KK4DAN
Member
So, I'm almost a month into having my ham license. Up to this point, I had been running my home vhf/uhf units off a mobile mag mount antenna either upside down on an air vent in the living room, or up in the attic on the side of an old computer case. Not exactly the best setup, but they would get me to plenty of local repeaters full quieting, so it was good for up to now. I actually figured out that when I had the antenna in the attic, if it was touching the HVAC ducts, it greatly increased the range. 
Anyways, I've been interested in something a bit more permanent, so a buddy gave me the plans to build a collinear antenna with two half waves for VHF out of wire and put it inside PVC. He had built several and pretty much had the measurements down to an exact science.
I had a few self inflicted issues and setbacks along the way, but I got through. It was also my first time ever soldering a PL-259 connector, so that was definitely a lesson in patience, but in the end it all worked out. I took it over to a buddies house and put it on his analyzer. It couldn't have come out any better. I'm just under 1.2 SWR at 146mhz and below 1.4 SWR for the entire 2m range. Even UHF on the 440 freq's came in under 1.5 SWR. I'm stoked and very happy with my result.
This is my temporary setup for now, but its mounted to a 20ft pole in my yard, so probably gets up about ~25-28ft. I don't expect this to take much wind, but I can easily drop the pole, so its no biggie. My buddy told me though that I should probably use another piece of PVC below my connector to connect it to the pole as I'm most likely changing the SWR a bit with my clamp around the antenna part. I have plenty of left over PVC, so that isn't an issue and I'll be changing that.
As for performance, there are a couple repeaters over 60-75 miles away now that I can hit full quieting, so I'm very happy with that. Plenty more repeaters that were scratchy that I can hear/talk to much better now too. This entire antenna could probably be built for under $10 depending on what you have laying around. I plan on painting it flat back to disguise it a bit too.
Anyways, I've been interested in something a bit more permanent, so a buddy gave me the plans to build a collinear antenna with two half waves for VHF out of wire and put it inside PVC. He had built several and pretty much had the measurements down to an exact science.
I had a few self inflicted issues and setbacks along the way, but I got through. It was also my first time ever soldering a PL-259 connector, so that was definitely a lesson in patience, but in the end it all worked out. I took it over to a buddies house and put it on his analyzer. It couldn't have come out any better. I'm just under 1.2 SWR at 146mhz and below 1.4 SWR for the entire 2m range. Even UHF on the 440 freq's came in under 1.5 SWR. I'm stoked and very happy with my result.
This is my temporary setup for now, but its mounted to a 20ft pole in my yard, so probably gets up about ~25-28ft. I don't expect this to take much wind, but I can easily drop the pole, so its no biggie. My buddy told me though that I should probably use another piece of PVC below my connector to connect it to the pole as I'm most likely changing the SWR a bit with my clamp around the antenna part. I have plenty of left over PVC, so that isn't an issue and I'll be changing that.
As for performance, there are a couple repeaters over 60-75 miles away now that I can hit full quieting, so I'm very happy with that. Plenty more repeaters that were scratchy that I can hear/talk to much better now too. This entire antenna could probably be built for under $10 depending on what you have laying around. I plan on painting it flat back to disguise it a bit too.
