I've made several of these that work well from an SO-239, and coat hangers.
Talk about cheap, but they work well anyway. The coat hanger radials are
stiff enough to support themselves, and after sandpapering off the paint
down to bare metal, they solder OK directly to the SO-239. The radials
should be slightly longer than the vertical section and slope down at
roughly a 45 degree angle. Of course, if the antenna is outside, it will
rust. But if it's indoors, no problem. Also, I soldered a spade lug to the
top of the vertical section allowing me to hang it from the center beam of
the roof on the inside of my attic.

"Jim noname" wrote in message
news:SIfvc.34985$eY2.14267@attbi_s02...
hello. I just had a few questions about building 2m antennas.

This will be used indoors. I havent decided if its worth the trouble to
climb around in the attic or if I should just mount it on the wall. I
have
vinyl siding so hopefully that is a plus.

My first is about the classic ground plane built on a so239 connector. I
went with #14 wire and soldered the center wire on no problem. My question
is whats the sturdiest way to stick on the radials? I have a 100 watt
iron
and still can't get a solid connection for the radials.

I was also considering just putting up a vertical dipole on the wall. I've
heard people say they had better luck with the ground plane but maybe they
didnt have the coax ran off to the side far enough or just dropped it
straight down? It seems a little tricky feeding it from the center and
having the antenna vertical but maybe a few wire tacks can fix that.

As a alternative to the dipole on the wall I also thought about just
getting
a connector and soldering the wire directly to it bent upwards and then
using some flexible wire for the ground and let it hang below the shelf.
Would this work ok being connected directly to the radio?

What do you guys suggest?

thanks