On Monday, September 27, 2021, I had just enough time to stop by the Blue Ridge Parkway on my way back from Asheville, NC and fit in a short activation.
I had my Xiegu X5105 along for the ride and decided to pair it with the MFJ-1984LP EFHW since I knew propagation was going to be rough.
That day, Earth was being pounded by CMEs and, frankly, I didn’t know how pleasant it would be on the air.
I picked one of my favorite spots along the Blue Ridge Parkway: a grassy hill I’ve used numerous times in the past. I love this particular site because it’s incredibly rare that anyone else parks or walks there, so I can set up larger wire antennas and not have to worry about others walking into the radiator or tripping over the counterpoise.
On Friday, September 10, 2021, I made a detour to the Table Rock Fish Hatchery (K-8012) on my way back to the QTH.
I love this site: it’s fairly remote, has tall trees, loads of space to set up antennas, convenient picnic tables, incredibly friendly park rangers and, most importantly, a welcoming party.
Welcoming party
These two greet me each time I’m at Table Rock. They’re incredibly friendly and now that they know I’m a complete and total sucker for dogs, they hang around and get attention for quite a while.
Sometimes we do things that take us outside of our comfort zone.
That’s exactly what I did on September 8, 2021 at Tuttle Educational State Forest (K-4861).
My friend, Jérôme, asked I would consider doing a POTA activation video in French!
Jérôme lives in France and wants to do a POTA activation there eventually, but had a number of questions about what to do in the field (spotting, logging, etc.). He’s been watching my videos for a while but admits that while he can understand written English (with the aid of Google Translate), he doesn’t understand spoken English.
Although I regularly listen to news and YouTube videos in French, it’s been ages since I’ve spoken French for any extended period of time.
Jérôme has been bugging me about the French video for some time, actually, but I’d put it off because there were a number of radio terms I simply never learned when I lived in France (well before I was a ham radio operator).
When he very diplomatically asked me again via email on the morning of September 8, I thought, “Why keep waiting? Just do it!”
Thomas, my MFJ 1984MP arrived today so looking forward to using a resonant antenna with my 705 but also have the LDG Z-100Plus tuner as a back up.
I’ve seen many antennas that have a winder built in allowing the user to wind in a figure eight fashion. It might help keep the kinks down.
I have fashioned a cord winder for the MFJ 1984 EFHW Antenna. It is a winder made for electrical drop cords and comes in a 3 pack at Lowe’s. Very inexpensive solution for adding it to the MFJ antenna with a couple of zip ties. I’m set to go works some POTA with an efficient antenna. Thanks for your videos deploying the MFJ antenna in the field.
Thank you for sharing this tip, Max! I like how you can so easily secure the antenna to the extension cord winder with cable ties.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a massive national park.
This stretch of scenic road spans 469 miles (755 km) from North Carolina into Virginia and crossing 29 counties along the way.
I could activate the BRP every day for the rest of my life and find a new activation spot every single day.
But at the end of the day, I return to reliable spots that I love in particular because of the solitude, the access to trails, and of course the trees.
There are trees along the parkway I know so well, I should name them. They’re always there when I’m ready to deploy a wire antenna.
On Wednesday, May 5, 2021, I visited one of my favorite BRP activations sites that I used during the year-long National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) program in 2016.
This particular site is simply a small hill on the side of the road and at the top, there some excellent trees. There’s also a short path leading to the for the Mountains To Sea trail.
This particular spot also overlooks a valley and has a wee bit of altitude. I’m not sure how meaningful that is for an HF op, but it always seems to help.
Blue Ridge Parkway, NC (K-3378)
Of course, since the lab599 Discovery TX-500 was still so new to me, it had to come out to play.
I decided to skip using an ATU, keep things simple, and pair the TX-500 with my MFJ-1984LP EFHW (above).
I started on 40 meters where I very quickly snagged my good friend, Eric (WD8RIF) who most likely saw my callsign on the RBN and kindly took a break from work to hop on the air work me 5 watts both ways. I’m willing to bet Eric was even a bit envious and wished he could have been outdoors putting parks on the air that morning. It’s fair play, though, because he’s often out doing multi-park runs while I’m working from home.
We must live vicariously through each other, right? Right.
Where was I?
