Tony Meloche wrote:

donutbandit wrote:

Al Arduengo wrote in
:

It took me the better part of a day to gather the supplies and construct
it so I hesitate to let the project go until I hear from experienced
users that it is not worth it. I welcome any suggestions or critique.

It's not worth it. Lousy antenna. I have one out on my patio waiting for me
to reclaim the wire off it. A 20 foot longwire out performs it.

Basically, I agree with donutbandit. The attractive things about a
broomstick are compactness and relative portability. But I've use both
broomstick and longwire extensively, and the longwire will beat the
'stick almost every time (though IMHO, a good broomstick and a *20* foot
longwire will not differ much in performance). But if you can string
50' or more of wire for a longwire, it will usually beat the broomstick
every time.

If you like to take a good, small portable on vacation, and want
noticeably better performance than the whip, a broomstick can be the
perect solution, though.

Tony


If you don't need something that'll stand up on it's own a slinky is more compact for travel, and if you have room, odds are you can make it longer than a broom stick you'd want to carry along.

I use a 3 meter folding military whip antenna when I want something I can plunk down and use without needing to figure out supports. It breaks down to something about 20" long that's about 2" wide.