Just curious, what works best for you guys, and why? Do you have any ideas about other antennas that you think may work well? Please share it with us. I think it will be educations for both old timers and newbies.

Personally, I have tried a lot of portable and semi-portable antennas. So far, a simple EndFedz 10/20/40 model has been my favorite because it's very compact and works relatively well. It requires no antenna tuner.
My other antenna is a G5RV Junior. It covers 40-10m bands but requires a tuner. I do realize that it's not the best choice but I've had decent luck with it.
A manual, portable MFJ tuner with a Power/SWR cross-needle indicator is my favorite. I don't like automatic tuners because they don't tell me what coil and capacitor values are used and most auto tuners don't have any indicator gauges unless it's a high dollar, stationary model.

Buddipole is the worst portable antenna I have ever tried. It was a waste of money. I only use it if no other antenna can be deployed. Having an antenna analyzer is a must with that antenna. Changing bands is a pure pain in the arse and requires an antenna analyzer every time because it's a high Q antenna and has a very sharp (and narrow band) resonance. Some people cheat and switch the coil tap to bring it under 5:1 SWR and use a tuner to finish the job. Unfortunately efficiency does down the toilet when a tuner is used.

I have been thinking about building a W3DZZ, field version. It's a great antenna for both field and base stations. If done right, it should cover 80-10m without a tuner (theoretically). Depending on height above ground, it may need a little help with a tuner on several bands but it's within acceptable range.
"Sotabeams" from UK, sells tuned W3DZZ traps for that antenna at a good price. I like the small trap size. They are rated for 100 Watts. It's too small for a base antenna but will work fine as a field version.

Can anyone recommend a good quality portable or semi-portable telescoping mast? Maybe 30-40 ft high. I don't like MFJ masts. My other option will be to use about 8-10, 4ft. military "tent support" masts. I have both aluminum and fiberglass masts. One guy always sells them at hamfests for about $2 a piece. I bought 15 of each fiberglass and aluminum.

Sure wish I could find them for $2 each

I have used the aluminum ones for HF vertical antennas with good success. They aren't something I'm going to ruck around, but I don't really do backpack HF. I have guy ropes already set up, just takes a few mins to put out some stakes, put the sections together and get it up and on the air.

For SOTA/USIOTA I use par-endfedz tuned for each band.

Pain in the butt to get them up, and marginal, but they do work.

I use two different portable masts.  One is a cheap Shakespeare Wonderpole.  It's 20' and about $22 from Amazon.  The other is from Sotabeams.  It's their travel mast.  Price is decent, but it really does compact down to a manageable size as well..

Sotabeams Travel Mast

As for antennas, I've been searching as well.  I was using the Sotabeams Bandspringer Midi.  It seems OK, but really seems to pale in comparison to some of my end fed antennas.  I have a QRP OCF Dipole I'll be testing soon.  It can be used on 40, 20, and 10 without a tuner, and 40-6 with a little tuning.  Only rated for 50W, but I only run QRP in the field anyway.  

Wonderpole on the left, Sotabeams Travel Mast on the right.

I've used a few things over the years. I made a manpack, and it uses a 7 foot collapsible .mil whip. I also keep a set of metal measuring tapes with alligator clips. The tapes can be extended (as needed) then clipped to a balun. Another think I've used are portable laundry lines, with the rope replaced with enamel wire. Works similarly to the measuring tapes.

Worst case scenario, I keep a chunk of coax with alligator clips. My father in law set up a zip line for the kids in the backyard. 5/8 aircraft braided wire. Clipped the center to that, and the other line to a ground line/counterpoise. Worked surprisingly well, and my LDG Z-11 Pro could tune it with no issue. (I'd recommend keeping kids off the line; they tend to screw with the signal )

Or..... if you've got a 40mm launcher handy.....give this a try
(part of the AN/GRC-109)

Our club, W1SRG, has a setup that we got from Traffie Hexbeam (unfortunately out of business) that fits into a trailer hitch. You would attach the antenna and lift the mast up and lock it in place, then guy it. Easily done with two people. We used to run a smaller hexbeam in it, usually 10m back when there was propagation. We haven't done mobile Field Day in a while though. I haven't looked, but I would bet there are other trailer hitch setups out there. I know someone is making hexbeams or similar. Not sure if they bought the rights or if they're a different design. Couldn't beat the hexbeam for tx/rx. We have a five bander still in in the air.

