I want to install an antenna at my house but I don’t want to get on the roof of my house and I can’t put up a large antenna tower. I saw a YouTube video where a guy used a 30’ telescoping flag pole for his antenna. I know that might not be the best solution for me but it’s the best I can do right now.

I’m try to decide on an antenna. I’ve been looking at the Ed Fong triband below. I’m sure it’s a good antenna but I just want to make sure I’m making the right choice. I am using 144/430 but I’m starting to play with GMRS. I have multiple repeaters within 10 miles on me but I’d like to reach as far as a can. Is there an antenna that will do all three? My mobile antenna does all three but I’m not sure if a “base station” antenna exists like that.

Any recommendations on antennas?


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TBJ-1  $75 Published in QST March 2017 - US Patent 9,608,336

Perfect match for triband radios such as the  - Btech 2501+220, Radioddity QB25, Btech UV25 x4, Baofeng UV5Rx3, and QYT 8900

This is our latest antenna featuring coverage in a single antenna - 2 meters, 220MHz, and 70cm.  Operates without radials.  Total height 5ft 8 inches.  This antenna was designed for FEMA and is ideal both as a base antenna as well as an emergency antenna.  Because of the intricate tuning, we only sell this antenna with the pvc pipe.  This antenna is ideally suited for the new triband radios from China.  Unfortunately this increases the shipping cost (between $10-15 depending on your location from California).  If you are on the East Coast, Kai Chen K2TRW, stocks our antennas.  Kai visits the various Hamfests and Dayton during the year.   He can be contacted at [email protected] and his website is WWW.DMR-AMATEUR.COM.  His phone number is 201-660-5051.
Default connector SO-239.   N connector available for an additional $5.

VHF   (144-148 MHz)
Configuration:  1/2 wave radiating element
Maximum power: 75 watts
SWR:  less than 1.5 to 1 over a 3 MHz bandwidth and less than 1.7 :1 over 4 MHz bandwidth.
Gain:  2.1 dBi
Impedance: 50 ohms

220 MHz  (222-225 MHz)
Configuration:  1/2 wave radiating element
Maximum power: 75 watts
SWR:  less than 1.5 to 1 over a 3 MHz bandwidth
Gain:  2.1 dBi
Impedance: 50 ohms

UHF (440-450 MHz)
Configuration:   1/2 wave radiating element
Maximum power: 75 watts
SWR:  less than 1.3 to 1 over a 6 MHz bandwidth and less than 1.7 :1 over 10 MHz bandwidth.
Gain:  2.1 dBi  (6db gain over a 2 meter J pole used at 450 MHz)
Impedance: 50 ohms

If you have a radio that transmits on all three bands and you have repeaters on all 3 bands in the local area and you want to talk on those repeaters, then sure get a 3 band single antenna.

The primary consideration for VHF through UHF and above is line of sight ( LOS ) to the other antenna like a repeater. After that gain / power can make a difference if you are on the fringe of the LOS range.

But I personally would  not spend a bunch of money on a VHF through UHF antenna before I had an HF radio and antennas. That is where the fun really is.

Are those repeaters active in your area?

Can you reach them from your house with an HT or mobile?

What radio are you planning to use with this antenna?

have you thought of building your own antenna(s).

Do you have any tall trees you can hang an antenna from?

My VHF antenna is hose clamped to a universal j arm on the side of my house. These are cheap on Amazon or at home depot I have made 100 mile simplex contacts on it because I am on a hill. Kind of depends on your terrain. If you can sit in your car and hit these repeaters at home, i am sure a base antenna taller than your car will do better.

I made my antenna out of copper plumbing pipe, so cant help you on the triband antenna insight.

2m/70cm plus GMRS is NOT what the antenna companies are calling a "triband" antenna. "Triband" in the antenna that you linked is 2m, 222MHz (1.25m) and 440MHz (70cm).

I would strongly advise avoiding the J pole type antennas for any sort of installation. Their performance is poor compared to other antennas.

Not many antennas will have enough bandwidth on UHF to cover both 70cm and GMRS. It can be done with some large diameter elements and/or other broadbanding technique, or by using a real broadband antenna like a discone. I think the Arrow ground plane has like 3/8" diameter elements which would help bandwidth. Low gain, but you'd be hard pressed to come up with much gain with 30+ MHz bandwidth.

All depends on what you are trying to do of course, but a Tram/Comet/Diamond dual band fiberglass antenna will probably give you somewhat better performance on the amateur bands. Tram 1486 cut for GMRS would be a good performing option for that. A discone would be a lower-gain antenna that would get you 144-~1000MHz broadband coverage, at unity or slightly less gain.

