Hi All
I ran some tests on tiger tails. I noticed in the video that he did not test a tiger tail with a rubber duck antenna. All the antennas he tested were quarter wave.
I decided to run some tests of my own. I have yet to do any field tests. I don't have an instrument to check field strength as he did in the video.
I ran the tests using my NanoVNA.
First, I checked the SWR on 2 quarter wave whips and three rubber ducks. They were all under 2:1 SWR across the 2 meter band.
Second, I used one of the whips to tune a tiger tail made of #24 AWG magnet wire. It was necessary to use that small wire so the antenna could be screwed down all the way onto the radios, Baofeng UV-5R and Anytone AT-878UV. They both have recessed antenna connections. I was able to trim the tiger tail back to the same SWR that the whip showed without the tiger tail.
Third, I proceeded to check the second whip. It's SWR with and without the tiger tail was also nearly the same. It did show a slight shift upward in frequency with the tiger tail. However, the SWR was still well under 2:1 across the band.
Fourth, I tested the rubber ducks with the same tiger tail. In every case the SWR was effected so that most of the 2 meter band was higher than 2:1 SWR. One was higher than 2:1 across the entire band.
Fifth, I tried to build another tiger tail that would work with the rubber ducks. Every attempt resulted in no better SWR than the original tiger tail that I tuned with the quarter whip.
My conclusion is that tiger tails have the potential to improve a HT's performance with a quarter wave whip. As far a with a rubber duck it does not look too promising.
Come spring and better weather, I plan to run some field tests with another ham. I've yet to determine what that test will look like. But as a minimum there will be a receiver with a S-meter for making the measurements.
73,
Dave, K7PDW
Keep On Ham'n
PS: I had intended to post this much earlier but life intervened. The field test have yet to be performed either.
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