Increase the Range of Any Handheld Radio for 6 Cents

Increase the range of any handheld radio, A Baofeng, Yaesu or Icom with a counterpoise, otherwise known as a "tiger tail". A tiger tail is a length of wire added to an antenna to take the 1/4th wave rubber duck to a half wave dipole antenna.

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📮 Ham Mail: Hayden Honeywood - P.O Box 5071, Sandy Bay 7005, Tasmania, Australia

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[tomgeorge]

I would put a wire lug under the earth screw and have you two different wires with clips on the end.
Now you can change the counter poise between bands.

[fredflintstone]

You left out an important step:
Accidentally knock the screw onto the floor and then spend the next 1/2 hour looking for it.

[jongleaton]

Take the 19.5 inch wire and make a coil by wrapping it around a pen or pencil. Do this coil on the end nearest the connector in such a way that the overall length is 6.5 inches. Tada! you have a dual band counterpoise!

[LightTower]

What happens when you add this little wire to the ground of the antenna/body of the radio; is that you give the antenna a better ground plane. This increases the DB level of the antenna, and allows you to have a more focussed beam pattern, ergo a better transmit range 👌

Very clever 😉

[jimmyjohhn]

I took the antenna off, connected a wire to the antenna pirt with an aligator clip, and attached the other end to my car antenna, also with an aligator clip. It dramatically extended the distance.
Tomorrow im testing it connected by wire to a coat hanger antenna (type in coat hanger antenna on youtube. Very easy to make)

[randykitchleburger]

Very important, DON'T LOSE THE SCREW

[joewoodchuck]

There was once a commercial product to do this. It was called a Tigertail and it had a loose fitting ring meant for a BNC type antenna mount. I didn't trust the connection at all. Taking it one step further, I found that it did help on a bare radio, but add the wired external mike and it actually made reception worse. The solution was to either use the external microphone as the counterpoise OR the Tigertail, but never both.
Ymmv, fwiw, jmho, etc.

[LibertyEver]

A tiger tail definitely works but I prefer to buy a longer Signal Stuff (nearly indestructible) antenna for my HTs.

[keithtreisch]

I did this with my whistker scanner when i worked on the railroad. I drastically increased the reception and i used a larger wire connector on the end that fit arounf wheree the antenna mounted and it had a little more room.becausee of the type of connector. But it worked great

[_cal_techie]

Just solder a ring terminal on 19 inches of wire and put it on the antenna connector then put the antenna back on. (For 2 meters) this converts the antenna from a quarter wave whip to a vertical dipole.

[Senator]

Clever way to make a dipole.
The wire inside the stock antenna is coiled so it's manageable, but that also makes it less efficient and it could be 1/4, 1/2 or full, but most likely 1/2 going by its size.
Without knowing the length of the coil, you are just assuming that it's at full wavelength.
Open it and check. Sure you'll make a slight gain the way you did it, but you won't see its full potential unless you do it properly.
A well built dipole works very well for its size.
440 MHz is 681mm or 68.1cm. For UHF 430-450 MHz 70cm is acceptable but 68.1cm is better.

[Robb-jfvg]

Well done !
These instructions are EXCELLENT 😮

[skeggjoldgunnr]

It's a counterpoise wire. Nothing fancy. It's best if kept parallel with ground. Closer coupling to ground is better. REALLY wake things up by running a wire to an actual ground like a cold water pipe or fence post.

[melissarainchild]

Basically: add a (decent) ground plane to allow the waves to "bounce" off and join the signal...sweet!!

[digitaldreamer]

Aloha Hayden, I’ve been looking for that type of terminal connectors for a long time now and I will look for them again.
I have been using small gauge zipwire for speakers, which I cut at 19 1/2” and then trim off 11” on the other side in order to have a counterpoise for both, VHF and UHF. They might be purple but works great for this island terrain. 🇺🇸🤙🏻🤙🏻

[Megellin]

Lose the rubber duck and get a (I think it's na 320a) or some similar mini whip antenna and you'll get way better range. Also there are adapters that can allow you to use a stationary antenna on your handheld.

[jmr]

I never noticed a range increase with this trick when holding my HT. I use a Tiger tail for weak signals monitoring however because I often set it down for long periods. It can make a big difference then.

[WilburJaywright]

Have talked with a few Elmers, though I am new to ham radio myself, can confirm, this is real, and I believe it’s called a rat tail, Tigertail, antenna counterweight, and counterpoise.

[DavidMitchell]

Old ham trick... LoL. My Radio Shack HTX-202 came with one of these tails. They had a ring terminal around the BNC antenna connector.

[randyaivaz]

In The 70's I Cut my Antenna to my Favorite Rock Station,
I Remember Lambda was Part of the Formula. Buddy Of Mine Got me Interested in Amateure Radio Again,
Working On Technician License, Been In Electric and Electronics Since, Nice to see The Practice Test is all Familuar Stuff. Started 2 Days ago Studying, Think I will be Ready for 2 Saturdays from now.