On Monday, January 27, 2014 2:06:56 PM UTC-6, R. Scott wrote:
Have been looking around for plans for a 1/2 or 5/8 2 meter mobile
antenna to play with. I have several Iron Horse whips I no longer use
and thought id use them as a starting point for a 5/8 2 meter mobile
whip I could use on my CB mount for most of the time. (I use the CB only
when our RV club travels as a group).
I did a ton of google/bing searches but have come up fairly empty. I
know I could buy one cheap but thats not what ham radio is about
.
The tricky part is rigging up the matching/loading coil.
About the easiest way to rig up a 5/8 2m whip is to take one
of those old CB antennas with the base loading coil which has
a plastic sleeve over the coil. Very common back in the day..
Pull the sleeve up and redo the coil to act as a loading coil
for 2m. Usually will end up maybe 4-5 turns or so, but will
have to be tweaked. That's about all I can think of offhand
that is easy to make, and still looks OK after it's finished..
Naturally you'll need to trim the whip, or get one the right
length. I have no idea what an "iron horse" whip is, so couldn't
say much about those.