Alex,
If you've got a hitch on the vehicle, my "mast" made out of a
discarded hitch bike rack, some typical tower clamps for antenna
masts, and a strong 12' pipe... with a square loop at 6' and another
at 12' and phasing them together with a mini-circuits splitter and
equal length coax (measured electrically... EXACTLY the same length
beyond the power divider) worked wonders. Well over 400 Q's during a
band opening from my mobile location (driving on I-80) through Wyoming
and into Western Nebraska while roving in the 2006 June VHF, and
hundreds more since then...
Attempted to model it, and the pattern looked like a total mess. I
have no idea how it's actually working.
But the phasing appears (at least in my particular vehicle's setup, on
the back of a regular Jeep Cherokee) to have done the trick for what I
would call "medium angle" departure... both coasts and all the
midwest, but nothing "close in" is easy with that setup, when the band
opens, judging by the grid patterns from Roverlog.
The 6' is just foot or maybe two above the vehicle roofline, and
12'... that's the top antenna in the "stack" and totally in the clear
with yagis for higher bands stacked in-between the 6m loops.
Since I'm in Colorado... making it to the "target-rich" environments
of the coasts when band-opening occur, is top-priority from here...
and the stacked square loops work well. But, if you're really in 1-
land, you'd be trying for something closer in to you I suppose... and
the square loop MIGHT not be the appropriate antenna for a rove
there...?
--
Nate Duehr, WY0X
nate@natetech.com
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