Hi, all.

I hope I am not wearing out my welcome back to the list, but I have a 
challenging antenna situation I'm currently facing in the new faculty office 
I will be occupying starting this Spring semester.

I currently have an old Kenwood TMV7A in the office, with which I have 
always had at least some luck, in terms of getting into our local 2-meter 
repeater. The repeater is about 15 miles from the University.

However, in my new office, I am finding that the small mag-mount antenna I 
have always  used simply does not allow me to reach the repeater 
consistently.  Currently, I have the magmount sitting on a small metal 
bracket on the window sill in the office.  It is right next to the window, 
so I would think that should help.  However, I do not have much of a ground 
plain for the magmount.  I also think there is some de-sensing going on with 
the steel of the office building, and with other surrounding computer 
equipment in the office complex.

I do have a filing cabinet on the other side of the office that I could use 
as a ground plane, but the top of the filing cabinet is too high, and there 
is not enough space between it and the office ceiling  to accommodate the 
magmount antenna.

This obviously is a very challenging situation, and I also have to be at 
least somewhat concerned with appearance, in terms of not having an 
ugly-looking antenna that might draw more attention to what I am trying to 
do than I might want.

Do any of you have any suggestions as to how to help the mag-mount perform 
better in this situation?

Or, might I be better off considering another type of antenna, such as a 
J-pole of some sort.

I would appreciate any thoughts.

Tom Behler: KB8TYJ