HT Antenna upgrade.....

[WX2MIG]

An old Ham once told me..."the stock rubber duck antenna that comes on any HT is nothing more than a dummy load that radiates".....

That really became apparent yesterday afternoon during a severe thunder storm and a Skywarn activation. With some serious lightning dancing around I decided to disconnect the antenna on my base 2 meter, and switch to my Yaesu VX-170 HT.
Now I'm only a couple miles away from the repeater, the repeater's antenna is minimum 200 feet up, and I was barely making it. I ended up having to stand in the doorway of the garage, and hold the HT up in the air while talking through the speaker/mic.....not the smartest approach to communicating in a severe thunder storm........

However, it was the incentive I needed to finally order an after market high gain HT antenna for this radio. I looked at and compared all the HT antennas offered by Cheapham.com and ordered the Smiley 5/8 slim duck 2 Meters - SMA, Item#:SMI-14626A.
It's advertised to give +6 db gain over stock antennas.

Hopefully during the next severe thunder storm I can carry out my Skywarn duties full quieting, and in the safety of my radio shack, and not holding an expensive lightning rod in the air......

 

[Slim]

Hey Tony. Ya might also try making your own "rat-tail" for your HT's. I made some the other day for mine and WOW,what a difference! The local repeater for me is about 5 miles away and it went from S2 to S4 on my RX and I can now chunk it w/a 1.5 watt key from inside my home. I also live in a hole where my home is located! Also,that repeater isn't a very good one either!
I can get out of the hole I'm in and chunk it w/350mW!!! I never dreamed that lil 19" string of wire would make that much difference.But WOW!
Just a lil food for thought sir! Have a great one;whatever it may be???
73.Slim.
BTW.
The homemade "rat-tail" cost me a whole 35 cents each to make!
A crimp on eyelet to fit your antennas connector,a string of some small speaker wire and a lil heat shrink tubing to dress it up and Done!!
I did solder my wire to the connector of course instead of crimping.

 

[WX2MIG]

Slim....

I was thinking of doing something on those lines as well.
One of the guys in our club is a slot machine mechanic at one of the Atlantic City casinos, his shop is on the top floor in the elevator room. He concocted a 2 meter dipole that hangs inside his shop, and he checks into the various 2 meter nets on his HT through that dipole.

I was thinking of making a 2 meter dipole from thin aluminum rod, and mounting it under the sofit on the side of my garage facing the repeater, with it tucked under the sofit, the likely hood of it taking a lightning strike should be far less than the Diamond X50A that's poking 30 feet above ground...

However, I think I'll wait until this high gain Smilely antenna arrives and see how much better my signal is with that before I get into making another outside antenna. If this after market HT antenna does what I'm hoping it should do, then I won't need to plug into anything else, if not then the antenna experimenting will commence.......

 

[WX2MIG]

Initial Review ~ Smilely 5/8 Slim Duck HT Antenna

My new Smilely 5/8 wave tuned slim duck 2 meter HT antenna arrived with today's mail.
Sitting at the computer desk in my bedroom I tried the main Atlantic County Skywarn repeater using the stock Yaesu rubber duck antenna, I hit the repeater with full voice, and moderate back ground white noise.
Using the new slim duck antenna I hit the repeater with full voice and only light back ground white noise.
Result is a minor improvement over the stock antenna, I was hoping for a little better performance from this after market rubber duck, and probably should have spent the extra money for either a Diamond or Comet high gain duck antenna, but as long as this unit gets me into the repeater during severe lightning storms, mission accomplished........

 

[SR385]

You probably got your money's worth.

I have a few of the long Diamond models, they work, but it's no roof mount antenna. They can only do so much.

An Arrow j-pole in the attic will outperform one any day if you want something you can use somewhat more safely in storms.

 

[Beetle]

I agree completely with Slim. About 22 inches of wire, with one end stripped about 2 inches and the bare wire wrapped around the SMA connector and held securely by the stock ducky.

My 1/2 watt Standard HT can hit repeaters "almost" full quieting that it couldn't hit at all before, and the ones it could hit before are all FQ now.

Adding a 1/4 wave counterpoise is the cheapest improvement you can make for an HT, and with a dual band radio, the 1/4 wave on 2m is a 3/4 wave on 70cm, so it works for both.