{"id":77,"date":"2015-02-08T18:13:58","date_gmt":"2015-02-08T18:13:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/?p=77"},"modified":"2021-01-26T20:09:54","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T20:09:54","slug":"2m-whip-dipole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/2015\/02\/08\/2m-whip-dipole\/","title":{"rendered":"2M Whip Dipole"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"February 8, 2015 – My quest to make a reliable 2 Meter dipole antenna for use on 144.200 mhz on single sideband took a few months. I purchased wire versions of a two meter dipole from Falcon Antenna on Amazon in May of 2014. The antennas are come with a center connector piece which has an SO-239. At first this antenna seemed too long, so I shorten it, but then mended the pieces back together.<\/p>\n

I purchased a second Falcon 2 meter wire dipole antenna in October 2015 with the intention of not cutting it in any way. I thought that maybe I had damaged the first Falcon 2 Meter Dipole in cutting it. So I wanted to keep this one in pristine condition to make sure I tested it and tested it well.\u00a0 I could not get this second antenna to obtain a low SWR. Using my home made Balun\/RF Choke helped but not enough to use the antenna on 2 meters. I never bother to put the antenna out of the window except as held in my hand from a PVC Mast. I could hear the regular 2 meter 144.176 morning crowd, but they could hardly make me out. My guess is that the SWR was still a little high. I was hard to key up, hold the antenna and try to view the LDG meter. I decided that I would use these antennas out in the field and not out of my window.<\/p>\n

\"TestingIn late January 2015 I did an internet search and found to my surprise that there was such a thing as 2 meter stainless steel whips!\u00a0 The price was not bad either. I purchased two 19 inch whips on ebay and got them promptly within three days! They were $9.95 each. The shipping was about $6. I quickly put the two whips to use by putting them on a double mount. I was happily surprised that the threads on the antenna and the mount were a match. Checking the swr gave me varied results.\u00a0 I used short and long sections of coax. But it was my home made Balun\/RF Choke that lowered the SWR enough to make me believe that it might be low enough for use on 2 meters.\u00a0 But when I put the antenna out of the window, the SWR would not go below 2.5 or 2.0.\u00a0 I did put it up and talked to the morning crew on 144.176. They said I sounded low. But I was one step closer to making a workable 2 meter antenna.<\/p>\n

I found another place which sold 2 meter whips, Buxcomm.com, and those whip were half the price of the previous whips.\u00a0 When they arrived at home, I measured them and found that they were half an inch longer.\u00a0 This was a good outcome. In that I had a feeling that the first set of 2 meter whips were a bit too short.\u00a0 I added these whip to the double mount along with my homemade Balun\/RF Choke and was able to attain a low SWR, on the bed! Still it took a few more modifications (moving the balun, increasing the coax) to keep the SWR low while out of the window.<\/p>\n

I was able to log into the VHF Society Net on a Sunday morning before Church and was heard by net control. I was also able to try the antenna on 2 meter and 70cm FM. And the SWR was low on most portions of those two bands. When on FM I turn the antenna to vertically polorized orientation.<\/p>\n

I did find that the antenna elements themselves are subject to moving in and out of the stud mount. Both 2 meter whip sets do this. I tighten the screws to prevent them from moving about but will need to figure out a way to keep them in place. I could glue them to the stud mount. Maybe some locktite would be better in that it can be undone.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I am happy with the latest results. Low SWR on the SSB portion of the 2 meter band and a low profile antenna which people can barely see. I don\u2019t leave the antenna up when not in use, so it\u2019s profile is only visible during the time of day when most people are either still sleeping or out to work. I plan making the antenna permanent in the future. Meaning that I plan to make it so that it\u2019s always in a 2 meter dipole configuration (assembled).<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

February 8, 2015 – My quest to make a reliable 2 Meter dipole antenna for use on 144.200 mhz on single sideband took a few months. I purchased wire versions … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equipment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80,"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions\/80"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n2lrb.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}