Nelson Blaha wrote:
MK, this diagram is fantastic! I guess I should have explained to all
of you that as a college student I have more time than money, so it may
be a while before I can even afford the PVC and wire. I bet it will
outperform my mobile-dipole-on-a-stick, though!


Someone else posted that.. Myself, I wouldn't use one of those on 2m.
Sure, it would work, but for about the same or less amount of work
you could have a small 3 el yagi.
I would not use a directional antenna unless you had an easy way to
turn it.
A ground plane is super cheap, and will do just fine. You can place
them
on a mast, hang them from ceilings, etc. I've got a ground plane hung
in my
attic for emergency use. With 2m FM, gain is not really that important.
Decoupling from the feedline is though. The decoupling with the GP will
be fairly decent. If you use an off size "counterpoise" to mount a whip
on,
it's not resonant, and generally will do a poor job vs a complete
antenna.
You will find in most cases like that, the decoupling from the feedline
will be
poor too.
I'd start with a simple 1/4 wave ground plane, and go from there.
All you need is a SO-239 and 5 pieces of wire about 19-20 inches long.
Most bend the lower ground radials down at about 45 degrees to
get a better match to 50 ohms. You can set one on a table unless
the coax is thick... :/
Can't get much cheaper than that, and it will work well. To me, the
half square is too much work, too little gain for 2m.. Good for HF
tho..
A 3 el yagi would clobber that thing on 2m, and isn't too much bigger..
MK