4m portable Flower Pot antenna
Occasionally I want to operate portable with my 4m handheld and thought I would construct a coaxial portable antenna. This would also be useful for any operating from temporary holiday locations.
I did quite a few searches on the internet and read various reviews of the Slim Jim vs. the Flower Pot and from a size and portablility point of view I decided on a coaxial based antenna that could be rolled up and be easier to transport than ladder line. The Flower Pot is about 1m shorter too.
I have found a few webpages with information on these and referred to them for dimensions and construction tips. You can find more information on the VK2ZOI and G6OHM pages. The image with dimensions is from Andy G6OHM's website but creditted to VK2ZOI.
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Below are some images of the final antenna construction.
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A small loop was tied in some fishing line and attached to the top of the antenna with heatshrink. This allows the antenna to be supported by a piece of string or paracord or attached to a telescopic pole as below.
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Some constructors use stranded wire of a similar gauge to the coax inner but I prefer to use the coax inner. There will be a slight weakness at the solder joint unless it is well supported around and either side with heatshrink or something similar.
Where the coax outer and shield had been removed I sealed this with a glue coated heatshrink to provide some weatherproofing.
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The choke was wound on to a scrap piece of waste pipe and once I was happy with the tuning of the antenna I covered it with heatshrink tape.
The antenna is held in place on the mast with the rubber cable tidies.
The antenna coils up neatly for transport and the the cables tidies can be used to keep in neat.
During the better weather I will do some plots on the NanoVNA and add them to this page.