Any of the Comet or Diamond U/VHF antennas have worked surprisingly well for me with just a 10' stick of chain link fence top rail strapped to a fence post. If you aren't in an HOA or otherwise have a restriction you can buy 2 pieces of top rail and next them together and mount them to a fence post, the side of your house or anything solid. The Ed Fong and N9TAX roll up J Poles are OK. My Comet GP-6 with feedpoint at 30' beats my N9TAX roll up J Pole with feedpoint at 40' FWIW.

Thanks for the info. I will look into that Comet.

I was studying for my General and I’m sure I can pass it. I’ve thought about getting into HF but that even more money! Lol I really like the mobile HF setups I see on YouTube.

For the price of a major brand VHF/UHF antenna, coax, connectors, etc......... you are probably at the price of a Xiegu G90 and halfway to a Yaesu 891 for an HF radio.  

You can ground mount a HF vertical antenna and not worry about getting up on your roof.

Man you guys are going to talk me into getting my General and get into HF! I could probably get started for around $1k with couldn’t I?

I be honest I’ve been talking on nets on local repeaters with my HT and a Ed Fong roll up hanging from the ceiling fan! Lol

well if you can reach the repeaters with an HT and internal antennas, spend your money on HF radio and power supply and make your own wire antennas and revisit the VHF/UHF repeater thing when you realize it isnt really as much fun as you thought it was

The cool thing about UHF & VHF is the antennas are small thus easy & cheap to build. Tons of fun designs. Max Gain Systems have some really nice telescoping fiberglass masts made for antennas.

I purchased everything NIB

IC 7300        $1000
SEC 1235M power supply  $175
AH-4 tuner  Maybe $500
43' DXE vertical $385
add $100 for wire and coax

About $2200

(Gone up since I put it together)

Used you can probably get a halfway decent HF station for about half that.

One thing about ham radio...After the initial outlay it costs about a quarter's worth of electricity a day to run it.

DX Engineering has the FT-710 field model (doesn't come with the extra speaker, but has the carry handle) for $899.00 right now.  It has an internal tuner so no need to buy one separately.

Then you just need a power supply, cable and antenna.  

For an HF station on a budget, a G90 is tough to beat. 20w will get you heard, and the antenna tuner and swr scanner are as good as any radio out there. If need be, you can use your rain gutters as an antenna if an hoa is an issue.

The Field model really looks like the bargain.

@shootindave

Can you tell me more about a ground mount HF antenna? I have a small yard with no room for guy wires.

The Hustler 6BTV can be mounted in very compromised situations and still make contacts. Mine is about 4 feet from the side of my garage due to space issues at home. There are quite a few people here with this antenna.

Just smash a metal pipe in the ground and clamp the antenna to that. Run a decent number or radials, no need to tune them, just run them wherever you can going various directions.

The DX Engineering instructions are better than the factory instructions for reference.

Something as cheap as a NanoVNA can be used to tune it if you are just starting out.

As pictured, with my homemade 12m/17m add on.

Attached File

I don’t have space to run radials. Are there vertical antennas that don’t require them?

Well, a quarter wave antenna is going to need some sort of ground plane to complete the antenna. You cant hide some wires under the grass? You in south Texas with no grass and an in ground pool taking up the whole lot?

I have a small ass yard with power lines all over the place. So I am in a bad situation for antennas.

You can attached some wires to a big alligator clamp and just clamp them and run wires around while using the antenna and then stow them away when not in use.

There are some tall dummy loads out there that claim to not need radials.
https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/cma-cha-250hd

If you want a $400 dummy load that on average your signals will be about 20 dB down from a vertical with radials.  Yeah then the Cha 250 and its imitators would be a really good choice.

I am having a hard time believing you don't have space for even some radials. They don't have to be 1/4 wave length long and they don't have to be run in straight lines.

Here is a blurb from DX engineering right in the ad for the CHA 250

The “magic” behind the CHA-250HD is the transformer matching section. The transformer on the original CHA-250B had smooth sides. This improved design features a heat sink to dissipate the heat created inside the transformer from the RF that enters the power feeding section rather than transmitted as RF. This is the compromise needed to create a broad-band, low SWR, multi-band HF antenna with minimal visual impact.

What does this tell you?  It tells me that the majority of your hard earned RF energy goes into heating up the matching transformer/dummy load inside the base section. So much so that they have improved the base section with more heat sinking to dissipate your RF energy in the form of heat energy.

