The ARRL’s Portable Antenna Classics is a typical ARRL antenna book. That is to say, it’s a collection of QST articles, the oldest dating back to the September 1980 (“The Shooter – A 3-Band Portable Antenna” by E.W. “Twisty” Ljonquist, W4WDK/W1CQS). Fortunately, antenna physics hasn’t changed in the last 35 years, so this article is as relevant today as it was in 1980.
Overall, this book reprints 25 HF antenna articles, six VHF and UHF antenna articles, and seven articles on masts and supports. A lot of these articles I remember reading when they were first published, such as “The NJQRP Squirt” by Joe Everhart, N2CX. I was interested in this antenna because it’s only 68-ft. long, but can be tuned on 80m. I never did get around to building this antenna, and now have a homebrew version of the 80m “Cobra” antenna hanging in my backyard.
Another example is “The Miracle Whip: A Multiband QRP Antenna” by Robert Victor, VA2ERY (July 2001). This antenna was actually commercially available for a while, and the URL for the company’s website—www.miracleantenna.com—appears in the article. Unfortunately, the company seems to be out of business. Going to that URL brings up a site that reviews sewing machines.
Some of the antennas are what you might call “novelty” antennas. These include the articles “Build an HF Walking Stick Antenna” by Robert Capon, WA3ULH (December 1994) and “A Paint Pole Antenna” by Anthony J. Salvate, N1TKS (August 1995). While you might get these antennas to work, I’m not sure how useful they’d be for serious portable operations.
In general, though, the articles in the book are pretty good, and even if you don’t make the antennas exactly as described, they will certainly give you some ideas for your own design. For example, “A Simple HF-Portable Antenna” by Phil Salas, AD5X shows how to build a simple, lightweight dipole that can be configured for use on multiple bands. Another article that I liked was “A Portable 2-Element Triband Yagi” by Markus Hansen, VE7CA (November 2001).
Another idea that this book gave me was to publish my own book on portable antennas. One of the shortcomings of this book, imho, is that it doesn’t mention any commercial products at all. Nor does it discuss antennas that can be used with the internal antenna tuners now commonly found in QRP rigs. So, look for KB6NU Goes Portable or KB6NU on Portable Antennas sometime in the future.