*WHAT YOUR ANTENNAS SAY ABOUT YOU*
By: gvi
12 June 2005

I know a ham friend who likes to say, "If your antenna survived the winter, it wasn’t big enough." He’s joking, of course. He’s something of a smart aleck. He also nails the ethos of certain of us in the ham community, the "QRO" types.

I’ll allow that I’m not one of them. I first learned about two-way radios in the military, and my approach toward ham radio tends to parallel what I picked up in the Army. Particularly, that if you are disaster-prep minded and own ham radio gear, it pays to have gear that’s as flexible as possible.

The same ought to go for our antennas as well. I submit that there’s no such thing as a single perfect antenna for any radio, which is why each of my radios have at least two.

In my case, here’s what I have and use, and why. It is submitted for your consideration in appraising your own antenna needs.

FOR MY 2-METER HT:

  1. A short rubber-ducky, which is most convenient when moving around a lot. Ducks aren’t the best radiators - I’ve heard them referred to as "dummy loads on a stick" - but their size often offsets their poor efficiency.
  2. A telescopic whip. Better for hitting the local repeater from hard-to-reach places, but fragile. Won’t take a lot of abuse.
  3. A homebrew J-pole made out of 300ohm TV twinlead. Very nice omnidirectional antenna that can be rolled up and fit in a jacket pocket. Here’s a link to a project page: http://hamgate1.sunyerie.edu/races/antenna/pocket.htm

FOR MY 2-METER MOBILE:

  1. A mag-mount vertical for the car/truck. I can use this with my HT by sticking it on top of the fridge, letting the fridge act as the ground plane. Mag-mounts are really handy.
  2. #3 above, slid into a CPVC sleeve and duct-taped to the top of an antenna mast.

FOR MY HF RIG:

  1. A homebrew wire dipole, cut for 20-meters. Can’t get much simpler than a dipole, and it takes a darn good antenna to beat one.
  2. A variable-length dipole made from two 100-foot lengths of wire, spooled onto a couple of camper’s clothesline reels. Probably the most versatile antenna I own. Certainly the cheapest. It’s available commercially as the "Yo-Yo-tenna" for something like $20.00 or more, but I just went to the camping section at Wal-Mart, picked up a couple of clothesline reels for about $3.00, then bought two 100’ spools of wire at Radio Shack. If I were really cheap, I could have left off the clothesline reels and used the spools - they make great insulators all by themselves - but the reels are just too darned convenient. A great portable NVIS antenna for the regional 80-meter net, too!
  3. A homebrew vertical for 20 and 40 meters. Here’s a link to the project http://radio.thulesius.se/div_mtrl/PAC-12.htm
  4. (On order). A Buddipole. http://www.buddipole.com This is the first HF antenna that I’ve ever gone out and bought, and while I haven’t received it yet (mail takes forever in Iraq), it seems well-made on the face of it.

My antenna choices are based on three considerations, none of which is paramount:

  1. lightweight and portable
  2. multi-band or multi-application, if possible
  3. I’m a real tightwad, and homebrew antennas let me indulge myself.

I’ll be the first to admit that I even after the above list I don’t have all my bases covered. For example, I have nothing for HF mobile. In my defense, I’ll allow that it’s never occurred to me to work HF mobile, although I ought to try my hand at it. Still, I’ve given my antenna selections a critical analysis, which I recommend to all who intend to use their radios in austere conditions.
gvi


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