I like the LNR EndFedz as well.  I tried Buddipoles/Sticks and Alexloops, but found the EFT-10/20/40 Trail Friendly a lot easier to use and more effective.  YMMV.  

I worked a station from New Zealand, last night on 40m SSB Voice. He was using a semi-portable "Double Bazooka", single band dipole on a 30ft telescoping mast. This and 100 watts got him an S7 report. I got an S9+10 from him but I was running a kilowatt. Not bad at all. He said he is very happy with the antenna. It's better than regular dipoles and Inverted Vs and a whole a lot better than an offset-fed dipole that he tried using before he got the "Bazooka".


BTW, these are the traps for the W3DZZ antenna I was talking about.. I like the small, compact size and the fact that they come pre-tuned. Their pricing is very reasonable too.

I have 48 SOTA activations using a light weight 23 foot telescoping fishing rod (often referred to as a squid pole), and either a 20M dipole or a vertical end fed wire, depending on summit terrain.  Both the dipole and vertical are antennas I made at home with light weight 26ga wire from wireman.  Simple, light weight and effective.

Tag.

Your configuration is just about ideal for a backpacking antenna. I would substitute the "squid pole" with a 33 ft telescoping pole from Sotabeams (as suggested in one of the replies above) if 40 and 80m bands are to be used. 80m is not a likely choice for SOTA activations anyway but it's a great choice for overnight backpacking.
I bought several hundred feet of the 26 Gauge, stranded, copper clad steel, insulated antenna wire form the Wireman a year ago. This will be my first choice for building portable antennas. The wire is very durable, highly flexible and will never stretch. I plan on building a W3DZZ Doublet (mentioned in my posts above) with it.

What are you guys using as a base for the sotabeam or fishing pole masts? Most of where I would be working is far above any sort of foliage, so it would either be rocky dirt, or just rocks.

I'll be using a foot long rod attached to a door hinge. The rod will be driven into ground and the mast will be attached to the hinge while the mast is in horizontal position. Having a hinge will make it a lot easier to raise by myself. I'll first attach two guy ropes, slightly longer than needed, then raise the mast and let the two guy rope support it while I attach the third rope and shorten the other two ropes to bring the antenna to a full vertical position. I've done it this way in the past and found it to be the easiest.
Obviously, you won't need a hinge if you plant to use a short, light fiberglass mast for a 20m dipole. It's light enough to raise by hand while holding the base rod with your foot. Length and diameter of the rod will be determined by soil hardness and condition. I found that even a 6" rod works well in hard and dry soil, providing that your mast is guyed. I use a thin 200# cord, similar to a 550 Cord, as a guy wire. Yellow, white or orange color works best for visibility, so you don't run into it accidentally.

Another option is to use a hitch mounted base bracket if you will be operation near your vehicle. You can build one yourself from a 2" square tubing. Another option is to use a hitch mounted, deer skining vertical stand or even a bicycle carrier bracket.
Some people also use a vehicle wheel mount that you simply put under your car's wheel, similar to one in the picture above.

Thanks for the info

Never understood why one would use a 20 foot pole to hold up a dipole for 20 meters, instead of just making a vertical antenna.

Ok, as a regular buddipole user I gotta chime in here. It is FAR from the worst antenna I've ever used, but it does have limitations, if you use it outside of those limits its not gonna perform well.

First, yes having an analyzer is a must IMO (at least if you want to deploy it quickly), and the bandwidth for 20m or less is relatively narrow (thats the price you pay for any coil loaded antenna). And that is the point it IS designed to be resonant and efficient on one band at a time. But you can get fancy and set it up as an OFCD if you want (not my recommendation). Want to use a tuner, LOL, the entire point of the antenna is efficiency, and by definition tuners aren't, and yes, shockingly performance will suck.

I don't think changing bands is a real pain, its certainly easier than with a regular 1 freq dipole in a tree. But of course compared to multiband antennas its going to be more work.

The biggest thing is to understand the factors that impact antenna performance of the system. Trying to get good performance with horizontal buddipole on 40m with a 9ft tall mast, LOL, say hello to NVIS. Set the thing up as a vertical instead and you might be surprised. Also if you are going to use it get the tallest mast they offer (18ft?). The short mast is worthless unless you plan on operating on 10m. Again get as much metal in the air as high as you can.

6-7db gain? Turning your 5W singal into a 20W signal?

