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KJ6ER Antennas

February 2026

Introducing the New KJ6ER Marauder
2-Element Moxon-Inspired Array with up to
+3.7 dBi Gain and 15 dB Front-to-Back!

Dear Fellow Portable Antenna Geeks 😀

I am very excited to introduce the Marauder, a portable 2-element gain antenna for 20M-10M inspired by the popular Moxon antenna. The antenna was computer modeled extensively in 4NEC2 to optimize its efficiency and performance for each of the bands. According to the model, the Marauder averages

+3.4 dBi gain across all 5 bands with an average

15 dB front-to-back ratio and 87% efficiency.



The Moxon Rectangle antenna was introduced to the amateur radio community in the 1980s by British engineer Les Moxon, G6XN. My objective was to design a Moxon-like antenna using only telescoping whips and band-linked crosswires to form the radiating rectangle. I also wanted to shift the feedpoint from the center of the driven halfwave to the end, making it an end-fed halfwave for convenience.


The name Marauder was suggested by subscriber Zach Dill, AI4ZD, and was chosen to represent the invasive potential of the antenna to penetrate the bands. After testing the Marauder at several POTA activations, it lived up to its descriptive name with many strong S9 signal reports from hunters on the eastern seaboard from my deployment in California.



If you do not have the time or ability to build your own Marauder antenna, you can purchase an assembled hand-made antenna on Etsy: the Marauder 5-Band Antenna System with an included 49:1 unun, two 17' telescoping whips and two ground spikes, or purchase the two hand-made Marauder Crosswires standalone. More than 150 products have been sold at the J-Systems Store on Etsy over the past 6 months with over 40 perfect 5-star reviews from buyers! Browse the store today.

KJ6ER Marauder
Image description
KJ6ER Marauder 5-Band Antenna System on Etsy
KJ6ER Marauder Crosswires Kit on Etsy
KJ6ER Marauder Antenna System

The Marauder is a rectangular 2-element gain antenna with an end-fed folded halfwave as the driven element (an inverted-L shape) and a 5% longer folded halfwave as a parasitic reflector element. These two elements are separated from each other by a nylon non-conducting segment which is 6” long for all bands.


While the two band-linked crosswires are identical in length, the different driven and reflector element lengths are accomplished by adjusting the two 17’ whips. The antenna has been designed to resonate at the center of each band (with the band-linked crosswires), while the two whips are used for finetuning within each band.

KJ6ER Marauder Antenna System
KJ6ER Marauder Antenna System

According to the 4NEC2 model, the Marauder generates strong forward gain from +3.06 dBi on 20M to +3.73 dBi on 10M at its average maximum radiation angle of 29° off the horizon. But what makes this antenna so flexible is its broad 57° -3 dB elevation vertical beamwidth (10° to 67° off the horizon). As a result, its radiation pattern provides both lower angle DX-potential radiation gain as well as higher angle regional radiation.


Furthermore, the Marauder has a -1 dB azimuth horizontal beamwidth of 100° (+/- 50° around the directional heading) with strong radiation spread across a broad forward radius. It also provides significant rear rejection of less desired signals with an average 15 dB front-to-back ratio.

Marauder Beta Testers, K5OHY and CE3/N5NU

As many of you know, I initiated a KJ6ER Antennas Beta Testers program last month to encourage interested hams to get draft PDFs of my new antennas, build and deploy them in the field, and then summarize their experiences in video. if you would like to become a KJ6ER Antenna Beta Tester, send me a message. Your early review of my draft PDF, antenna design and build helps me improve the content quality in the PDF, as well as the construction and deployment process. 

Tim Hale, K5OHY, of Midland Texas jumped at the opportunity to beta test the Marauder and shared a video on YouTube last week: The KJ6ER Marauder Antenna | A Portable 2-Element Vertical Moxon. He did a fantastic job detailing his experiences on 20M, 17M and 15M CW. He kept saying in his video that he had "non-stop pileups" on all those bands! He later wrote "this is one of the best POTA antennas I’ve tried!" I encourage you to watch his video on the Marauder and subscribe to his YouTube channel.

Tim Hale, K5OHY Video
Jason Goldsberry, CE3/N5NU Video

Jason Goldsberry, CE3/N5NU, currently of
Santiago, Chile also grabbed the opportunity to become a beta tester and shared a video on YouTube this week: The POTA Marauder, a 2-element Moxon Style Antenna. He did a wonderful walkthrough of how he constructed the antenna and compared its performance in the field to my Challenger OCF halfwave on 10M and 12M CW. Given his location in Chile, he was looking for great DX results and achieved them. I encourage you to watch his video and subscribe to his YouTube channel.

Introducing the KJ6ER Heroes Program

In upcoming newsletters, I will begin featuring videos of hams building and deploying their own KJ6ER antennas to share with all my newsletter subscribers worldwide! Just like Tim and Jason did as beta testers, you can send me a link to your online video about any of my antennas and I will feature it in one of my future newsletters! I am very interested in how you customized the build for your own needs either as portable or at your home QTH. I know many of these videos already exist - send me a link to your favorite. There are many creative builders out there with wonderful tips and tricks. I would like to offer you a global platform to share your great ideas with others.

KJ6ER Heroes Program
ABR Coaxial Cables

Why not buy yourself a well-deserved gift of a fresh set of high quality ABR coaxial cables. If you use my callsign KJ6ER as the coupon code at check-out, you will receive a nice 10%-20% discount on your total order! Get your new ABR cables today!

Until next time, keep having fun out there! Building ham radio antennas is our last homebrewing frontier and I am dedicated to helping you do so successfully! See all my free antenna design plans at the cloud links below.



If someone forwarded this email to you and want to be added to my antenna geeks email list, send me a message and you will be the first to receive new KJ6ER antenna designs and updates! I am also available to present my antennas to your Amateur Radio Club via Zoom. Let me know if they are interested! 



As always, feel free to reach out to me if you ever have any questions, I'd be happy to help you! 🙂 73 KJ6ER, Silicon Valley

My mission is to design efficient and effective portable antennas for the every-ham that focus on the optimal integration of performance (high radiation efficiency), elegance (speed and simplicity of deployment) and convenience (ease of transport and storage). These designs are always shared for free with the global amateur radio community to encourage more radio operators to homebrew their own portable antennas. 

KJ6ER Antennas

Cloud Drive File Links (KJ6ER):

Greg Mihran, KJ6ER

Campbell, California

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