Greetings,
Believe I have looked at most of the documentation regarding this topic, 2M 146.565 MHz telescoping antenna height. Would appreciate any insight or link to the appropriate antenna height dimension from the members.
I am using the spreadsheet to calculate the antenna spacing so I am close to having the optimum antenna spacing resolved for 146.565 MHz.
Thanks
146 MHz is best with full extension. But if that’s too high for driving, you can still extend to over 300mm and it should be OK.
Thanks Carl!
I was thinking that would be the case, but wanted an expert opinion. In the future I might need a stronger antenna solution to cope with driving related wind forces. For now I will use the telescoping antenna full extended.
I have been playing with this for our 2M foxhunts and found that the stock whips just can not give you a good enough signal capture. I switched them out for some mini-mag mount dual banders ($9 Amazon specials) as a concept to try and was impressed how much better my Kraken worked. I am now working on a new antenna array using NMO mounts and 1/4 wavelength antennas for each.
Thanks for your response. Glad to hear of your Kraken use with 2M foxhunts and experience with the alternative antennas.
Did your experimentation with different mag mount antennas result in any adjustments to the antenna positioning?
I like your mag mount NMO 2M ant array idea. I ordered 5 of them from Amazon. I am a little concerned with RG58 coax length and exactness of each. I will check each of their lengths closely and modify as needed to make them as exact as possible.
Back in the day I was tinkering with the The Roanoke Doppler Plus kit put together by Marty Mitchell N6ZAV based on a project in TRANSMITTER HUNTING - Radio Direction Finding Simplified book by Moell and Curlee.
The details are here: N6QAB 1st Doppler.
I am excited to get the Kraken tuned up and optimized on 2M. Please feel free to DM with any updates you care to share. I’ll do the same.
73
I too have used the Doppler kits “Ramsey Electronics” and a true DopSys that we have at work. I also have two Kerberos that I had linited success with (mainly the dummy load needed for each frequency change). The Kraken is much easier on that.
I found my antenna coax to be spot on perfect equal in length on the ones I tested. I did not change the dimensions.
Waiting for weather to cool so I can be outside, also need to order more NMO kits (considering also just usint SMA bulkheads) cost is not trivial when you need five for each band.
