[Elecraft] Antenna for Travels?

[Mike Morrow]

Jime wrote:


>An OT I chatted with on 2m a few weeks ago told me his solution -- a
>collapsible fly fishing pole strung with wire. He said he had traveled
>all over the world with it and found it to be quite effective,
>especially with suitable loading coils for the lower frequency bands
>and a decent ground.

Ah, there's the rub!  A decent ground for an HF vertical, portable or
otherwise, is difficult to obtain.  Plus, the losses in any loading coil
system can be very significant.

That's why I like the dipole.  No ground needed.  And losses are low too, if
you avoid traps as I do by using manually positioned jumpers around
insulators to change bands.  For low transmitter power, these are qualities
that one needs.

I insist on a resonant dipole fed with coax, not twin-lead.  The performance
of a random length dipole fed by twin lead requires some type of balanced
antenna tuning, yet most commercial tuners use the old ferrite core balun,
which is a kludgy approach.  Also, the routing of the twin lead has a big
effect on the system that you won't experience with coax.

Dipoles...gotta love em!  They're a happy combination of high performance,
simplicity, small stowed size, and extreme low cost.

73,
Mike / KK5F