Rubber Duck On A Mast

[GUNSABLAZIN]

Has anyone ever put a rubber duck antenna on a mast? How well did it work?

 

[jonwienke]

There are much better options. A duck on a mast is better than one inside, but anything else will beat it.

 

[devicelab]

There are much better options. A duck on a mast is better than one inside, but anything else will beat it.

Not really. The coax loss alone will negate most of the benefits of the outside rubber duck. Most rubber ducks have a terrible match.

You need a tuned antenna with a specific gain factor to help offset the coax loss.

 

[majoco]

Well, yes actually, but only in an emergency. We carried aircraft band handhelds but they don't work well in the office of the hanger so there was a base set in there with a quarter wave ground plane out on a pole about 6 feet over the roof. The base set went deaf and a quick look outside showed that the whip had broken at the BNC connector. Replace the whip with a ducky off a handheld and it worked well enough, still received aircraft out to 25miles or so. Put it in the 'jobs to be done' book to be replaced. It was still there 6 years later when I left!

 

[GUNSABLAZIN]

Okay. Sounds Do-able for receiving on a scanner. I just cant see buying discone or other antenna right now. Any other ideas anyone? Maybe an easy build non directional?

 

[byndhlptom]

outside antenna

As has been discussed many times before....

A 1/4 wave ground plane is both easy and cheap. make it on a chassis connector and it's super simple....

did I mention cheap and simple?????

$.02

 

[ka3jjz]

Even a ground plane on a pole will beat out a lossy duckie any day. Or perhaps our famous off center fed dipole, which we have plans for in our wiki, would be up your alley...

Homebrewed Off-Center Fed Dipole - The RadioReference Wiki

Unless the mast is connected to the duckie somehow, there's no ground plane for it to work against, rendering a duckie about as good as a wet noodle (and that's one of the reasons that duckies that come with scanners are rather poor compromise antennas - virtually no ground plane, or one that's big enough to serve)

Mike

 

[GUNSABLAZIN]

Cool. There we go.

 

[majoco]

Here's all you need.....send a couple of shirts to the dry cleaners to get the wire coathangers and you're away....you can solder the wire onto the socket although sometimes it easier to nut'n'bolt them.