[Kenwood] Antennas

[Rick Bates]

You might want to investigate your comment a bit more.  Let's see, a random
whip that requires a tuner (more loss, more stuff in the vehicle) versus a
resonant antenna?

There is no argument that a full sized antenna will outperform any shortened
antenna (some beam designs excepted).

The efficiency of the screwdriver antenna (well, any shortened antenna)
depends on the coil design.  There are better designs out there and the
Tarheel (HiQ and Scorpion) are better than others.  You can use a short
whip, with a cap hat in part because it's the coil that makes it work and
they're darned efficient.  An efficient coil makes a better short antenna.

Or put empirically, how many whip antennas are used compared to screwdriver
designs are being used?  There must be something to that.

Any antenna system is a compromise of a series of choices (height, length,
style) and mobile antenna systems are the same.  Tarheel or similar is a
good choice.

Rick wa6nhc

-----Original Message-----
From: ny6p01 at gmail.com


Tarheel ant's and like designs are pretty inefficient designs. You give up a
lot by having that wide coverage in a compact package. It has it's uses, no
doubt, but if maximum signal is the goal, I'd go with a long whip instead.
JMHO. :)

Terry