[Kenwood] Antennas

[ny6p01 at gmail.com]

On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 07:27:01PM -0700, Rick Bates wrote:
> 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

I was think along the lines of a monoband hamstick style antenna. For one
thing, you can put the thing on the roof, which makes a wicked ground plane.

Sure, you can't tune a hamstick for other bands, but for the price it's hard
to beat. Your other points are well taken, however.

Terry