Oh yes, the contacts started rolling in on 40 meters.
I worked K4NAN, KD8IE, K8RAT, N4EX, NE4TN, N9UNX, KB4PY, KC5F, KN3A, and NS4J on 40 meters in the span of about eleven minutes. I really enjoy that kind of cadence.
Next, I moved to 20 meters knowing it might not be an ideal band. I called CQ for nearly 10 minutes, then logged N6GR in New Mexico.
This activation reminded me that POTA often feels like a little impromptu family reunion as so many of the ops I logged that day were POTA friends and also enthusiastic activators.
I decided that 12 logged was a great number, so I called QRT and packed up. I most enjoyable activation!
The TX-500, clipboard, and my logging pads all tuck away nicely in the GR1’s slip-in rucking plate pocket.
Last week, I squeezed in two activations on the afternoon of February 17, 2021 to test out the MFJ-1984LP end fed half wave antenna that MFJ sent me to evaluate.
The first park was Lake James State Park where I paired the MFJ-1984LP with my Icom IC-705 (click here to read the report and watch the video). The second was South Mountains Game Land where I paired it with the Elecraft KX2.
In both instances, I did not use an ATU because the EFHW is resonant on the bands where I operated. I bypassed the internal ATU in my KX2 and, of course, the IC-705 has no ATU.
I’ve got a very busy few days ahead including a presentation tomorrow at the Virtual Winter SWL Fest (the topic being QRP transceivers). In lieu of writing a full field report, I’ll simply share the (partial) video I made at the activation.
I’ll admit it, I was not on my “A Game” at that activation. Not only did I forgot to press the start button on the camera, but I also struggled copying CW more than I usually do. I had a lot on my mind that afternoon, though, and really felt pressed for time.
I don’t mind sharing this experience, however, because we all have days like these.
I’ve been a ham radio operator since 1997, but until 2016, I had never purchased a pre-made portable antenna–I had always built my own.
During the 2016 NPOTA (National Parks On The Air) program, however, I purchased the EFT Trail-Friendly end fed 40, 20, and 10 meter resonant antenna and it quickly became my favorite field antenna. I found that it was simply built better than I could have built a similar antenna at home.
Pre-made antennas, though, come at a cost. Most time-tested, trail-friendly, portable antennas will typically set you back $90 US or more. You can make similar antennas much cheaper especially if you already have some of the parts (wire, toroids, RF ports, enclosures, etc).
That price point is very attractive because I believe if I built this antenna myself and needed to buy new parts, I might easily sink $20-25 in it.
Most MFJ products are manufactured in the USA and the company has an incredibly extensive and diverse selection of items in their catalog. Why I had forgotten they also sell antennas is a mystery to me.
MFJ is well-known for offering products that are basic, affordable, and accessible (they’re available directly from the manufacturer and through most major radio retailers across the globe). I wouldn’t expect their antennas to be engineered like Chameleon Antenna, for example, but I would expect them to work well and get the job done.
I know the folks at MFJ and (in the spirit of full disclosure) they even sponsor QRPer.com, so I reached out to them and asked if I could evaluate their MFF-1984LP which is their most affordable field wire antenna. They kindly sent one my way and I took it to the field last week.
I should add here that MFJ welcomes critical reviews, which is one of the reasons I asked them to be a sponsor. That and, well before they knew me, I was an anonymous customer and they repaired my MFJ roller inductor tuner for free a good two or three years after the warranty expired. My experience with MFJ has only been positive.
First impressions
The antenna looks exactly like the product photo in their catalog (see above).
For a field antenna, the coil enclosure is a little on the large side (especially compared with my EFT Trail-Friendly), but it’s still very backpack-able. Knowing MFJ, they kept costs at bay by using one of their standard enclosure boxes for this antenna.
The enclosure also has an open grill to allow the coil to dissipate heat (see above). I found that a bit surprising since the core is so large inside, but I assume some heat must be generated if you’re running 50% duty at a full 30 watts (the maximum rated power). The matching network impedance ratio is 49:1, so there will be loss and heat.
The 66 foot radiator wire has a dark jacket that glides nicely over tree limbs and doesn’t encourage tangling when unwinding.
The end insulator is made of a thin plastic/composite material that is lightweight and shaped so that it won’t snag on tree limbs.
