Well, don't measure your SWR in the garage.

It's best to be at least 1 wavelength away from metal objects when you are
adjusting the antenna, which for 220 is 4.5'.

"Darrin" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 13:05:05 GMT, "KB9WMJ"
wrote:

It's not as hard as people are making it sound.

This sounds like you have a 5/8's 2M antenna, with 49" of whip. The
loading
coil is not DC grounded, meaning that the coil is simply in series with
the
center conductor of the antenna.

Electrically your antenna is approximately 54" in length (You'll notice
your
current antenna works well on the 6M band too!), meaning that the coil is
providing 5" or so of the length (It doesn't really work this way, but
it's
close enough). 5/8 on the 220 ham band is about 33", so if you subtract
the
5" of the coil, the whip should be about 28".

Go find some solid #12 copper wire, and replace the 49" whip with about
30"
of copper wire. Then with an SWR meter, determine what the correct whip
length needs to be.

With the SWR meter in-line, do a plot of the SWR, say every 1 MHz. You
should see something like this:

MHz SWR
222. 2.5:1
223 2.7:1
224 3.0:1
225 4.0:1

This is telling you the resonant frequency is somewhere below 222 MHz.
Cut
1/4" off the copper, and try again and repeat till you have a good SWR.
You
are looking for at least a 2:1 SWR maximum across the entire band.

Once you find the length in copper, cut your 49" whip down to the same
length, plus 1/4", and re-test the SWR. You may find you have to adjust
the
length of the stainless whip just slightly, as the copper has different
properties than the stainless whip, but it shouldn't be more than 1/4"
(Which is why you added 1/4" to the length before cutting).

If the SWR appears lower at 225 MHz, then the antenna is too short, try a
longer piece of copper.

Stay away from the 3/4 wave resonant point, which would be about 34" of
whip. It will be resonant, but you will not be happy with the
performance.

When you get all this done you may also find your not real happy with the
5/8's 222 antenna either. I have one, and like the 1/4 wave 222 antenna
much better. If you decide to go the 1/4 wave route, remove the coil
entirely, and cut a 13" whip. This should be perfect for 222 MHz. You
can
also make a nice 1/4 wave 222 antenna from all the extra Motorola whips
you
find at the hamfest for $1. They are too short for 2M, but are perfect
for
222. Simply heat the whip with a propane torch to remake the little curl
in
it's base.


Thanks for the advice. I'm going to print it out, and maybe save this
project for a rainy day in the garage.