How good is your rubber duck antenna?

Have you ever wondered about the rubber duck antenna that came with your very expensive handheld???

Me neither, that is until today, it is lashing rain outside,windy and generally miserable, you know the type of day that you do not want to go out but you still need something to occupy your mind!!!

Well I decided to have a look at some of my rubber duck antennas to see which gives the best SWR and hopefully the best performance on my hand held's.

Now as not to pick on only the cheap antennas that I bought from a shop in Hong Kong I have also tested an Icom and Kenwood dual band rubber duck antennas that came with their radios.

Have a look at the photo attached, enlarge it and see the results under each antenna, the test was done on 5w on 2m and 70cms, the 2m frequency was 145.400 and the 70cms frequency was 433.400.

Shocked??? I was.......

Click on photo to enlarge.

AKD 4001 - 70 Mhz (4m) FM Transceiver.

Ascom SE550 on 4m 70mhz PA4DEN.

Anytone at-5189 4m, 70mhz ham radio transceiver Review.

MB7FM 4 meter 70mhz simplex repeater demostration.

This works the same as the Cork Parrot repeater or "Simplexer" on 70.350Mhz, also EI4FMG can also be put on this mode, this is very handy for 2 stations who are out of simplex range of each other,they can then work each other on the same frequency.
This is always handy if you are doing tests on your radio equipment and want to know how your audio is, etc...
If you would like the DTMF code to activate the Parrot on EI4FMG please email me.