To the field!
Hey–the proof is in the pudding, right? Let’s put this antenna on the air and make a real-time video of the activation!
Last Wednesday (February 17, 2021), there was a break in the weather so I made a detour to Lake James State Park (K-2739) en route to visit my parents for a few days. I left the house without deciding what park to activate, but picked Lake James because I knew I would have access to tall trees and my pick of operating locations.
Deploying the MFJ-1984LP is no different than deploying any other wire antenna. It was super easy using my arborist throw line. That thin, rounded end insulator did certainly glide through the tree branches with ease. No hint of snagging.
On The Air
I connected the antenna directly to my IC-705 with no ATU in-line. Hypothetically, I knew this antenna should be resonant on 20 meters where I planned to start the activation.
Keep in mind that pre-made antennas are often designed to be a tad long and need to be trimmed so the operator can tweak the resonant point for their preferred spots on the band. Since I tend to use the lower part of the band for CW, I typically leave my antennas with a resonant point somewhere on the upper side of the CW portion of the bands. It’s not super critical for EFHW antennas because they tend to have ample bandwidth to give a full meter band good matches.
I had not trimmed the MFJ-1984LP, but decided it should be “resonant enough” for my purposes.
I found a clear frequency on 20 meters and checked the SWR. It was spot on at 1.3:1 on 14,031 kHz! Woo hoo!
I started calling CQ and collected several stations in short order despite the poor propagation that day.
I then moved to the 40 meter band and discovered the antenna also gave me an excellent match there. I started calling CQ POTA and was rewarded with a steady stream of contacts.
I imagine I could have racked up a lot of contacts at that activation, but I made up my mind that I wanted to fit in another quick activation afterwards, so cut it a bit short.
In the end, here’s a map of my 18 contacts made in 26 minutes of on-air time:
Not bad for five watts and a wire!
Video
I made a real-time, real-life, no edit video of this activation which starts shortly after I deployed the MFJ-1984LP and ends a few moments after my last QSO. Against my better judgement, it includes all of my mistakes (including my inability to form the number 4 that day!):
No antenna is perfect and each time I start a product review, I keep a list of pros and cons. Here’s my list for this EFHW antenna:
Pros:
Very affordable at $49.95
Effective: results so far have been excellent
EFHW is a proven field antenna design and resonant on several bands
No coil on the radiator to snag in trees (see con)
Backed by MFJ warranty
Purchase supports US manufacturing
Cons:
Bulkier than comparable low power field antennas
No built-in winder (MFJ should consider altering the design to include one!)
Radiator is 66 feet long since there is no in-line coil to electrically shorten the length (see pro)
End insulator is effective, but feels slightly flimsy
In the end, there’s no magic here: the end fed half wave is a time-tested, proven antenna design and the MFJ-1984LP delivers. In terms of performance, I couldn’t be more pleased with it right out of the box. This isn’t a military-grade antenna, but it should last for years with proper use.
POTA activators that have access to trees in the field will appreciate the MFJ-1984LP. I should think you could also make an effective “V” shaped antenna if you have a telescoping support that’s 29-33′ tall.
I’m not so sure the average SOTA operator would find this antenna design as convenient–especially on high summits where you’re near or above the tree line. It could be difficult deploying a 66′ wire. That and this antenna is bulkier than other designs. If you’re backpacking it in, you typically want the most compact solution possible (this is where the EFT Trail-Friendly, Packtenna, and QRPguys designs really shine).
I will certainly employ the MFF-1984LP regularly–especially on days with less-than-stellar propagation. I think this might become a go-to antenna for the MTR-3B, LD-11, and IC-705 since all of them lack an internal ATU.
If you’re looking for an affordable, effective wire antenna, I can certainly recommend the MFJ-1984LP.
Do you have an MFJ end fed half wave antenna? What are your thoughts?
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On Monday, September 27, 2021, I had just enough time to stop by the Blue Ridge Parkway on my way back from Asheville, NC and fit in a short activation.
Even though I always try to set up my antennas and gear away from foot traffic, it’s always a concern so I try to maintain a certain level of situational awareness during the activation. Continue reading POTA Field Report: Pairing the Xiegu X5105 & MFJ-1984LP on the Blue Ridge Parkway 
