Have you heard of a flowerpot antenna? I hadn’t until recently, and I enjoy gardening also. But this antenna has nothing to do with gardening apart from why it was named flowerpot and it will probably end up either on your roof or garden.
A good friend of mine put me onto it as I was having trouble on 6m. A small group of us think 6m is under-utilised so we all get on their and chat for a while either on AM or SSB.
My antenna worked reasonably well, but they suggested I build my own using the flowerpot method. Given I’m always up for learning something new, I couldn’t resist.
The best but about the antenna is it is extremely cheap to make, easy to put together and the antenna works really well.
Flowerpot Antenna by VK2ZOI https://vk2zoi.com/articles/half-wave-flower-pot/ is a great site and has all the measurements.
You can make a flowerpot antenna for either 6m, 2m or 70cm. You can hang it in a tree if you wish, in a pvc pipe like I did, or using a pole or something else.
There were only two parts I needed, everything else I already had. But if I had bought everything, it would have cost me I total about $15. Not bad for a great antenna and one you can say you built yourself.
All I needed to buy was the pvc pole, which is optional and a slightly wider pipe to make the coil on I already had the RG58 coax, and it even had a pl259 plug on it!
Items I purchased included:
PVC Pipe. Make sure you give it a shake in the store before buying. If it is too flexible then it may bend and snap in the wind. But you don’t want it to heavy either.
Coupling Plumber Part to make my 50mm coil on:
https://www.bunnings.com.au/holman-50mm-pvc-dwv-straight-coupling_p4756318
If you want more information on how to make it and how I put it together, have a look at my video.
Hope you enjoyed the read. If you have any questions please let me know.
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VK3TBS 