[VHFcontesting] The Humble Dipole

[Steve Kavanagh]

With all this discussion of the pros and cons of
horizontal loop antennas (halos) it seems approriate
to mention that a simple dipole also works on VHF ! 
And a wire dipole can be made in a few minutes for
pennies, is easy to adjust for good SWR, has a wider
bandwidth than a halo and has more gain than the loop
in some directions.  For a beginning weak signal
operator it probably can't be beaten in terms of a low
risk investment.

I've used various fixed wire and rotatable
wood-and-wire 6m dipoles to work (though not confirm)
VUCC from an apartment (including a number of
Europeans), work a number of Japanese stations from
V63BD (an indoor dipole was used there) and provide
the 6m capability for a various contest rover
operations, including a couple of top-10 scores.  All
with 2-10 watts.

A borrowed 223.5 MHz FM rig and a wire dipole taped to
a window got me my first contest points on that band.

I've also used more rigid dipoles for in-motion or
short stop rover contest operation on 222 and 432.

73,
Steve VE3SMA

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