"Tiger tails?" Do they really make a difference on HT's?

[Northcutt114]

I've only recently been introduced to them. For those that don't know, the idea is that you ground a piece of wire to the HT, either on the antenna post or maybe the buckle screw (if it's groundable). This creates the other half of the dipole and supposedly helps you get out a little further. Is it a gimmick or  does it work?

 

https://signalstuff.com/products/strand-smaf-bncf/

I'm currently looking at this ^ little set up. And while I know that I could easily do it myself, I want to show some love to the group that supports the website that just helped me punch my ham ticket. I currently and routinely speak on two GMRS repeaters that are on the same tower, approximately 40 miles from me with a 3,000ft delta in elevation and clear line of site. Recently, I've tried hitting a HAM repeater on that very same tower and the reports that I get back are that I am coming through, but it's choppy and I'm not holding the repeater open. Would a "tiger tail" help?

Thoughts from the hivemind, please. 

[WRUE951]

1 hour ago, Northcutt114 said:

OK, well, if anyone is interested...

 

It made absolutely no difference for me. 

Throw back,   
 

[AdmiralCochrane]

23 hours ago, Northcutt114 said:

OK, well, if anyone is interested...

 

It made absolutely no difference for me. 

You will not notice any difference unless you are at the very fringe of reception. Closer in you will not detect any improvement. Same with being completely too far or completely blocked, it isn't going to double or add 20% more range.  Maybe 10% or just 5%, which is almost nothing to most people.   My wife detests the idea of "a number approaching zero"

[Northcutt114]

14 hours ago, AdmiralCochrane said:

You will not notice any difference unless you are at the very fringe of reception. Closer in you will not detect any improvement. Same with being completely too far or completely blocked, it isn't going to double or add 20% more range.  Maybe 10% or just 5%, which is almost nothing to most people.   My wife detests the idea of "a number approaching zero"

If anything, I would say that the reception is not as good as the old antenna I was using. In fact, after two nights talking to various people on different repeaters, I went back to Nagoya whip. People were telling me that signal wasn't as clear. More snow in it. Which is a shame because everyone speaks so highly of Signal Sticks.

[Northcutt114]

On 12/12/2025 at 8:19 AM, Northcutt114 said:

Interesting. I watched your other one, too...with the BTech 50w. I had/have the 50v2 model of the same radio. I had an -unbeknownst to me - mismatched antenna and it cooked it after a few months. I didn't have a Surecomm at the time to measure power output but I suspect that mine wasn't reducing power as it heated up. It died mid-conversation. Fan spun up super high and it just KB'ed. 

I realize that I am quoting myself, but only for context. I apologize in advance for the tag @OffRoaderX, but I watched your latest video where you were trying to cook the display on your lil' Baofeng. Sorry for the loss of your good antenna.

I'd be curious if you'd be willing to risk KB'ing the BTech 50w unit you used in your other video where you transmitted without the antenna? I'm personally invested because I had a BTech 50w unit that did KB and the tech people at BTech told me that it was due to an out of spec antenna and high SWR. I contacted the maker of the antenna and he indeed told me, after the fact, that the radio he had given me was tuned for 450mhz. I was a little dubious that being 15-17mhz out of phase would create a high enough SWR to cook a radio. But alas, my radio fried. It didn't step down power like yours did in the video, at least I assume it didn't...and it didn't take 8 or so minutes of non stop transmitting. So I'm wondering A) how they determined the cause of the failure of the radio and 2) did it actually go boom because of high SWR or was the company just covering their hiney.

Obviously you have absolutely zero obligation to respond or even consider. Just know that I, your favorite viewer, would be very interested to see the results.

Also, anybody use signal sticks antennas? I'd be curious if there was a consensus on this, a non-ham oriented website.

 

[Northcutt114]

OK, @OffRoaderX, you cooked a TIDRadio. Do the BTech 50w. 

[WSKY567]

I really think it would be hard to determine.  For example:  a 2:1 SWR reduces power output by about 10=11% however the effect on the modulated information (voice) is less than 1db which is hardly perceivable. Add in all of the interference involved, atmospheric, RF, electrical, magnetic, and it's variance in time and it's anyone's guess what is causing what.  Thinking a little further into scenario, how are your finals reacting?  Where are the finals in regard to saturation?  Every radio would react differently obviously depending on how much "headroom" has been engineered into it.  Just where is the bios at any given time?  Who knows.  As is stated above, your body is part of the RF circuit and it is obviously not stable in it's reactance or impedance. Let's for fun add in the phenonium of the RF dead zone.  I live in one.  Cell, Wifi, CB, GMRS, GPS, I don't care.  Have no idea if it's mineral deposits, surrounding infrastructure, or pesky poltergeist.  If I take whatever I'm using a couple of blocks away my signal increases substantially.  RF and higher frequencies are some crazy stuff.  I've always been amazed at lightning strikes where the current will jump from this to that, fry this and leave that untouched, seemingly ignore the least resistance path to ground and shoot in an entirely different direction.  Over my head for sure.  

[MSnow]

On 12/11/2025 at 12:44 PM, Northcutt114 said:

I've had the same thoughts. I'm currently leaning toward it being snake oil myself, but then I saw K8MRD do a video on them and he seemed to think that they worked, soooo....now I'm re-examining.

 

Just remember a Youtubers job is to get you to buy things. Especially with their Affiliate links below. As the other gent said as long as your holding the HT your body does the work of the counterpoise. But hey If you like collecting stuff and have no issues spending the money I would say buy and try it out for yourself, part of the fun of it all really.

[WRTC928]

12 hours ago, MSnow said:

Just remember a Youtubers job is to get you to buy things. 

Yes, that's partly true, but entirely. There are some YouTubers I trust because what they say makes sense and squares with my personal experience. If they never give a product a bad review, I'm much more skeptical of their findings. YouTubers can be a valuable source of information, but you have to evaluate it like you do any other advertising. 

12 hours ago, MSnow said:

As the other gent said as long as your holding the HT your body does the work of the counterpoise. But hey If you like collecting stuff and have no issues spending the money I would say buy and try it out for yourself, part of the fun of it all really.

I agree that the only way to know is to try it yourself. With regard to tiger tails, both YouTubers and ordinary users have reported wildly different results. I don't have a definitive answer as to why that is, but I have some speculation. I have noticed that with CCRs, they often lack "reproducibility". Two otherwise identical radios may perform differently under the same circumstances. Specifically, I've noticed that two "identical" radios may "prefer" different antennas. The same may apply with tiger tails. If radio A is perfectly happy using your body as a counterpoise, but radio B (for whatever reason) doesn't couple as well with your body, radio B may perform better with a tiger tail while radio A shows no improvement. I haven't tested this theory and I'm not even sure how you would, but it does explain the significantly different results from different testers. If I'm right, someone else's results very well may not apply to your radio. Which is unaliving a lot of electrons to say try it and see.