J Pole Antenna

[tweiss3]

7 hours ago, Socalgmrs said:

Any one that thinks I poles or Ed fongs are hood antennas have never used anything else.  They don’t work and are totally junk.   Just get a real antenna. 

 

[RayDiddio]

On 2/25/2025 at 9:05 AM, Reloader762 said:

I've had the Ed Fong GMRS J Pole for about a year now and have been very happy with it. I'm able to hit repeaters in the area, some as far as 45 miles away, or use it for local simplex communication.  Of course, antenna height, line of sight from you to the repeater or station you're trying to reach will make all the difference. There are probably better options as far as base antennas for GMRS out there, but I choose mine for easy of mounting.

Same. It performs pretty well for me and I like having it. I get better range with it than I do with any stick antenna.

[WSHE531]

On 2/24/2025 at 10:14 PM, WRYZ926 said:

Steve is correct. You will get opinions ranging from hey are junk and no better than a dummy load to they are great antennas.

I have a 2m and 70cm Fara-J antennas to test out once the swamp dries up a little. They are clothe j pole antennas made with strips of faraday clothe. You can make your own or buy them from https://vfcomms.com . They make a 6m, 2m, 70cm, GMRS and Meshtastic version of their Fara-j antennas.

I went to check the yard today and what a muddy mess. We went from snow and single digit temps all last week to 60 degrees yesterday and today.

 

Good to Know!

 

[WSHE531]

On 2/25/2025 at 7:22 AM, Lscott said:

I think before that question it's important to understand what it is, and isn't. There is a good write-up at this link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-pole_antenna

Most of the issues with the antenna stems from it's radiation pattern. Depending on construction and installation the antenna may present some noticeable asymmetric gain characteristics.

One other important point is the antenna requires some kind of "decoupling" network for the connecting coax cable. That's typically done using some snap on ferrite cores very close to the feed point, or a coiled up section of the coax cable. If this isn't done then all sorts of weird highly asymmetric gain characteristics may occur along with high SWR readings, and even RF getting back into the radio causing distorted audio.

 

Thanks for the information.