My new HF radio set up successfully
My new HF radio set up successfully
I only have a technician license at the moment but wanted to try some longer range stuff so I got an HF radio. I'm extremely new to the hobby so I have little idea what I'm doing lol.
Xiegu G90 HF radio Astron power supply EFHW antenna strung around the outside of the house like Christmas lights
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Awesome! If you do plan on transmitting (on 10m), I recommend a common-mode choke on the feedline between your radio and the EFHW. All you need is a ferrite toroid and loop the feedline a few times through it. This can prevent RF going into your shack, which is kind of a thing with EFHW antennas. Otherwise EFHWs can work very well. Have fun and enjoy your new radio.
This is a different coil than the UnUn on the antenna?
Edit: for reference this is my antenna: https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/PEZ-EF-8010-JRKW
The main job of the unun is to match the impedance of the wire to the 50ohm feedline. You may or may not need a common mode choke to prevent RFI, but I had a lot of RF problems with my 40-10 EFHW. My radio was fine but my computer started to glitch out when was transmitting. That all disappeared once I looped my feedline through some ferrite.
Alright, good to know. Do you have any recommendations for which choke to buy? Or maybe I should make one? I know other people have snapped the small chokes on other problematic devices' wires that were causing issues. Was thinking of looking at those as they're cheapest.
Something like a FT240-43 toroid should work for 80m to 10m.
That is to make a common-mode choke on your feedline. You can always try to improve the RFI emissions from devices in your house by snapping on some ferrite on wall warts etc.