[VHFcontesting] Looking for a good VHF/UHF rover antenna

[Nate Duehr]

Dave Larsen (WS2L) wrote:
> I am looking for a fairly small antenna as at least one of the locations I will be operating from is 1,800 feet ASL. 

Dave,

Last year in June I ran a huge stack on the Jeep, antennas for 
everything from 6m (two loops at 6' and 12') through 1.2 GHz.

This year, I kept the 6m loops and switched to the Tennadyne 88 MHz - 
1.2 GHz "rover" log periodic.

I was NOT impressed with this "new" setup.  I will be going back to the 
multiple antenna setup.

Two main reasons:

1. Any LPDA is a "trade-off" antenna, gain-wise.  I found the LPDA to 
have "mediocre" performance compared to band-specific yagi's.

2. The complete mess a single feedline makes for band-switching,  I 
bought coax switches and incorporated them into the Rover setup, and it 
made working a band run a complete PITA.  In the rover, I also struggle 
with "RF in the shack" and the LPDA with band-switches seemed to make 
this worse on 2m with 160W on SSB.

The 6m loops work fine, when the band is open.  No problems there, but 
it would be nice to have some directional gain.  That may be the next 
"big experiment" with the WY0X/R Jeep.  A 6m Yagi on the stack.  That's 
a lot of wind-load though.

You can read about my experiences this year with the LPDA at:
http://www.natetech.com/?p=235

Photo of this year's setup:
http://www.natetech.com/?p=234

Photo of last year's setup:
http://rmham.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=1140
(Last year's stack temporarily mounted on W0KVA's vehicle during the 
build process.)

http://rmham.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=35&g2_GALLERYSID=70e710d05d7e8d0792aa5e9a152b9466
The other photos of last year's WY0X/R vehicle, some good, some fuzzy... 
all fun.

73,

Nate WY0X