I finally have an antenna in the air. After a lot of thought about the shape of our lot, the placement of trees, and how to avoid obstructing my children’s use of the yard, I settled on an end-fed halfwave, the LNR Precision EF-10/20/40 Mk II.
The main challenge of the installation was minimizing the ground area obstructed. I have two small children who like to run and play, so guy lines spanning the yard is out of the question. Similarly, I don’t want to set up an inverted-V anchored at the ground. I solved the problem by sloping it between two trees. The high end hangs about 40 feet up from a cedar, and the low end is 8 feet up in a pine. (It’s not for nothing that Washington is the Evergreen State.) Both are right by our property lines, so the entire assembly, including the feed line, are out of the way.
I tuned it with a signal generator and my trusty Oak Hills Research QRP power meter. The SWR bandwidth is broader than I expected. I’ll see how it holds up with higher power output — it’s always possible my generator’s output is too low for an accurate reading.
I can’t wait to try it on the air.