Has anyone found a decent portable antenna yet that can be used for receiving HF on a handheld radio?
I know that most handhelds do not receive HF well. I do think however that the ICOM IC-R20 is an exception. There just doesn't seem to be any portable antennas available that work well.
Any recommendations? I will try posting this also in the ICOM section. Thanks in advance for your input!
One of the main problems with these handheld radios that cover HF is that they can't handle a long antenna - they tend to overload. The cheap answer is to clip 20 or 30 foot of wire onto the center conductor, but this is clumsy in a portable and prone to damage. The same might be said of a long extendable whip.
What we want in this situation is a tuned whip - something that can give us a bit of selectivity that rejects unwanted signals, There was a company called 'performance HF' that made such an animal, but their website is gone. The Miracle Duck is expensive for the purpose, frankly, but is another type of option.
Another possibility are these small amplified loops where the gain can be controlled. Not only do we get some tuning out of the circuit, but we also gain a bit of noise rejection, something that a whip cannot do. Of course, this is only good in a fixed position - one can't walk around with something like this. We have several of these linked in the Loops wiki on our website, and also there are a few reviews on the RadioIntel website (which is linked on our SWL Monitoring wiki).
Think small and tuned - that's the way to go 73 Mike
