If you could only keep one antenna you currently own, what would it be and why it beats other similar choices.  Throw in 2 picks if you can't decide.  

I have been running dipoles mostly for the last year since getting into HF, and I am just getting into OCF and windom for multi band.  I like the multi-band I have now which is about 65 feet 80/20 OCF dipole with a 4:1 balun and a 1:1 choke about 12 feet of coax from the feed point.  It tunes with the FT-710 builtin tuner for 40/20/15/12/10.   It is a bit weaker than the single band dipoles it will replace, but the multiband is worth the compromise.

Dipoles. They've worked for me in various configurations ever since I got my Novice back in '54.
I had a Yagi and an amplifier once. I sold them when I moved in '86 and never looked back.
To me, ham radio is a lot more fun without them. Busting a pileup with 5 Watts into a half-wave gives a special kind of satisfaction.

Mine would be the DX Commander. It can be tuned to resonance on 40-6m, and will work on 2m too. Easy to set up for permanent or portable activations. This is the classic model, there are other models with different band selections.

My home-brewed multiband dipole with window-line feedline. Works beautifully with my KPA1500 tuner on all bands 60M and up.

Probably the tree hung, open wire fed, 160m FWL.  It pretty much covers everything in the amateur bands, hears well & had no problem (as far as I know) with KW+ power & is cheap to fix/replace if needed.   Might change my mind if appropriate trees weren't available.

Can I keep multiples of the same antenna?

Flame suit on

Chinesium PAC-12 vertical. Since you said one antenna.

A couple of us went and put that poor antenna through the ringer. Armed with a commet analyzer we set out to see how many bands we could make work.
With a second coil and a bit of voodo, we managed to get 80 meters to load. Then we went up in frequency. 40 was easy, 20m was narrow, but worked. Adjust when you change freq's. The rest were cake.
After coming up with a set up on 6 meters, we continued on and got 1.15:1 on 2 meters. We were using my Icom IC-705 as the test mule, and after seeing 2 meters being nice and low, plus not believing it, I hooked up my 705 and ended up having a qso with another friend in a different city. We didn't bother trying 70cm, but I dont have any doubts it would work.

So, long winded, 80m through 70cm. All on one antenna. Quite a bit of whip adjusting, coil tap change, and radials folding and unfolding, but damned if we couldn't dial in every band good enough so a tuner wasn't needed.

For years and years we, my father(SK), brother(SK), and I, used a double extended Zepp fed with home made open-wire feeders. Always worked. Needed a transmatch but that was homebrew too.

My father knew his shit back in the day.

Wolf river coil and a 17' whip can do that. The DX Commander tunes 2m, but I have never tried it.

I would keep my non resonant ladder line fed doublet.   It gets me on 10-160 @ legal limit with the ATR-30 tuner.

Its not my favorite antenna, but then again "keep only 1 antenna". That was the only one I have that has that kind of range in frequencies. As a plus, it packs up to the size of a text book, sans coax.
It does go out on my outings as a back-up, or second antenna.

A Sommer of any variety.

Hm.. one antenna. That is kind of like "if you could only have ONE gun" type of thing.

I guess it would be the 80 meter OCFD with its 4:1 balun because of the number of bands it will cover and works pretty well on them.

BUT I would not choose to have "just one antenna" if I could prevent it. I have  beams and multiband verticals (similiar in concept to the DX commander) and an inverted L and a 30 meter wire vertical etc All of this crap is home brew (except the beams) and I pick and choose at to which ones to use for the bands I choose, and on the minute by minute signal strength comparisons of the antennas the will cover multiple bands. Some are better than others over different periods of the day and from different parts of the world.

So the one antenna concept kinds sucks. So does the one gun concept. If I had to choose just one gun I guess it would be one of my shotguns. It can kill large animals with slugs, it can defend my home with proper buckshot, it can sustenance feed me with small game with small shot etc. So it can do a lot of things, but may not be ideal for any of those  things. Or to put it another way, I own other firearms that will do a better job at some of those things. Therefore I don't just own one gun.  Same with antennas.

Because I do portable so much I have two.

1. Hustler 5btv
2. 17' whip and 40m coil

Ive worked the world with both. Can't ask for much more than that. Plus they're a small footprint. No trees needed.

My one base station antenna would be an 80m OCFD. With a tuner it’ll cover most bands.




For QRP/Portable:

Spark plug EFHW. I can get SWR’s to 1.0x-1.1 range.

Antenna 2

Elecraft AX-1. It’s a compromise antenna that needs a tuner but with the addition of a few 14 foot radials it turns into a decent antenna that packs up small and can be deployed easily.

It's hard to beat a dipole antenna. I built one myself shortly after I first got my license and started making all kinds of contacts on 10m. And I haven't done too bad with the 10m dipole on 12m and 15m with an external tuner. If I could only have one antenna it would be a multi band/fan dipole hung as an inverted V.

Yeah, me to.  I only have one antenna up at this time and it's a Butternut HF6V.  I do have a HF9V (that adds three more bands) but haven't put it up yet.  It's been assembled for 2 years and I really need to get it up and tuned but my back doesn't want me to do that.

Now, if I could pick one antenna from all of them I've had up during my entire time as a ham it would be a 2-element, three-band cubical quad.

TARHEEL II

I could mount it in the yard, with radials, and a long wire instead of the whip.

..and still do HF mobile, and portable

80m horizontal delta loop and it's not close. Smokes dipoles, end feds, verticals and anything else I've tried. Most bands, most versatile, highest performing antenna I've deployed yet.

71ish foot random wire. Can play 10-80 with WARC bands and be used at home and in the field.

Mpas lite as I can DX pretty well with it and its portable so I can pota.

EFHW cut for 40m (67ft), 49:1 at feed point.  Gets me 40/20/15/10 no tuner needed.

Maybe an EFHW cut for 75m(127~ft?) or 80M dipole as second antenna.

I had really good performance out of a ZS6BKW antenna. Was easy to set up and resonant on most bands. I also had a 134' EFHW that would let me do 80m well enough. Once I get to a permanent home, I'll have to pick which antenna(s) I want to set up.

Attached File


This antenna has been up since 2010 or 2011, and has been my only antenna. I don't plan on moving anytime soon, so my guess this antenna will end up being my only antenna.

I made a 160 meter EFHW 2 weeks ago and it's a keeper. The Kenwood TS570D easily tunes across all the ham bands.
So far I've had contacts across the country, Brazil and all of Europe.
Yesterday I even had a contact in Hungary with the Yaesu FT818.
I am very happy with the antenna.

I think I would also have to say a tarheel antenna of some sort.  I like to operate mobile and fixed stations, and portable too sometimes.  

If I had to pick a second antenna it would be an EFHW transformer.  Just add wire for whatever band you want, and enjoy working on the harmonic bands as well.

Those two would cover mobile, portable and fixed stations.