I will use a horizontal antenna over a vertical any time I can.

So I do a fair amount of portable ops with my milpacks and my FT817/897... So antennas I tend to use:

1. Milpack attached 10ft whip (this is the easiest and fastest to setup, but the absolute worse performance wise usually negative gain). The only notable exceptions are the PRC74 whips that are center loaded, and the PRC-132 whip that is base loaded so they tend to suck a bit less.

2. Reeled up dipole on winders for whichever band I want to work (I mark mine off for 80/60/40/30/20/17 etc) so at least I'm in the ballpark freq wise. Then I either trim it up with an analyzer, or just use the built in ATU if the milpack has it. (This is the best antenna I tend to use, but it is often difficult to setup if there aren't trees or other supports around, and tall trees are rare in my AO)

3. End fed wire (or 1/2 my dipole). This is often a compromise between performance and ease of setup (its pretty quick to setup if there is a tree) but at best its got half the gain of a dipole.

4. Paar EFZ, see the above for it being an endfed, mainly used with my 817 kit. The only downside is limited power handling which limits which radios I can use it with. Also only works on a few bands (but quick to switch).

5. Buddipole: Multiband and efficient, can be setup as horizontal or verical, not terribly portable, I prefer to use it if I'm vehicle borne.

6. Buddistick: Small, portable, base loaded verical. I mod mine to make it bigger=better. Mainly used with my 817, but I have used it with milpacks in the past since I can usually build a better antenna with it than using the mil-whip.

7. SORAK kit... Terminated Inverted V dipole. IF used as described in the manual this is easily the worst antenna system I've ever used. Yes, its green, it is broadband (Yay! the PRC-132 has no tuner), but its so terribly inefficient I wouldn't ever seriously use it as it was intended. However it can be setup as a regular dipole and a few other configs if you can do maths...

Yup, I also do this.

Rocks . There are lots of rocks where you and I are. Build a pile of them. I tend to guy the pole as well with some 3mm cord and some lighweight stakes or rocks.

I've used the W2AU/W2VS version of the W3DZZ for over 30 years at my home station with very good results. It does require a tuner, however, and while the SWR can get rather high on 20, 15, and 10, it does get out with 100 Watts.

For Field Day, our ham club has either used a 160 Meter ladder line fed doublet or the above antenna for low bands, and a Yagi for 20, 15, and 10. We've had limited success with verticals.

I use a 12" length of PVC pipe that is cut to a point on one end, and reamed out to the diameter of my mast on the other.  I can just shove it into the ground, wedge it between rocks, or stack rocks around it.  It is basically the piece of the system that takes abuse.

I'll add to this by saying that I often go for the directionality gained by using a horizontally polarized antenna on a steep hillside.

i use a homebrew version of the PAC-12 antenna. it works great and i even ran a ARF net one night with it running it from a FT-100D and a car battery in my back yard. its not for everyone though do to it does take a bit to set up. the biggest thing is the grounding radials. instructions say min of 4, you really need 8 or more to get a good signal out. hand wrapping those coils was a HUGE PITA but once dont you never have to do it again. i created a cheat sheet for mine and kept it with my radio. i had the coils on one side then the freq's and antenna length on the other. once i ran the radials i could have it resonate in less than a min time and time again.

that said, im going to be buying/building another setup here in the near future. going to start with a wolfriver coil and use probably a MFJ telescoping antenna.

Yeah, I don't think that works that way in the real world.

I use a 9:1 matchbox with a 27 foot wire and 16 feet of coax before the air choke.  It is installed in a reverse slope form where the matchbox is higher then the wire.  Its a total crap setup but I am on the air in my apartment (and no one has noticed the wire from the 2nd story window to the fence across the yard yet).  The coax which provides the counterpoise is laying on the bedroom floor in a loose arch before going into the tuner on my desk.

When I operate portable I use single band dipoles I have built, as high as I can get them.  They work great.

care to explain?

I use a packtenna either center fed or end fed. It has really made my life much easier.

Yup. You cut the noise significantly that way if you do it right.

I use this:



With the wire up inside a 30' Jackite kite pole:



In use on Kaho`olawe:



In the above photo it is zip tied to the stump of an old flagpole.  I also drive a 4' concrete forming stake a couple of feet in the ground and slide the pole over that.

Verical endfeds are ok, but you can easily replace the matchbox for a loading coil and some radials and get a more efficient antenna for not much more work...

