thanks for that Park and you have a great activation that static sounds really loud like it's a high s level a high noise floor but it's not it's I just can't get over how how low the noise floor is and getting to make contact so when the qsb was hitting some of these guys it just didn't affect them because the signal just never went away and never disappeared into the noise I don't know if this is normal for this antenna but I'm excited about trying this out in multiple applications to see if it's consistent all right so now we're going to try a 15 meters see if there's anything on the band or anybody all right so there's nobody on 15 meters so off to 10 meters and see if I can find anybody there [Applause] all right for this test I think it went pretty good I'm really excited about having only having this antenna up 25 feet in the air and how well it works how well it matches and the performance I only got to make contacts on 20 and 40 meters but it was still a success the fact that I didn't need a tuner with my 857 is a good thing that's just one less piece of gear for those of us that carry radios that don't have tuners in them so looking forward to getting this antenna put up at a campsite where I can get two supports whether they're two trees or what and maybe I'll get to test some more configurations ideally I'd like to be up in the mountains doing something like this and I'll get to that the trees being in the right spot to get the distance and at the right height for me to put this antenna up the way it was intended to do and I got all the data that I needed for how the match was on all the bands the different heights and the different configurations so this is going to allow me to set up and know what I can set up with when I'm out camping hopefully this information is helping you let me know in the comments below all right one last note about the lafs 8010 antenna this this time I'm using the camper at the 80 feet up the far end and 30 feet down here so I've got the 480 over here and a battery powered running down there and I've got a solar charger hooked up to it with the solar panel out in the field and I got to work a guy zl2 okay Dave in New Zealand that was an awful lot of fun holy cow for seven minutes it was so clear yeah you are fantastic into the mountains of Utah back to you there Dave [Applause] I know why what what's a chameleon and fed antenna the lefs 8010 so it's uh 80 through 10 meters and you don't need a tuner on it and on 20 meters it's like practically flat so it's 130 feet long and uh you know just running 50 Watts on my battery to this thing it obviously is working really good to reach you over foreign [Applause] if you ever made a contact like this before it's an awful lot of fun having a cuso with someone so far away it was kind of random how I found him on the frequency but it was way cool plus he got himself a photo contact on top of it now here's some of my final thoughts on this antenna and make sure you click that like button down below if you're getting some value out of this video and of course if you're new here consider subscribing to get more videos like this now using this antenna for a number of installations whether it's portable operating or at my home or some different activations where I have the supports to put this thing way up in the air and I use this RFI choke right up at the feed point every time I do the antenna installation and it seems like the choke is doing what it's supposed to be doing because I never have any RFI problems with that antenna it's easy to deploy it's lightweight and it's easy to put back when you're done using the line Winder that 130 foot of wire fits perfectly on this line Winder and using that bungee cord they have on there to wrap around and hold everything in place seems to work every time the readings the SWR match to the radio seems to be consistent every time I've done a deployment and that makes me feel less like I need to take a tuner with me as a backup plan and that's been really nice now using this antenna as the 10 meter to 40 meter setup is a lot nicer because you only have the 63 feet so you means that you really only have to have a 25 foot support and use the antenna in a sloper configuration maybe that's all you have you can have something on the back of your vehicle or a simple Mass to put up or maybe a small tree that's nearby and having that set up makes it easier to get on the air that way now while you can use the 10 through 40 meter section just use the 63 foot section of antenna wire having the full 130 feet on this antenna is really going to help the performance and help the antenna work much better when you have the space to put that up for a all-purpose multi-band wire antenna that's Compact and reliable that 225 dollar price tag may not be that bad especially if you're not into building antennas do you want something that seems to be consistent reliable and get you those contacts I hope you guys got some value and some use out of seeing my different setups the readings that I got and how this antenna might be something that could benefit you in some way I want to thank chameleon antennas for providing the Leafs 8010 for me to use and review for you guys make sure you click that like button down below and if you're new here consider subscribing to the channel and if you want to see more videos on getting out in portable operating click this one right here

Channel: K7SW ham radio

Views: 187,455

Keywords: chameleon antenna, LEFS8010 Endfed antenna, POTA, Ham Radio, Emergency communications, HF Radio, Wire antennas, Ham antennas, Portable Radio operation, RV ham radio, Mobile ham radio, Summits on the air, Parks on the air, Ham radio contesting portable HF antenna

Id: hNyHhjMH85g

Length: 23min 35sec (1415 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 04 2022