Hi to all.

I agree with Anthony on all except the last point.  I think some of the
best HT antennas I have ever had have been aftermarket antennas.  I am
especially fond of the extended duckie antennas that approximate a quarter
wave on 2 meters and a 5/8 wave on 70 cm.  These seem to outperform the
stock duckies that come with the radio, yet are still short enough that
they don't cream the connectors on my radios.   As for a half wave on 2
meters, why not just stick a crowbar in the top of your radio?  It will be
just about as good for the connector.  I did, however, find one good use
for the AEA Hot Rod, and I am actually still using it.  I bought from AES a
magnetic mount that was made by RF Products that had a few feet of RG58
terminated with a male BNC connector, with a female BNC connector on top of
the magnetic mount.  I found that sticking the magnetic mount in the middle
of an old pizza pan and sticking it up in my attic made a quick and dirty
emergency antenna that delivered excellent performance.  You wouldn't want
to run one of the 45 watt radios into it as it would burn out the loading
network, but a 25 watt radio works fine on it.  I discovered this during a
severe thunderstorm when I wanted to get word back to the SKYWARN net in
our area, but didn't want to risk using an outside antenna.  It took me
about two minutes to slap it together, and I was into the repeater which
was about 40 miles away with just an Icom IC2AT!  For those who don't know,
that's a 1.5 watt HT.

73, de Lou K2LKK



Louis Kim Kline
A.R.S. K2LKK
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Work Telephone:  (585) 697-5753