Just out of curiosity sake - anybody recommend a decent mobile vertical whip antenna for amateur radio VHF band (specifically within the 146mhz area) that is less than 3 feet tall?
Thanks.
TD
Thanks.
TD
Ham Radio Antennas
- Thread starter TangoDown
- Start date
Larid makes a 1/4 wave that is only a a foot and half tall works great I have one in use and it meters out awesome at about 1.5 to 1
KC9OZL
KC9OZL
Respondcode3 said:
Not so, here is a link to what I use for Amateur VHF/UHF with 110w Astro Spectras.
http://www.rfparts.com/diamond/nr72bnmo.html
And link to where you can order one:
http://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-000059
I personally wouldnt recommend it here is why.
The dBi gain figures are exaggerated.I know alot of hams who use them for their dual banders. They try them and always seem to switch back to a regular style antenna. The only benefit is the height. If they mount it on the roof and have a garage. The other reason is its not as obvious and more stealthy. Not that anyone has car mounted Cell antennas. The antenna is a 1/4w on VHF, therefore it has no real gain, but with a groundplane the UHF gain in dBd should be close to the advertised dBi figure. I sure wouldnt want to push 110w though that but thats me.
The dBi gain figures are exaggerated.I know alot of hams who use them for their dual banders. They try them and always seem to switch back to a regular style antenna. The only benefit is the height. If they mount it on the roof and have a garage. The other reason is its not as obvious and more stealthy. Not that anyone has car mounted Cell antennas. The antenna is a 1/4w on VHF, therefore it has no real gain, but with a groundplane the UHF gain in dBd should be close to the advertised dBi figure. I sure wouldnt want to push 110w though that but thats me.
yeah those diamond antennas are really bad i went threw two of them them in a year cause they are built so pour and i was only pushing 55 watts through it
Respondcode3 said:
Normally I would agree, but after playing with this one at 70 watts, I kept increasing the power (using an HT and an amp to be able to control output power) to 125 watts. After running that level for a while I decided to put the High power Astro Spectra on it. No problems at all and the gain seems to be for real as i have done a apples to apples comparison with a 1/4 with no gain and was able to make repeaters with the diamond as opposed to the 1/4 wave. Same for simplex operation, range was better with the diamond. (yeah, I know, not scientific at all, but the antenna range at NASA is booked for the next year or so).
As with everything else, your mileage may vary, but my experience with this one hammy antenna has been good.
use 5/8 wave it may be longer but less power and you can get out farther. I use both and get better range with the 5/8 over the 1/4
KC9OZL
KC9OZL
nrplowguy said:
Ummm...Generally a 5/8 wave antenna will outperform a 1/4 wave antenna everytime. I was asking what model of Diamond you used that failed twice?
I run a Maxrad on a NMO mag mount for my Mobile. Works good all the way across 144-160 with a fairly low SWR. I push 50 watts on my Icom F320
localhero800 said:
How do you like your F320? I was looking at some entry level Icoms. Being new to ham radio, I don't know much about the mobile transceivers available. Mostly I plan on using the radio to talk to the SAR guys from our I.C. when they are out of range on their direct channels. The ham repeaters out here are surprisingly better than our county radio system and seem to propagate through the mountains a hell of a lot more reliably and consistently.
I LOVE my Icom.. it has tons of options, and i can program it on the fly with my laptop. I love the Tone encode feature.. As our dispatch goes down i can put in QCII tones in the radio, and tone out any department in the county from my mobile.