Tag Archives: Mini 600

More Experiments with EFHW Antennas – Part 2

EFHW Match Unit

It’s been a couple of years now since my first post on EFHW Antennas. Notably since then I have acquired a Mini 600 Analyser. Armed with technology it was time to revisit this “no-tune” portable antenna. What followed was 3 months of confusion, learning and experimentation.

Before I go any further I would sincerely like to thank David VK3IL for his patience and assistance over the last 2 weeks in helping me troubleshoot my issues and teach me a bit more about what I was doing along the way.

It all started when I thought it would be a good idea to re-test the end-fed antenna now I have a new analyser as I was preparing ready-to-assemble kits for my local radio club and didn’t want to see people ending up with an antenna that didn’t work as described. To my dismay, the antenna definitely was not working as originally described.

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Hands on with the Mini 600 Antenna Analyser

Picture of Mini 600 Analyzer

For a long time now I have had a home-brew antenna analyser based on the VK5JST design. While this has served me OK, the accuracy of the 6m frequency was questionable, as the notes on the side of the tool suggested, and I was really needing something for VHF and UHF with my new interest in satellite and antenna construction.

I had in the past drooled over the Youkits FG-01A, but this again was HF +6m only, and the costs of an MFJ analyser were just wildly out of my range taking into account USD – AUD exchange rates. However we’ve once again seen electronics commoditised over the last few years, and this has led to inexpensive alternatives becoming available. It didn’t take long for the Mini 600, based on the EU1KY design to catch my attention, ticking all the boxes.

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