Transmission1

I'm going to conduct some experiments with a handheld and a base station rig.

Base station rig will be running 5 watts *to make it a fair test" with a simple vertical dipole outside.

Handheld will be operated outside same height as the dipole with a standard whip antenna on the handheld at 5 watts.

I'm conducting this experiment to get an idea of how well simple dipoles perform.

Tests will be done on 2 Meters FM.

Will the dipole perform better or will it be just a little bit better than the handheld with the whip antenna I wonder?

There is sod all on 2 meters at the moment so I will put out a few more calls out in the mean time to see if a station is up for giving me some range tests. I expect everybody is on HF at the moment so I may be waiting for a while.

What do you think, Dipole or standard whip antenna?

Here is the dipole made from scrap antenna parts and the handheld with the whip antenna. Tests will be done outside. The dipole was only indoors for a test to make sure its working.

How did these tests go?

I haven't managed to do a proper test yet but I did get 7+ miles on the handheld at home on the standard whip antenna with a good signal and about 40 miles on the dipole but couldn't be heard on the handheld from 40 miles away but that could still be down to many factors, I still need to do more tests on this.

2 meters is very interesting. You can pretty much get out on anything with 2 meters, its a very forgiving band.

Its quite funny actually because there was a station less than 3 miles from me and he couldn't hear me at all on either antenna but a station 40 miles away got me loud and clear. Some stations had to ask other stations if they could hear me. I do have a lot in the way of my signal path such as hills trees and buildings.