Looking for a vertical amateur band antenna
 

On Mar 15, 10:10*pm, wrote:
On Mar 15, 12:33 pm, wrote:

*I am getting old but I still want to watch the ham bands, I have a
transceiver for the ham bands and would like to buy a vertical
antenna both for transmitting and receiving.
*Any body got any ideas ?

I would start hehttp://www.eham.net/reviews/products/13

Keep in mind with a traditional monopole (one radiating element)
vertical, the vertical element is only half of the antenna system.
The other half is the counterpoise/radial system, or the "ground".

Thus beware of "magic" verticals like this one:http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/5175

Although it's very convenient, notice the lack of any substantial
radial system. *Also beware antenna claims to be broadband and require
no tuning. The "matching network" may well be resistors absorbing
power that otherwise would reflect back and deflect your SWR meter,
but the power is wasted as heat and you get a false sense of
efficiency due to a low SWR reading.

Unless you have space for an extensive radial system, *I* would
gravitate towards an oldie-but-goodie, the vertical dipole. *This is
just a standard dipole stood up on its end. *(Although some variants
end-feed the half-wave antenna and get virtually the same results,
thanks to the very high (around 2-5K ohm) impedance feedpoint,
allowing stray capacitance from the coax or a small counterpoise to
create a balacing current flow efficiently without a radial system.

End-fed halfwave verticals are inherently NOT broadband. *Center-fed
verticals can be fed with a tuner and will probably work better for
multi-band use.

Here is one interesting design that has gained some very good
reviews. *It's a folded halfwave vertical design, center-fed:http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/2...t5info-002.htm

Ironically, although in theory a halfwave vertical is considerably
better than a vertical monopole with a poor radial system, or over
poor conductivity soil, it's not at all ground-independent. *Turns out
either a vertical monopole or vertical dipole will excel when located
above a large ground-plane of salt-water. *So a portable antenna like
this, taken to an ocean beach, might just outperform a much "better"
antenna over average soil. :)

Hope this helps.

ParaBolicD...,

I like your Answer : Enough Details and not too Technical.

Plus you provided four good Go-Here-Reference
and For-More-Info Link/URLs.

You address the OP's Question about a "vertical antenna
both for transmitting and receiving".

a job well done - i give it an "a+" :o) ~ RHF