FRS radio antenna hack

[David B. Thomas]

Last night I was trying to communicate with a neighbor (about a half
mile away) using FRS walkie talkies. The signal was pretty weak, and
getting the message through was challenging. I knew that a big
limitation was the lousy built-in antenna, so I tried to think of a
way to improve the antenna.

The idea I settled on was simpliciy itself. I cut a straight piece of
solid #12 copper wire to a length of 35 cm (about 5% longer than a
half wave), then held it lightly at its balance point (exactly in the
middle), suspending it about 15 cm from the radio. The wire acts as a
reflector in a 2-element Yagi array type of antenna, using the FRS
radio's antenna as the driven element.

I have no official measurements, but we no longer had trouble hearing
each other. In theory, such an arrangement would triple or quadruple
the effective power in the selected direction, while eliminating
interference in undesired directions.

For my next version, I plan to attach a nonconducting handle, and/or
affix it to the radio with a tiny rotatable boom. It would also be
very interesing to try the same trick with cell phones, though you'd
have to work out where to aim your signal. In the boonies, perhaps a
simple "toward civilization" rule would suffice ;^)

David
http://www.qrz.com/n5izu
--
If only 2^(7/12) were equal to 3/2, music would sound a lot better.