Talking about antenna’s is always risky. This is one aspect of the Ham radio community where passions run high. Ham’s have strong opinions about antenna’s; most are biased towards antenna’s that meet their specific needs.
My POTA antenna needs are simple. I want an antenna that is easy to deploy, does not require a tuner, and does not cost a lot. It also must be a good performer.
Without a doubt, my favorite POTA antenna is the TennTennas made by NE4TN (Walt). The TennTenna is an EF 1/2 wave with a 49:1 transformer using a quality FT-240-43 toroid. You can find them on eBay. Walt hand makes each antenna, and they are of superb quality.
I prefer 20M when doing POTA activations, so I grabbed @33′ length of 14 gauge yellow antenna wire (DXEngineering) from my parts box, and cut it to resonance using an antenna analyzer.
I get the wire in the air using a TN07 fiberglass mast supported by my custom flag-pole trailer hitch mount. I mount the TennTenna to the base of the pole using a velcro strap, run coax to my radio, and I am on the air.
To give you an idea of what the TennTenna can do, check out the below map of contacts I made during a recent POTA activation (US-3559).
I made 101 contacts, including two in Alaska, and two in Canada. You must admit, this is very impressive!
Walt charges $45 for his antenna + shipping. This is the best 50 bucks I ever spent. Thank you Walt!
73,
N1SPW
Working to set up VARA/Digirig with a Baofeng GT5TP radio – downloaded and set up VARA and Windows 11 from your “How To” guide (used both) – any suggestions on setting up the GT5TP radio it transmits the squelch tone (0) but not a tone to connect to a VARA gateway – any suggestions are appreciated.
Don
Island County ACS Leadership
Stanwood/Camano EC
Hi Don,
The Baofeng radios can be a challenge. I have a BF-F8HP that I did get up an running with VARA and a Digirig. There are a couple of things that are really important.
Be sure the “Dual Watch” settings are turned off.
Be sure the “Squelch tail elimination” settings are turned off.
Also, I found that I had to turn the volume of the Baofeng radio all the up to get it to work correctly. VARA will tell you that you are way overmodulating, but that was the only way I could get it to work.
I wrote up a detailed “How-To” on how to configure a Baofeng BF-F8HP to work with VARA, that I never published. I sent it to your Email address as a PDF attachment. Please look for it in your spam folder if you do not see it in your Inbox.
Let me know if you continue to have trouble. I will help in any way I can.
73,
N1SPW