About a month ago, I got the idea to write a book on portable antennas. That seemed like a cool thing to do, given the popularity of portable operation these days. I even purchased a copy of the ARRL’s Portable Antenna Classics, and after reviewing that book, I felt pretty good about the project. I felt that I could do a much better job.
I’ve changed my plans, however. After purchasing and reviewing Hand-Carried QRP Antennas by Peter Parker, VK3YE, this morning, I’ve given up on the idea.
Hand-Carried QRP Antennas does a much better job of covering this topic than I could, drawing as it does on Parker’s 30 years of portable operation experience. The book includes chapters on:
- types of portable antennas,
- materials for building antennas,
- supporting portable antennas,
- feeding and matching portable antennas, and
- test equipment and accessories used with portable antennas.
What I really like about this book is the “hands on” approach that Parker takes. For example, in the test equipment chapter, he doesn’t say to go out and buy a field strength meter. He shows you how to build a simple one from a surplus meter, a diode, a capacitor, and an RF choke.
There are also plans for a variety of HF and VHF antennas, including not only the typical end-fed wires, but also delta loops and beams. Loops and beams are typically not used by pedestrian-mobile QRPers, but after reading this book, they seem much more of a possibility than before.
Hand-Carried QRP Antennas is only available as a Kindle book from Amazon. It’s a bargain, though at only $5 USD.
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