An alternative to the 6M7JHV antenna for 6m / 50MHz
Checking the SWR
I've been pretty happy with the pair of 6M7JHV's I've used for over a decade which have brought me a pretty good DXCC country total of 221. Clearly, I need to be 100% sure in my own mind that whatever I replace them with are actually better - or the 'JHVs will go back up!
The problem is that real life evaluation of antennas is a very subjective and emotional activity and the mind can play all sorts of games and can be quite faulty. Evaluation, is not black and white and reference signals can go up and down. So I have to be completely sure and this will take some time...
The first step is to mount the LFA above the 6M7JHV on my stub mast and directly compare them as much as I can. Of course, they are at different heights so this will affect listening tests and SWRs (and everything else come to that), but at least it will be possible to directly compare them to some degree.
The LFA temporarily mounted above the 6M7JHV
Comparing the SWR of the 6M7JHV and the LFA2
The 6M7JHV's SWR can be seen in Red and the alternative 6M7JHV LFA2 in orange.
Need I say any more?
Comparing the 6M7JHV with the alternative 6M7JHV LFA2
Best obtained LFA2 SWR
Even better this is the result for a single antenna with the mast down and fully up.
Orange is a single antenna on the tower but lowered (pointing at my roof) � SWR 1:1.001, return loss of 60dB and Rs = 50 Ohms � is this perfection or what?
Red is the tower fully up � still pretty good as you can see with the SWR never going above 1:1.1 from 50.015MHz and 50.69MHz! Am I going to fiddle any more? Nah!
The best results achieved form a alternative 6M7JHV antenna
This is a plot of the final SWR of my stack.
Final stack SWR plot