How to source a 2m directional antenna in NZ

Sunday, 20th March 2016

The first thing on my list is a directional antenna.

It's traditional with amateur radio to make your own antennas. After figuring out there is no local options and importing something is a pain, I did have a pretty good look at building something. The plan was to get an old VHF TV aerial to use the boom and the elements, chopping it down to the right dimensions and then customising the driven element. Despite VHF TV antennas still being screwed onto every second house around here, finding someone I know with one of those that wasn't nearly destroyed turned into it's own saga.

So in a moment of weakness I ordered an Arrow 146/437 antenna from Gigaparts. It's a really nice unit, alot better made than I could be bothered making, easy to either build as a 70cm or 2m antenna or both cross polarised, and easy to break down to move about.

For connecting to the ISS I only need the 146MHz / 2m elements, so that's all I've got built up currently, But I've got the option of dual band with a diplexer to connect to a single radio or being able to use the two antennas with different radios for other satellites that receive and transmit on different bands.