31-footer on 40 meters.

This is an update to my previous review. Previously I was using this on all bands with a remote tuner. The outdoor tuner went south so I’ve made this antenna into a dedicated 40-meter antenna with the 40-meter coil sold by S9.

Ground system is still a 60-foot section of steel field fence. The base of the antenna is about 4 feet off the ground, which almost but not quite clears the fence.

It is interesting to compare this to my inverted vee. Of course, close in stations are a tad louder on the inverted vee. But generally, so is the noise. Verticals have a reputation as noisy antennas, but I am not finding this one to be overly so, and I live in a typical suburban neighborhood with all the noise that goes with that.

Being able to switch from the inverted vee to the vertical shows why it is good to have one of each. Sometimes there is as much as 2 s-units’ difference in favor of one antenna or the other. And out past 1,000 miles or so, the S9 almost always wins.

Anecdotal for sure but just this morning I worked into VK with 100 watts on SSB with the s9 vertical. That’s something that’s never happened on 40 with the inverted vee.

I’ve got a few more changes I want to make to improve the system, but for now I can say this antenna works very well, and is doing all I expected it to do, and then some.

NY4DY

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