In reply to MM0FMF:
Morning Andy,
“…Not be confused with that big American company: MFJ (aka made from junk)!”
I was!
Mike G6TUH
In reply to G6TUH:
Um, my mistook 
fixed my post now!
Don
In reply to M0HCU:
Hello Don, I thought that was what you meant until Andy confirmed I was confused. Thanks for correcting my brain!
Mike G6TUH
In reply to M0HCU:
You’re right about the fun from a simple bit of wire Don.
In my day job I help to produce the custom chips that go into phones, set top boxes, car ECU and “infotainment” systems, cameras etc. It makes me feel really chuffed when you see people eulogising about their shiny phone when you know you helped the manufacturer make it happen.
Then I have some contacts with some simple wire antennas I made myself. The satisfaction and enjoyment that comes from something so simple makes all the sophisticated stuff pale in comparison!
Andy
MM0FMF
In reply to MM0FMF:
“You’re right about the fun from a simple bit of wire”
Even more fun when you get to the summit of a hill, rummage through your backpack, and find you’ve left the SLAB - powerpole cable at home! Gah!
I certainly wasn’t going to plodge through the clarts and remaining 3 foot snow drifts back down to the car and drive back home and pick it up…
Result was, with 2 bars showing on the internal batteries on the 817ND, I thought I’d give it a go anyway, but with only 2.5W SSB.
Within 5 minutes, amongst others, I had Rich, N4EX (with a 3/3 report) and Bill, W4ZV (with a 4/4 report) both in the log again. I was certainly amazed.
Thanks to everyone who called in, 22 in all, who put up with what must have been a not very loud signal!
Next thing has to be a qrp tuner so I don’t have to lug a big box ‘o’ tuner around
Don
M0HCU
I use an FT-817 and a doublet as well.
I bought a 75’ roll of speaker wire, split it down the middle 44’ (making 88’ total length), and zip tied it off with a little loop. The remaining 31’ act as the feed line into a 4:1 balun.
I carry an LDG tuner with me, but I rarely use it. I probably should on 40m, but I find I get a lot of loss on the receive side with the tuner inline, and I’ve been able to work without it. I’m flat on 20m and 10m, and good enough on 12, 15, and 18.
AG6RN
In reply to N6CTM:
I use almost exclusively now a “stretched double” Norcal doublet - approx. 50’ per side. With a small MFJ “travel ATU” it will tune all bands 80m - 6m (!) and has the advantage that for my two favorite bands of 60m and 80m the only adjustment required is swinging the “antenna” tuning knob to the other end of the scale. I have a chart of the settings for each band pasted to the top of the tuner, and can usually set it to within a quick whistle and tweak every time 
Due to it’s shortness it’s performance is definitely sub-optimal on 80m, but will generally do the job if the band is working and is much more convenient to deploy than a full 80m dipole. On 60m it’s performance seems to be on a par with the straight 60m dipole I use in really foul weather.
What is in short supply is time to get out and use the kit 
73 de Paul G4MD