Ham Radio Vertical Antenna

People who are new to two-way radio as a hobby will often spend hundreds, or even thousands of dollars on their equipment, while they forget to spend any money on the most important part of their radio communications system...their two-way radio antenna.

You can hook up a cheap, secondhand two-way radio transceiver to a good antenna, and your results are going to be very good. On the other hand you can spend $5000 on a top of the range amateur radio transceiver that is hooked to a poorly performing antenna, and your results are going to be pathetic.

So, having a decent two-way radio antenna means your signal is going to get out there where people can hear you. And it also means your antenna is going to pick up the signals you want to hear much better.

Finding the right ham radio vertical antenna for your purposes depends on the radio service you are using and licensed for, the radio band(s) you are operating on and the frequencies or channels in those bands.

Very broadly speaking, most two-way radios are designed to work in either the UHF, VHF or HF radio bands. I say broadly speaking, because there are many sub-bands within the UHF, VHF and HF radio spectrum.

The old 27 MHz CB radio band has allocated 40 channels or frequencies in the HF radio band between 26 and 28 MHz. The full HF radio and stretches from 3 MHz up to 29.9 MHz, so you can see that CB or citizens band is just a very small part of it.

A standard 27 MHz CB radio quarter-wave vertical antenna is just under 9 feet high, and will have three or four radial elements of the same length which are fitted to stick out horizontally, just below the vertical antenna element. This design is called a quarter-wave ground plane antenna. The 3 or 4 horizontal elements or wires provide a kind of 'mirror image' of the top part of the antenna. And the radio operates as if it has an antenna made of two 9-foot rods or wires fed at the center... Rather like an 18-foot center-fed half-wave antenna.

If you're interested in seeing how to make a quarter-wave vertical antenna for CB use (or on some HF ham bands), you can get full instructions here for a fishing-pole CB antenna.

You can also use a half-wave vertical antenna that is designed to be fed at the bottom. It will be 18 feet high as well, and have a matching unit (like an antenna tuner) at its base. A proper half-wave antenna puts out a slightly better signal than a 1/4 wave antenna does. The signal is more focused towards the horizon. Also, a half-wave antenna does not need to have any radials or any counterpoise, because the 'mirror image' the missing 'other half' of the antenna is already there.

Then there is the 5/8th wave vertical antenna, which has radials below and which also needs a small matching circuit to give your radio the 50 Ohms connection that it needs. The five-eigth wave antenna transmits most of its signal low to the horizon, which can be an advantage in getting your signal out a litle bit further.

Licensed Amateur Radio Operators (the real 'Hams') have frequencies they can use in the UHF, VHF and HF bands. Exactly which ones they use depends on their knowledge and the skill reflected in their type of license.

Some licensed Hams may choose to chat with their friends across town on the 146 MHz 2m ham band, or on 70 cm UHF. Other Amateurs like to use 6m VHF to talk long distance (DX) when the band is 'open' for DX work. (Most times, the Six Meter band (50-54 MHz) is closed, and the signals will only work locally, or through repeater stations.)

Licensed Amateur Radio operators also have hundreds of thousands of frequencies in the HF bands allocated to the Amateur Radio service. These include 160m, 80m, 60m, 40m, 30m, 17m, 15m, 12m and 10m. The lower the frequency, the bigger the wavelength (the number of Meters of the radio band). Most hams use wire antennas for these frequencies because the wavelength is so long, and string them out horizontally.

The standard wire antenna, the easiest to make is a half-wave antenna, fed at its center. Thus a center-fed halfwave antenna for 40 meter operation is about 20 meters from end to end; so it would be around 66 feet long. But that's another article!