I made another antenna; a 70cm Quad antenna, and it works like a charm!

The “bad” thing about quads is that they are full wavelength antenna’s, which in HF normally means; LONG ANTENNAS! The “good” thing in this case is that a full wavelength in the 70cm band means; a 70cm (27.6 inches) long antenna! 🙂 In a quad this means that every side is 17.5cm (6.9 inches) long, almost nothing!

I got some PVC pipe in a home repair shop. This set me back about 50 euro cents per 2 meter (which means about 0.65 USD for 6.6 feet). I needed 50 cm of pipe in this antenna (2 times 25 cm). Next to this I used 70cm of speaker wire I had laying around and a few tie raps to strap it all together.

I checked the SWR with the build in SWR meter of my FT-817. It was all 1:1.1 so perfect! Outside of the 70cm band the SWR got quickly bad but all over the 70cm band it was perfect!

After checking the SWR I tried it with my dual band handheld 5 watt, 2m/70cm Wouxun KG-UV2D and I right away was able to use the Rotterdam repeater from my home (near Utrecht). In general with a “rubber duck” antenna this would be difficult. With the new Quad it was easy! So in the end I got a great little antenna for almost no money, and also did some nice DIY! 🙂

The thing to think about though is that the Quad is directional, so try it out a bit and make it “point” towards the repeater you want and keep it there. Also remember to keep the feed point to the left or right side, not top or bottom, if you want to use for the repeaters.

My next project will be either a 2 meter band version of this or a 3 element beam of this 70cm band Quad antenna. I need to think what I “need” more at the moment.

By the way, the 2 meter 3 element Quad homebrew version is described here very nicely.

Some pictures of my new antenna:

Quad 70cm

Quad 70cm Feed Point