I thought I would share an antenna design that has been up a tree outside for about 9 years now. It is a vertical antenna for band 2. The original antenna the design was copied from was for an RSL in the Glasgow area. One could also be seen in the Tradeston area of Glasgow for the QRP ethnic station that used around 107.4.

The antenna can be copied using old silver rods, especially the kind with the ground planes. Only a few mods are required.

1 - First of all unscrew the base where the PL259 socket is. Remove the 11m loading coil and solder a wire direct from the PL259 plug to the tag the other end of the coil went to.

2 - Cut a strip of metal for the matching strip, at 9.75 inches, or 24.5cm

The rest is virtually a copy of the silver rod design. The centre part, the live part, is insulated from the ground planes.

Incase you don't have any old silver rods lying around, the base part is 10.5 inches by 3 inches, (or for French readers, 26.5-27cm x 7.5cm)

From the ground planes to the tip is 64.5 / 65 inches, or 164-165cm. The original antenna was bought for around 106 FM at the time.

Tuning is easy with the second section of the antenna slipping in and out the bottom part, if you slacken the jubilee clip. The measurememnts are for the top end of the band around 106.

The antenna could obviously be made out of any old crap lying around, eg old tent poles, old beds, anything. Some high res close ups are below to assist.

I have absolutely no idea who the manufacturer was of the original antenna, but it certainly is a good general receiving antenna.