Simple Ham Radio Antennas: A 2 meter VHF Handheld Ground Plane or Tiger Tail Antenna. Post #322.


Most of the "rubber duckie" antennas that come with 2 meter handheld transceivers leave a lot to be desired. You can get better performance out of your HT by either buying a commercially-made telescoping 1/2 wave or 5/8 wave metal rod antenna or by simply adding the missing half of the antenna by attaching a "tiger tail" counterpoise wire to the base of your stock "rubber duckie" antenna. This video does a fairly good job of describing how to make an inexpensive "tiger tail" that helps your "rubbie duckie" antenna perform better. I made one of these "tiger tails" for my old Kenwood TH-21A HT. When I'm in Hilo, Hawaii, I can now reach all East Hawaii repeaters with the low power setting (.1 of a watt) on the old Kenwood HT. I soldered a ring connector to a 19-inch/48.26 cm length of #22 AWG hookup wire and attached the ring to the base of the screw-in "rubber duckie" antenna. With the "tiger tail", I get full quieting on several local repeaters without clicking on the high-power setting (1 watt). For the latest Amateur Radio news and events, please check out the blog sidebars. These news feeds are updated daily. You can follow our blog community with a free email subscription or by tapping into the blog RSS feed. Aloha es 73 de Russ (KH6JRM).

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Thank you for visiting my Amateur Radio Blog. I value your comments and suggestions. For Amateur Radio Antenna Topics and Discussions, stay here. For Amateur Radio News and Trends, please visit my news site at https://bigislandarrlnews.com.
Aloha es 73 de Russ (KH6JRM).

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