Ham Radio - Tear down of the ABBREE tactical VHF/UHF antenna.

Several comments on the previous video asked me to tear it down, so here we go.

This is a link to the particular antenna I purchased. If you bought one from another supplier, it may not be made the same.
amazon link:

If you like my videos, please subscribe here:

Discuss this and other videos on Facebook:

[fouroh]

I put a 48.8" version of this on a 20' last and it worked great on 2 meters!

[norrinradd]

I have one of these I bought in 2020. The build quality on your antenna appears to be better than mine.

On my antenna, the cap was barely glued on and came off in the summer heat. After an entire winter outside it was permanently folded over right above the base. It wasn't until I took it down that I noticed it was actually broken at the nut/bolt connection. Water had seeped in and it rusted through. After pulling off the single layer of heat shrink, I found two pieces of yellow tape measure steel tape.

[Ronl]

I have an old Cushcraft AR-270, 2m, 70cm antenna. It had been out in the weather and was not performing correctly so I took it apart to see if I could clean it up. I found the same type matching network in the Cushcraft. The cap and the coil were obviously different values. I repaired a broken solder joint at the top of the coil and cleaned it up. I put it all back together and it is performing very well. I don't completely understand how it works, but it does. Thanks for the video.

[pacquetman]

Another excellent video, Kevin!

In fairness, I don't think these are marketed to amateurs, but rather to the folks playing paintball and who are using Baofeng's for 'tactical comms'. Many of the chest harnesses made for paintballers have a pouch for a radio and also a loop that the antenna goes through, designed to mitigate the forces on the antenna base when trudging through the 'jungle'!

[TheHeadman]

If you look on Amazon at these antennas. They show what a authentic one looks like inside vs an imposter. The authentic one shows a base with about 25 wraps/coils. So either they have changed the design or this is an imposter?

[larrybomber]

Looks like me. I love taking stuff apart to see what makes it tick. thanks Kevin.

[TwoFeatherChannel]

I have the same length Abbree, it wasn't anywhere as good the Nagoya. but I bought it for its fold over ability.
even though I read reviews on Amazon saying that it was a Tape Measure blade inside, it didn't matter to me because hundreds of people make those 2 meter Tape Measure Yagi's all the time.

[doc]

My primary HT antenna for hiking in the boonies. I think the Abbree brand works and many knock offs are of questionable quality.

[kenharvey]

I saw one teardown on youtube and the antenna actually had printed tape measure inside!

I have a couple of these Abbree antennas and they work much better than the original rubber ducks.

[michaeledmonds]

Thanks for the "tear down", your assumptions were correct. Meanwhile, I've never understood why Baofeng couldn't make a decent HT antenna.

[Steve-GMHUU]

👍 Thanks Kevin, that was interesting. I often wonder what's inside these HT or mobile whips. This was like antenna CSI 😂. The matching part with the connectors certainly looks useful for homebrew antennas. In fact, it would be useful if you could buy parts like that for HT/mobile whip experiments. In the past, I have made various mobile whips and portable antennas using cheap fibre glass "Roman blind" rods. I covered the rod with self-adjesive copper slug tape and then put heatshrink over the whole thing. Not as flexible as sprung steel but very RF conductive, lightweight and hardwearing.
In terms of the matching in this design, it just looks like an auto-transformer with shorted turns as you say to tweak the inductance for the radiator plus the series capacitor to make the match to the transmitter a resistive impedance - kind of similar to that used in gamma match?

[HamRadioCrashCourse]

These always seemed hit and miss. I have a few which work wonderfully and compare well against other antennas. But lots of people online and in videos seems to get poor performance.

[Brentgilbertstudio]

I bought one, Thought it was pretty decent until I compared it to the stock rubber duck antenna that came with a baufeng. Honestly. The abbree could barely pick up NOAA without cutting in and out while the stock rubber duck seemed to be more consistent. Also, the abbree seems to work the same regardless of whether or not you have the flexible topper attached to the coil or not.

[DonzLockz]

I think they used a gas torch to burn off the tape measure paint.🔥🤔
Thanks for the autopsies, we were all very curious to see their construction. 👍🍻🤓

[WoodyPhillips]

Very cool. I really didn't want to do this to mine so ... THANKS!

[franciscolopez]

I got mine to work 74km on simplex at roughly more than 200 feet above sea level at 4 watts using my old trusty Icom IC 02AT. By the way, my Abbree is the 72cm version.

[AZREDFERN]

I was totally expecting to see various tape measures printed on the inside, like the factory in China was reusing waste from a nearby tape measure factory.

[radiolinux]

Well done Kevin make a dipole out of tape metal strips then shrink wrap the metals ?

[thes]

Modifying the transformer to proper 49:1 should make that a decent end fed half wave for 2m. Maybe removing the shorts and moving the tap would do the trick? I'd go that route. Actually thinking of making one from actual tape measure left from portable yagi projects.

[marshallvanwagneriii]

Thank you for the video! Maybe you could "re-tune" the coil, and get it tuned for the proper frequency. Then try the range test again? That would be an interesting project and video!