I use one of those Alpha verticals as my only antenna.

I was frustrated with it when I first got it but after a lot of experimentation got an easy to deploy counterpoise system built with eight wires that allows the vertical whip to send out some pixies and put in an RF choke (which is not really needed now that I have a working counterpoise system).

In the past couple of weeks I have added 19 countries from Tulsa, OK.

Italy, 40m, 5222 mi
Venezuela, 17m, 2543 & 2527 mi
Cuba, 17m, 1647 & 1344 mi
Wales, 15m, 4390 mi
Netherlands, 17m, 4758 mi
Brazil, 17m, 5260 mi
Norway, 17m, 4470 mi
Russia, 17m, 6188 mi
Hungary, 17m, 5362 mi
Dominican Republic, 15m, 2001 mi
Argentina, 20m, 5491 mi
Columbia, 20m, 2504 mi
Luxembourg, 17m, 4851 mi
Antarctica, 20m, 8950 mi
Australia, 17m, 8546 mi


There's a few more but I need to run and meet a cabling contractor!

It's fun in a certain way to make these contacts with a 13' vertical folding tent pole set up on a tripod in front of my office.

Like my tag line says, "Just doing what I can with what I've got!"  Basically every time I power on the radio (IC-7300) it's like I'm working field.

Its even better without their patented crappy matching system... I do the same thing with my buddi-stick... And yes, you need radials for it to work worth a shit.

Can you provide some details on your vertical setup?

I would like to do this with tent poles.

Mach, check this out. You can pretty easily homebrew the verticals.

Buddi vertical

I really need a different setup, or for it to warm up so I can figure out a better antenna.

Apartment Hamming sucks. I had nothing permanent when I lived in one years ago, portable only for me back in the day. Even now my home QTH antenna sorta sucks. Luckily I've always lived near a park.

If you have a balcony and are up high, you might give the buddipole a try, there is a whole section on using it off balconies in the cookbook. It tends to work decently on 20/40 since you are actually high enough at that point.

My Alpha portable is supposed to work from a balcony but I have not had any success at that.

ETA:  Here's an article on the ORIGINAL G8JNJ Broadband 5:1 + vertical antenna : http://www.g8jnj.net/broadbandhfvertical.htm  Both Alpha and Chameleon have commercialized his design.

Unless my 7300 and the antenna are both grounded and the counterpoise system is in place there is so much noise (S7 levels) it is basically unusable.  I can't just run a big ground wire to the ground floor.

I have been able to make it work somewhat well with the jaw clamp on a park bench and a single CP wire but all my time has been spent getting it to work on the tripod with all the CP wires.

I'll try to set it up tonight while the sun is still up and snap a few pics.

When all my parts get here to build the analyzer, I will have a better picture of what's really happening with the antenna.  All I have now is the SWR graph feature of the 7300 and, while it works, I can't wait to get more fideilty in the measurements.  The parts are on the truck as they say!  I'll also start investigating making an extension pole so it works better at and below 40m.  There's only so many pixies a 13' pole can push at 80m.  Even 40 is pushing it but I have been able to make some reasonable distance QSOs on 40.  Also wanting to make an end fed multiband and a balun with changeable 17, 20, and 40 wires.  It's been kind of pointless to try building antennas without even a rudimentary analyzer.

Pics of the CP wire ends.  The head end has four wires to a single 3/8' ring and the far end has simple loops of the wire.  Wires are 9'8" long.  I keep the ends about 5" off the ground when staking them down.  They also work as awesome guy wires for wind. (ETA:  For clarity, there are two sets of four wires for eight total CP wires!  They extend out 45 degrees between all of them.)

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The antenna at night operating in the middle of nowhere on battery.  Crappy pic, will take better pics when the sun is out.  I was showing my mom how this stuff works and made a few NPOTA contacts that night.  Looks like there was a CW sprint going on also.

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Keep in mind that there is no such thing as an "end fed" antenna. Regardless of what you want it to do.

I try not to remember working on antennas before analyzers.

I borrowed a homebrew version of the Spider Beam (Hexbeam essentially) and really enjoyed it with my FT-817.  I had to give it back though, bought most of the parts to build my own and then never built it

I did build one that was similar to the HF-P1 though mine used individual coils made for each band.  It worked really well for both QRP and up to 100 watts (It's rated for 150).