My first ht was the IC-02AT (great radio) and a friend made me a 1/4 wave
antenna from welding rod and So-239 chassis connector.  I soon upgraded the
antenna to a J-pole made of 1/2" copper pipe..  I once made one of these
j-poles from thin wall conduit.  I slipped a wrench over the pipe and slid
it down about 57 inches and bent it 90 dg, slipped over about 3 inches and
bent it up and cut off the short end at 19 inches.  I clamped on the coax
with a couple of hose clamps and used a block of wood with holes in it (3
inches apart) to keep the J from springing out.  Great quick and dirty
emergency antenna that costs less than $10.

73 -Ken -N5SWR
-----Original Message-----
From: Blind-Hams For blind ham radio operators
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Louis Kim Kline
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2005 6:08 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Accessible VHF Radios


Hi to all.

There are a variety of ways to get on VHF.  When I was just getting going
about 25 years ago, I decided to buy the mobile radio first, but it took
some time to get a decent VHF antenna up.  So I cut a vertical dipole for 2
meters, attached a convenient length of coax and hung the affair up in the
front bedroom.  Definitely, not as good as an outside antenna, but it got
me into most of the local and regional repeaters in the area.  Also, I've
found that a quarter wave mag mount for 2 meters placed on a large metal
surface like a refrigerator (even the small ones like you use in a college
dorm work very well) can be a quick way to get on both two and 70 cm.  A
quarter wave on two meters is almost a three quarter wave on 70 cm, and it
is close enough that most HTs will swallow the VSWR on the 70 cm
side.  It's kind of like using a 40 meter dipole on 15 meters.

There is a similar relationship between 6 and 2 meters.  It depends upon
the design of the antenna, but I discovered a long time ago that the Larsen
5/8 wave two meter antennas would load as a quarter wave on 6 meter FM with
a surprisingly low VSWR, as long as you placed the antenna on a
sufficiently large metal surface to act as a ground plane on 6 meters (i.e.
at least a quarter wave of metal surface in some direction).  For a long
time my 6 meter FM antenna was nothing more than a Larsen five-eighths wave
antenna sitting on top of a large metal cabinet in an upstairs bedroom.

73, de Lou K2LKK

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