PackTenna Mini Random Wire (9:1)
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| Frequency | non-resonant by design: the 9:1 unun drags the wire's 500-1500 ohm chaos into internal-tuner range |
| Bands | multiband with the rig's tuner: the stock 29 ft covers 40-10 territory; longer cuts (35.5/41/58/71 ft) reach further down |
| TX power | 100 W (100 W SSB/CW, 50 W digital - the maker splits the rating by duty cycle) |
| Modes | SSB, CW, AM, FM, digital |
| Connector | 9:1 unun integrated with the winder; BNC to the radio; two banana sockets for optional radials/counterpoise (manual) |
| feedpoint | 9:1 unun; BNC; banana sockets for counterpoise |
Estimated (unverified): weight (unpublished); the power split appears on the store listing rather than in the manual text
Maximum band agility per gram: where the EFHW commits to a band at the workbench, the random wire defers the decision to the tuner button - every band from one pocketable wire, with cut lengths engineered to keep the impedance inside what internal tuners actually match. Paired with the wide-tuner QRP generation, it is the one-antenna travel kit.
The tuner is now mandatory equipment, the 9:1's transformation plus coax loss on high-SWR lines quietly taxes every watt (the resonant sibling wastes less), digital duty halves the rating, and the counterpoise the marketing soft-pedals still determines whether the magic happens. Random is a strategy, not an absence of one.
The travel answer: one wire, every band, tuner does the thinking. Efficiency purists carry the EFHW and choose summits' bands in advance; everyone else appreciates not having to.
The Mini Random Wire is PackTenna's other philosophy, sold in the same gram-counted hardware: where the EFHW sibling commits to a band when the wire is cut, the random wire defers every decision to the radio's tuner. The architecture is the classic one - a deliberately non-resonant length (29 feet stock, with 35.5, 41, 58, and 71-foot cuts down the menu) presenting 500 to 1500 chaotic ohms that a 9:1 unun drags into the range internal tuners actually match. 'Random' is a misnomer with engineering inside: the offered lengths are chosen precisely to dodge the half-wave resonances whose impedance spikes no internal tuner can touch.
The rating sheet splits with unusual honesty - 100 watts SSB and CW but 50 for digital, a maker acknowledging duty cycle instead of hoping - and the field pairing that made the design famous is the wide-internal-tuner QRP generation: the KX2s and G90s whose tuners treat the 9:1's output as a solved problem. The POTA field-report literature documents the combination endlessly, including half-watt CW activations that read like dares. The counterpoise footnote comes straight from the manual: nothing extra is strictly required at low power, but a counterpoise is 'generally recommended' for a better match and to keep common-mode current off the coax - and the matchbox carries two banana sockets waiting for exactly that wire.
Choosing between the siblings is choosing a philosophy of weight: the EFHW spends its grams on resonance and wastes nothing in transformation; the random wire spends them on agility and pays a quiet tax in tuner and transformer loss. PackTenna's achievement is making both choices first-class - same sealed construction, same winder-as-chassis packing, same engineering candor in the manuals - so the decision is about your operating, not the hardware.