Tag: 2m

2m dipole performance

The 2m dipole attachment I made for my monopod seems to be working well. It’s a definite improvement over the Diamond SRH77CA and SRH999 antennas (which already work fairly well) when it comes to receive. I can receive a pretty clear signal from the repeaters from inside the house, whereas with the Diamond antennas, the repeater signal was on the scratchy and noisy side. When I’m outside, all of the antennas perform pretty well.

The two repeaters closest to the house that I can reach (and use) are about 7-8 miles away, so they’re a bit of a reach to hit standing on the ground with a 5W HT. The repeater beeps at me after I transmit, so I think I’m hitting the repeater with the dipole attachment, although I’m not sure how well I’m getting in. The repeater has a voice playback function, but I still need to learn how to use it.

In any case, the dipole attachment seems to be a success, and I can at least monitor some of the repeater activity more easily.

Time to start planning for a dual band VHF/UHF radio for the house.

2m antenna monopod attachment

A while back, I made a monopod to use with my camera. Handy thing to  use when I don’t feel like lugging around a tripod. Also serves as a nice walking stick.

On one of my last visits to Radio Shack, I picked up two telescoping antennas thinking that I could use them as dipole elements.

Add one section of aluminum angle stock, a bulkhead BNC jack, a couple 1/2″ 4-40 screws and nuts and now I’ve got a telescoping 2m dipole antenna attachment for the monopod.

Monopod antenna attachment
Monopod antenna attachment

It took me a while to figure out how I was going to insulate one of the telescoping elements from the angle stock. While I was studying the problem, a solution struck me: plastic wall anchor. Worked perfectly.

Tuning the antenna was a simple matter of adjusting the length of each telescoping antenna to get close to 1:1 across the 2m band.

Tuning the monopod antenna attachment
Tuning the monopod antenna attachment

Looks pretty good. I’ll check it again outside over the weekend and try it out with the HT.

Monopod antenna attachment
Monopod antenna attachment

If I hold it up in the air by the base of the pole, I can get the antenna about 2.5 m up in the air. I’m hoping I’ll be able to reach the two repeaters that are about 8 miles away a little better than I can with the HT antennas I already have.