On Thu, 09 Nov 2006 18:28:51 -0600, Bob Bob wrote:

I don't know the radio at all! I also never troubled myself to find out
what Technician limitations were!

What I am trying to get at is that if you want one antenna to do the
job, it isn't going to work as well as three antennas, one for each of
the bands (6/2/70) you are interested in. Like a said a dual (or more)
band design will be a compromise. This is not the same kind of issue you
might get on HF (you mentioned G5RV). Ionospheric propagation on HF is
(kind of) happy with a radiation pattern that isn't horizontal to the
ground. On VHF/UHF it is very important however to get the pattern as
close to the horizontal as possible, hence these antenna designs can be
said to be more critical.

If for example you constructed a vertical halfwave on 6m, the same
antenna fed on 2m would have much of its radiation going skyward at a
steep angle...

This begs the question, do you want to buy or build? There are some nice
2/70 dual band antennas out there that might be a good initial
purchase. Have no idea what they cost or how good they are though.

Cheers Bob W5/VK2YQA (Australian in East Texas!)

wrote:



I'm not sure what you mean by half of the bands when the radio only
does FM and on 4 bands only. 10M, 6M, 2M, & 70cm. I don't even care
about the 10M as I'm just a tech with no intrest in becoming a
general.

We have several 6M repeaters around here and it'll do 6M simplex on
50W. A beam will get me a lot of distance.

Of course I could buy an Icom 706 MK-II G and then just get a hor beam
or use a G5RV.



I'm really not too intrested in building. Hands are too shakky.
However I did find a nice Cushcraft tri band FM beam. It'll do 6M,
2M, and 70cm. This is what I want. One antenna. I've only got one
pole. The pole is already there. Its a 55 ft pushup pole. Its not a
tower but then my funds are limited. I get maybe $1K per year for
equipment and sometimes not that much.

Now I'm thinking of an antenna for the same freqs but for SSB.