For portable use, many operators use a vertical antenna, so I set out to build my own.
After seeing several different designs going from wire antenna through foldable military antennas I found a 5.6m telescopic antenna for not much money on ebay, this also had a M10 screw on the end that dictated the connection on my design.
M10 also corresponded well with my camera stand that has a adapter that I belive is 3/8″.
I started out getting the telescopic antenna and designed a very simple feed point.
The telescopic fits right into the nut and I can either use a camera stand to have it elevated, or a ground spike to have it on the ground.
For connecting radials i made this plate, 10mm hole in the middle with 2 wing nuts.
I made 4 lengths of 5.2m wires for radials and they work perfectly on 20m, when going shorter i fold the radials in on themselves to match. This works fine when elevated.
I wanted to try a coil to see if I could make this work on 80m so i designed a 7.5cm diameter threaded cylinder with M10 screw and nut.
I also prepared a 20m long wire as counterpoise.
Testing this I was in a woods and could not get a good match but still just waiting for good weather and energy to go out and test this furteher… probably more to come……