This is a picture of my new exterior antenna, with a beer bottle next to it for purposes of size comparison. I also want to give people a vague idea of what my balcony is like. I have a Sirio magnetic mount that attaches to the steel cap on the balcony wall. Then I have a Nagoya RE-02 ground plane w/UHF radials, and a short fibreglass dual-band antenna that can hardly be seen from the ground.
I can't reach any distant repeaters with this tiny antenna, but I can hit the major local machines at HT power levels and nearly perfect SWR. Once it gets dark, I can put the VHF radials on and use any of my larger antennae if I need to reach further.
WD0WIL and N0WEP gave me good signal reports on the VHF .450 and UHF .650 repeaters at 4W earlier with this antenna. The .450 is not a big surprise, but I often have trouble getting a good signal into the UHF .650 with some interior variations and stock ducks.
Hopefully I will continue to get favourable signal reports with this small antenna. My previous solution, the Nagoya NL-R2, has poor (but acceptable) SWR on VHF and didn't fit into the radial attachment.
I have another ground-plane radial set and another roughly 2.5-foot fibreglass whip that I am going to use as my interior go-to antenna solution.
For my vehicle, I have a Browning UHF (5/8-wave over 5/8) antenna that works well on that band, at least by some accounts. My Browning dual-band 1/4-wave, while nice and short, is a marginal performer. But the whole mobile arrangement is due for a big change with my acquisition last night of a Kenwood TH-F6A from N0DSH. I am looking at using my tri-band Nagoya, and keeping a 1/4-wave VHF whip in the trunk for times when I need a less-conspicuous antenna.
