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I'm starting to work through the CW way of life

Your videos are so inspiring! Amazing what can be done with Ham Radio. I was told I did not have an aptitude to learn a language. I was actually told by my High School Principal I was not college material. I remember that day with her and my mother. Well, thankfully my mother did not take her advice. I did finish college and today I am a CPA. Does not help much with Ham Radio except I can tell you when I have spent too much on Ham Radio. If I can learn CW, well I am sure anyone can learn it. And LICW is a wonderful organization. I keeps me motivated and I see others and that I am not alone in my CW journey. And it is a journey, enjoy the journey. Like you, I have been a Ham for 25 years (Long Time). I did CW traffic handling for over 10 years. Back then all that was available was FISTS Code Buddy Program. And Slow Speed CW Nets. I basically listened to Slow Speed CW Nets and checked in one day and the rest is history. Today we see POTA. And many other opportunities to learn and use CW. And, CW Ops are very kind. A wonderful welcoming community. So I only operate CW, and I am so thankful I can participate in this great community. Keep up the great inspiring videos! Thank you and I hope to meet you and others on the air. Bill KG4FXG

Nice video. In this case I don't think the bandwidth of the wires matters, because you are using it with a tuner. Worst case, you will have to hit the tune button when moving between CW and phone portions of the band.

Great video. FYI Walt is K4OGO, not K3

N3UQX love the instructive video. Lots of us started by building our own rigs !! Keep up the good work 73 !

Pronounced Kroppy, not Crappy

Long Island CW club is an awesome place to learn! They taught this old dog new tricks.. Now I am CW only... totally turned my hobby around.. 5 watts and CW is the way.. Thank you Jack for sharing "your journey".. DE W4EMB..

I would just put a couple cup hooks in the wall behind you 12ft apart save lots time....

The signal radiates from the surface of the wire. Thus, larger strands of wire radiates better than smaller guage wire.

Crappies are a pan fish in freshwater lakes. Pronounced crAHpee - not a like apple, more like the sound of the ah. Like an o is pronounced (ah) in rot or pot or dot. The pole is probably crappy too though. LOL.

That pole was model 720. Tells me it's 7.20m long. That is 23.622 antique feet.

For your radials you could use 4 12 foot metal tape measures or a ground blanket/aluminum window screen. These are two ways for quick setup and break down methods.

For using a table to measure, you sure do have a lot of space behind you to lay out your measuring tape.

Definitely CW is my main goal, but I also plan on running VHF/UHF and CB in my vehicles and in my house. I really should find a Elmer, to help me out sometime. I'm just not trusting my local club, from the negative things I heard. 73, kq4hcu

KD6CFE was here. 73.

why not do half wave or full wave verticals instead, higher pole get the either 1.1 balun or tune the wire length to freq, keep the balun and feeder 6ft off the floor poise also keep it at 6 ft up and you can then direct the signal too where you want it to go

I have found when making an inverted v dipole on 20m it can be more than a foot shorter at 45° than a horizontal dipole. You can gradually fold the wire back on itself until you find resonance where you want it. (1.1-1.3swr) Hope this helps. 73 de Aiden EI8HJB.

Hey, I know you! KC3TBI from the club. Great video. Practicing my CW when driving during the day. No guarantees for field day. 73 George

I love QRP, 73 😊

I love to think of POTA as an excuse to spend a couple of hours in a park. I need to learn cw. I made my first cw contact to a ham in Italy, but I cheated, I used fldigi as a crutch.

Are you looking at the pota web site for spots or RBN or what?

QRP never ceases to amaze me! There's just something special about getting lots of contacts and DX on low power!

I put 700 W through a 22 gauge wire, never had a problem.

You said the mast is fiberglass which not conductive and it pretty much radio transparent. However, the link you provided for the fishing pole mast is listed as being carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is stronger but is conductive and is NOT radio transparent. Theory says that it should make a difference, but I don't know how much or what the effect would be.

Its a junkie antenna Jack!

"Crappie"...pronounced 'crahppy'; AH sound, as when the MD puts the stick down your throat.

The presentation is too long. I found you repeated yourself so often, I couldn't watch for long.

How did you find the Ham test to be.. easy as pie or.?

Great video! I would love to build one for an easy POTA antenna

Pronounced croppy.

Debunking the "Myth" of Carbon Fibre Mast Losses, Richard from SOTA Beams. th-cam.com/video/idx1zdmeIOs/w-d-xo.html

The crappy pole that you listed is carbon fibre (which blocks RF reception), that may be the reason you are getting 2 s-units less gain compared to your other antenna

Well there's 45 mins of my life I won't get back. At least show us the SWR on the bands it's used on.

If in _doubt..._ use an online calculator to figure out if your watts/amps will roast the wire gauge, before you get it in the air like I almost did on the last EFHW I built!😅

This like watching grass grow. Don’t need to watch you cut FOUR exact same radials.

Love to see a house with awnings. They're out of style today, but they are so practical and work so well.

A tip. When pulling wire off a spool, get a screwdriver and run it through the center of the spool. Hold the screwdriver handle and just pull the wire off. Your wire won't kink so much.

Do you mean Walt - K4OGO?

Probably a carp fishing pole. Carp not crappy.

There’s a chart online that gives you random lengths. 19’ is used for a EFHW. 20.5 is too close. The shortest long wire length was 29’. You could add radials but using the braid of the coax can be used. Just don’t forget to add a 1:1 choke at the rig or better yet just before the feed line enters your house. If you use 29’ use a 9:1 unun.

For HAMRS if no internet available, make sure to turn off the lookup feature.

A vertical will give a lower take off angle and is great for distance. Theoretically the mountains will block or reflect your signal. Youre getting out so the vertical is working. Trust me. Splurge on a memory keyer!

Did you use a choke after the 4 to 1 to stop coax from being part of your radials?? AA2BD

Sixteen feet forty-eight inches is either 20 feet, or do you mean sixteen feet and about 6 inches? Thanks for your video.

Yes, bigger wire = bigger BW. Cage dipole is a great example. Pull wire from the side of the spool to avoid tangling, never from the end. Walt’s Coastal 20 is a vertical off center fed dipole with elements totaling 20.5 feet, thus the 4:1 balun. You seem to have built a ground plane vertical 20.5 feet in length with four 12-foot radials. Am I just confused again? The 20.5 foot vertical tunes around 11.4MHz, and does not appear to be a conventional random length, which would need a 9:1 unun. Happy that it turned out so well.

One fantastic built 💯👍 73 de Uncle Günter across the Pond 🙋‍♂

Handy for portable 4sure.

I'm not sure that carbon fibre is a good idea for the pole, I go for fibreglass to avoid the risk of electrical loading and losses

The bigger your element or wire, the greater the bandwidth.

THat 26awg wire might've been ok. I have some 24 awg from Sotabeams that is rated for 150w. Nice job on the antenna! I'm a fan of DIY antennas. Thanks for sharing.