What is really cool is you can improve the performance of this $400 dummy load by adding at least one radial to the coax side of the feed. AND if you can find some really lossy  coax with a very open weave to the braid, that will also improve the  performance. When you start way down in the hole, almost anything you do will offer some improvement.

I wonder how much more efficient it would be (less heat generated) if one were to use radials?

I just bought a 1500W dry dummy load from MFJ.  It also has good heat dissipating qualities.  I bet if I opened it up and connected a wire, I could get it to radiate and receive enough to make contacts, and still have fantastic broad band SWR.

My backyard is concrete parking and patio. I saw this video on YouTube.

You don't even need to open  it up. Just use a coax T on the dummy load. Add some wire and it WORKS!  I have made FT8 contacts on that setup. Don't forget that it is VERY broadbanded. No SWR problems at all. And it works. Everything works. Everything. It is all just a matter of degree.

this. on 10m (tech license) with a G90 and a basic wire antenna you could talk to other countries. and with digital modes IE a laptop hooked to the G90 you can get all over the world on 10m. and then general just unlocks a whole bunch more. I had tech for 11 years and then got a G90. within a month had my general. my current setup I have hit literally 8700 miles on digital modes with a 100w amp, and a SDR. my entire hardware setup in my shack is around 1000usd including the PC.

It will help somewhat, but the antenna length is not optimal for efficiency.

a 17' vertical telescoping whip and my G90 I hit japan from ca pretty regular. I have the chameleon Mpas lite but you can put together an almost identical setup for much less if you shop around.

this whip

this coil

this ground spike or something similar.

and a coax cable and you have a very effective portable DX antenna you can use at home or for mobile stuff like pota. for pretty cheap. as to the radials, a single 25' wire is enough to get you out there. just lay it on the ground. more wires is better but even 1 works.

You can buy a complete antenna from Wolf river coils for less than that. Your mpas works much the same as the comet antenna that is in the other thread. The 5:1 matchbox is a broadband transformer. It's what makes the tactical delta loop tune up at 40m.

Haha that's not surprising.  I remember reading stories of hams in the tube days using a lightbulb as a dummy load and hearing other hams respond to their "testing" calls.

Whoops, double.

V/U Yagi. Cheap

1/2" PVC pipe and some 10 AWG solid wire.

Get a Yagi calculator on line and "figure out" the element lengths.

THats an insulated boom, the calculators claim thats higher gain than a metal boom.

Make the driven element a "full size" dipole, no matching should be needed.

I built one for GMRS, it worked great and is easy to disassemble and put the elements in side the boom for storage or transport.

I believe the impedance will change when the elements are added. It'll be easy to check once the antenna is assembled.
73,
Rob

Someone a while back posted a build of a V/U Moxon, with the elements made from flat aluminum stock. The nuts and bolts holding it together weren't super tight, so the elements could readily just fold up against the boom. It was a slick idea for a portable directional antenna.

If you need dual band, with a little ingenuity and experimentation with the antenna analyzer you can add parasitic elements for UHF without changing the basic Moxon feed for 2m.

Something like this:
http://www.dk7zb.darc.de/Duoband/duoband_2-70_2-3.htm
But with a Moxon for 2m.

For more elements in a single band yagi with a non-conductive boom, the "cheap yagi" design is easy and works fine.

ETA: found the folding Moxon...
https://www.ar15.com/forums/Outdoors/Interesting-antenna--Collapsible-Moxon-Yagi/22-697040/

That folding dual band Moxon is slicker than snot

yeah its basically the same thing as a wolf river coil. but its not a wolf river coil. its nice.

I don't buy them to fuck them, the WRC are solid, and work very well.

Here is a 4 band vertical that has no ground radials, and it seems folks like it.

I am really curious about this one.

It's not far off the old Cushcraft "R" series. IIRC, those are/ were an end fed of some sort with no radials.
73,
Rob

There are lots of options for new and used HF rigs, but as far as antennas go I'd do something like Piccolo did with a 43' ground-mounted vertical and tuner or a 6BTV. And figure out how to get radials laid down for it. Even 4 to 8 will work.

VHF/UHF...I have a tri-band (6/2/440) Diamond for use with one of my FT-726Rs. Another has the HF, 2 and 432MHz modules installed. A pair of horizontal loops plus an Imax 2000 will let me cover all the bands it works on.

The DX Commander is a great vertical. I get 40-6 with mine, and could have added 80. Callum has a ton of videos on adding radials in limited spaces.