Are Ham Sticks on a Car an Effective Ham Radio Antenna for POTA?

Let's test out my SharkRF ham stick Ham Radio Antennas and see if they will work for POTA mounted on my Chevy Suburban.

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[SevenFortyOne]

This video is not monetized. If you see ads while watching this its because YouTube has added them per their usual practice. I am not receiving any ad revenue from this video.

[alanserl]

Hamsticks will work. I have height restrictions in my backyard due to power lines so I have a 40M hamstick mounted to the top of my chicken coop in the backyard. The coop is a repurposed chain link dog kennel with a chicken wire top. I am in California and have worked Japan and Australia from the coop. 73 de KM6KPW!

[davidg]

Very good! I just bought my CA park pass (make that pa$$$$ - way too much $ but that's CA for ya) and will get out in a few weeks. I have 40 and 75m sticks and will pick up a 20 next week. Sticks should be easiest in some of our busy beach parks. Have a good week!

[johnkemas]

I found my ham sticks on mag mounts don't have a sufficient ground plane under them even in the center of the car body. SWR was OK but not great. So I made a ground plate of copper to mount between the NMO mount of the 7" mag mount and the antenna by putting 4 Banana plug jacks in the 4 corners of the square ground plate.

Added 4 -30 ft ground wires and just tossed them around the car evenly. Wow! What a big difference, much better performance (equivalent to my EFLW) and the SWR came down to 1.2:1 on all my bands (40, 20, 15) I made comparison tests with a 67 ft EFLW to the ham sticks. Most days they were about the same all things considered based on signal reports. Some days the hamsticks were a little better, other days the EFLW was a little better. In my estimation a wash.

I don't like having to shoot wires into trees, setting up masts etc. I'm 70 and a bit stiff in the joints!! Hamsticks are much easier and faster to setup in the grand scheme of things! To each his own, but a much better ground plane under a hamstick will make a big improvement, just like any vertical antenna. Many car bodies are plastic, glued together, or have little metal and in most cases certainly not grounded together and hence the bad performance guys complain about. Hamsticks are quick and easy and work great with a good radial; system added.

[CLP]

I've learned more about ham radio from 741 than i have anywhere else combined, thanks man, keep doin what you do! 73 KY4IT

[StuartMTTQAmateurRadio]

Thanks for the P2P! I was on an EFHW on Sunday but I am a big fan of Hamsticks, I use them on my bike from time to time. There are better antennas out there but there isn't anything more convenient for quickly getting on the air.

[walteredwards]

I'm definitely leaning towards starting out with these type of antennas for mobile. It's definitely on my list of things I want to try and accomplish

[bhenry]

I realize this is not a new video, but would like to make a couple of comments. I regularly do POTA from the comfort of a car here, in the Canadian winter, and use both hamsticks and hustler antennas. I just spent a week at Quartzfest in Quartzsite, AZ, and listened to an interesting seminar on the efficiency of hamsticks. The fellow did measurements comparing hamsticks to a basic dipole of the same band. A 20 meter hamstick is about 50% efficient, with the bands below, such as 40 and 80, being much worse. Hamsticks above 20m gradually have a better efficiency as one moves towards the 10 meter hamstick, which is around 90%. I rarely use my 40 or 80 hamsticks, unless I am trying to contact someone fairly close, because of their inefficiencies.. This year I will be substituting a 17 foot telescoping whip for the bands form 20 up, hopefully geting better results form a resonant quarter wave vertical, in place of the loaded hamsicks, which are definitely a compromised, albeit, very handy antenna. Cheers

[MowerJunkie]

Nice demonstration. It's content like this, That will eventually get Me licensed.

[NTCM]

Got a old Radio Shack HTX 10 in the car with a K40 cb antenna. Works good when the band is open. Not much going on 10 these days. Thinking about a Xiegu G90 for 40 with a hamstick.

[BikingHikingRadio]

The past two winters I've put up external antennas when I POTA. I had a couple of hamsticks and acquired some Hustler ones this year. I put the IC 7100 in the car and was skeptical that they would work, however to my surprise they've done well on both CW and SSB at activations. It's nice to drive up and stay in the car unless I am swapping out antennas for other bands. Last winter I got out of the car and put up EFHW or vertical antennas and ran radials. By the time I got back into the car I was cold and had wet feet. Thanks for your confirmation as well that although hamsticks are a compromise compared to other portable antennas, it's very convenient to drive up, operate and leave. 73 and Merry Christmas.

[Sky]

I worked you on 40 meters back in 2017 🙂

[NNWK]

73 de N2NWK
I even use a 20 meter hamstick on 30 meters and make a lot of contacts. I use the same 20 meter hamstick on 15 meters to do voice and SSTV. I run the hamstick thru an LDG Tuner and I never cut or trim my Hamsticks.

[kevingoshe]

What kind of magic is this? Those eyeglasses appeared out of nowhere! Happy Holidays!

[truthfilterforyoutube]

It was great to see you use these Ham Sticks for POTA. However, I wish you would have spent time to show how good the initial tune was (and how), vs what you actually had when you moved....( SWR / bandwidth). Would have been nice to see the rig expert screens. PS how did you do with 40 meters with regards to tune ? I understand that can be a real challenge. How many watts were you transmitting with ? Cheers VE7KEG

[FishinChickin]

I worked Poland ssb with three watts on a modified radio shack center load mobile cb antenna, so, yeah.

[NSV]

Great video. Just got a set of Hamsticks on sale. Will be doing this soon!

[ellisc.foleyjr]

Good example of how well ham sticks will play. I have two (80-20m) had them for over 20 yrs now and always had good luck with them. on a trip from Ma -GA one time the xyl worked CC from WV/m4. to Washington State. 3k miles what more could you ask for that was on 80m. and we have worked dx avross the pond with the 20m one so they do work. thanks for taking the time to share your experiment and activation. de Ellis WA1RKS

[brentjohnson]

Another fine video! I am looking at starting portable or POTA with a couple of ham sticks. I have seen the hustler mount that can accommodate 3 sticks treating the ham sticks almost like a fan dipole. I like the simple approach to the ham sticks and if I am really wanting performance I will put the time into raising a wire antenna. All the best, 73 de KI5HXM

[auto]

I only have a 20m hamstick on my Jeep and I have already hunted 34 states and 4 Canadian provinces in the last two weeks.