FM Mobile Antenna Tips for the VA QSO Party
The Virginia QSO Party offers hams of all capabilities and license levels the opportunity to participate big. The usual HF opportunities avail themselves to Generals to Extras. However, the high three-point-per-QSO nature of mobile QSOs make FM voice operation with 2M and 440 mobile radios effective.
So you have your Technician ticket and wish to operate mobile using FM voice… great. You may well already have a fine antenna for your car that you can use. If you are considering improvements to your mobile antenna, you should consider the following tips:
- Try to position your antenna in the middle of your roof; Surrounding your antenna with as much metal conducting surface will provide a maximal ground plane.
- Consider a type of mount that has the Mobile NMO adapter. You can switch antennas very easily with just a few twists.
- Instead of one multi-band antenna, consider an assortment of single band antennas. Yes this is more work to change bands, but the goal here is antenna performance rather than multi-band convenience. There are exceptions, but generally multi-band antennas compromise performance to achieve functionality on more than one band.
- Unless you really want to poke a hole in the roof of your car and install the Mobile NMO mount there, you will best be served with a good magnetic Mobile NMO base.
- Visit http://www.cosjwt.com/index.php?a=3 for details on why magnetic mount antennas are perfectly fine and, in fact, better than alternative installation approaches.
As a Virginia QSO Party mobile you are worth 3 points per QSO to the other operator. Folks will want to contact you. Remember even a simple HT can be effective, but you should use an external antenna and get as high as possible to play the mobile game.
Key VHF and UHF Mobile locations include:
- Skyline Drive
- On top of parking garages
- Hill tops – water towers are frequently located on higher ground
- Old landfills turned into parks
You can still make contacts while you are traveling from point to point, but please insist on a second person to log your contacts while you drive.
Remember, the Virginia QSO Party is unique since not only counties count as multipliers, but independent cities too. No, towns don’t count. Still the cities offer many more opportunities to operate from. Remember you can work the same operator multiple times if you and/or them are in a new county or city. Some cities are amazingly small including the City of Manassas Park which is right next to the City of Manassas; Weird eh?
Get a good antenna, a good map and a companion to help log and get out there.
Have fun and be careful.
