I have had some success with vertical monobanders on all of the birds including VO-52 and A0-7. I use a Ringo Ranger II on two meters and a 1/4 wave homebrew two meter groundplane for 70cm, which makes it 3 waves long for 70cm. The main disadvantage I run into is that two different antennas located at different locations on the house here cause dissimilar tracking of the birds.
Remember, a vertical antenna with gain will cause your angle of radiation to be lower than a simple 1/4 wave for that particular frequency. I find that with the Ringo my best angle is about 15 - 50 degrees. The 1/4 wave 2 meter used on 70 cm is a bit better. It is difficult to work AO-7 with this arrangement but is doable.
Some day I'll get my arrays back in the air (down since the storms of '04').
Reid, W4UPD Amsat #17002
On 6/9/2011 12:35 PM, John Geiger wrote:
Has anyone had success getting into VO52 using a vertical, omnidirectional antenna on the uplink. I have a nice M2 2M9SSB for 2m but only have a dualband J pole to cover UHF with and wonder if I could get into VO52 with it for my uplink antenna.
73s John AA5JG _______________________________________________ Sent via AMSAT-BB@amsat.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb