2 m 440 (70cm) 1/4 wave antenna

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mmckenna

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Has anyone used a 2m 1/4 wave antenna to transmit on 440m. ? Would it make it a 3/4 wave?.

Yes and yes.

A quarter wave antenna tuned for the 2 meter amateur band is 3/4 wave on 70 centimeter band. I ran this on a dual band Kenwood for years.
Putting an SWR meter on it, it was low on 2 meters, like around 1.3:1. Switching over to the repeater area of 70cm, it was even lower, 1.1:1.

Drawback to this is that the radiation pattern of a 3/4 wave antenna isn't favorable, as the radiation lobes tend to go a bit high.
Was never an issue for me as I live/work with mountains on 3 sides and the ocean on the 4th. Repeaters are all on the mountains around me, so a high radiation pattern worked well for me. In reality, I primarily used VHF, so not an issue.

If you live out in the flat lands, running this set up if you use UHF a lot might not be the ideal choice, but it can be done.
 

Project25_MASTR

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Jun 16, 2013
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Yes and yes.

A quarter wave antenna tuned for the 2 meter amateur band is 3/4 wave on 70 centimeter band. I ran this on a dual band Kenwood for years.
Putting an SWR meter on it, it was low on 2 meters, like around 1.3:1. Switching over to the repeater area of 70cm, it was even lower, 1.1:1.

Drawback to this is that the radiation pattern of a 3/4 wave antenna isn't favorable, as the radiation lobes tend to go a bit high.
Was never an issue for me as I live/work with mountains on 3 sides and the ocean on the 4th. Repeaters are all on the mountains around me, so a high radiation pattern worked well for me. In reality, I primarily used VHF, so not an issue.

If you live out in the flat lands, running this set up if you use UHF a lot might not be the ideal choice, but it can be done.

To add to this, I did the same but at the time I was living in a location where the highest point was 7 ft above average terrain. So I can confirm the statement of reduced range on UHF when using a 19" antenna. I saw about a 65% loss in uplink coverage and little to no difference in downlink coverage. My conclusion was the radiation pattern was a bit high as well.
 

paulears

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Lowestoft - UK
I have 2m 1/4wave on my van which works excellently - there is a 1/4wave I can use for 70cm, but the 2m one performs better, with less flutter. I also have a VHF marine that works fine on UHF business band - so I am a very happy 1/3wave-3/4wave user.
 
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