Tag: radio

Ever on the hunt for amateur radio gear, I happened upon this little gem a few months back in a Tube of You video on search and rescue gear.

The chap in the video demonstrating the antenna mentioned that he had picked the antenna up on that popular e-commerce site named after a big river and had added some slight modifications to it. But this thing already looked familiar to me for some reason. After a bit of research, I found a similar antenna: the Chameleon TacYagi. This is something I had definitely seen, and also written off instantly because of it’s pricepoint of just north of $200 CAD for a UHF-only antenna. That’s a lot of dough to be spending on an antenna that would be duplicating the capability of the dual band Arrow II yagi which I already own.

But of course, the gears were turning already. I pulled up images of both the TacYagi and the Twayrdio (Yep, that’s the brand name listed. It’s not a spelling error on my part) and began comparing the two. Both antennas have pretty much the same dimensions and specs from what I could tell. Even the parts that make up the gamma match look to be identical. I’m thinking Chameleon must be purchasing the antennas as a kit from the Chinese manufacturer and then they add the blackout coating to the parts and assemble everything stateside. Little bit sneaky-sneaky there.

The only real differences seemed to be that the TacYagi was “made in the USA”, which seems to be dubious at best, seeing as everything on these antennas is identical, and that it also had some blacked out parts like the boom and elements whereas the Twayrdio version is just bare aluminum.

Whatever! After much deliberation, I pulled the trigger on the Twayrdio version. Still not a super cheap purchase. About $80 CAD for the antenna itself. Painful, but also easily justified by the fact that it is collapsible, and therefore, super portable compared to the Arrow II. Lets also not forget that it’s slightly less than half the cost of the black version. The only extra bit I needed was a $5 UHF-BNC adapter and a chunk of coax. The latter of which I already had.

The antenna came in a few days later and I began trials on it. It’s about 17″ in length. and the only issue I had as far as its construction goes, is that the driven element wasn’t seating properly when extended. I was able to tighten the screw that allows that element to pivot and the problem is gone now. Quick fix!

I did an SWR check on the antenna with my NanoVNA. While not a 100% match, the results do mostly match up with the spec sheet. These results were the best I could achieve from holding the antenna in different positions and with the coax in different orientations. The below SWR results are from holding the antenna at shoulder height with the coax following the boom instead of just hanging downwards.

The only concern I had with this piece of kit was that it was not working as well as the SignalStick that I usually run when out and about. I could hit repeaters just fine, but the audio on receive was quite a bit noisier. I was testing in open areas as well as in forested/swampy areas and was getting the same results each time. I let the antenna sit for a week and thought about the results I was getting from time to time.

I eventually came to the conclusion that it might be more an issue with the repeaters that I was hitting. VE2CRA and VE3OCE are the primary repeaters in Ottawa. CRA sits on one of the highest points on the Quebec side of the river and is quite noticeable. It’s on a very large TV/radio transmissions tower and is clearly visible from most spots in the city. OCE is on the Ontario side on one of the tallest hills in the city. So both of those repeaters have extremely decent coverage here. As a result of the power they each out combined with my proximity to both, I came to the conclusion that the mini-yagi might be attenuating the signal in some way. Yagi’s are typically used to increase reception at longer ranges than omnidirectional antennas because, well, they’re directional antennas. You literally point them towards the signal you want to receive. Because of this, I decided to see if I could raise anyone on the air who might be monitoring. Maybe this would be a more realistic use for the antenna?

I called CQ on 2m and within a minute I was speaking with Jonathan (VE3OTW) and who I’ve had numerous conversations with over the air in the last few years. I was able to get him to help me with my situation. We flipped over to the 70cm call channel (446.0 MHz) and he gave me a signal report: S0 on his end while I was using the SignalStick. Which is about as low as you can get. Audio between us was patchy at best and would cut completely out if I moved only a few inches in any direction. I switched out to the mini-yagi and the reception on my end changed immediately. I could hear Jonathan with much less background noise (still there, but lessened quite a bit) and noticed that I could move around way more than I could before and not lose Jonathan when he was broadcasting. He said that my signal was now coming in at S3 on his end. That’s a big jump, going from not registering on the S-meter to S3 (this is a 0-9 scale). Readability had also gone up dramatically on his end too. We did some more testing and were even joined by Peter (VE2BJZ) for a bit too. He’s much closer to my location than where Jonathan is, being just on the other side of the river from me, so I didn’t have too much of an issue with noise, etc. on his end. The conversation went for about half an hour total and in that time I continued flipping between both antennas while Jonathan was speaking. The difference was night and day when using the mini-yagi.

My testing location was just inside my sliding balcony door, which was closed for the duration of the test. With the SignalStick, I had to stand in one spot with the radio at just the right height to get any signal. With the mini-yagi, I kept the beam at shoulder height primarily, but was also able to move it to 12 inches off the floor and there wasn’t any noted difference in signal reception. The front of the balcony is concrete and steel up to waist height, and there was still better reception with the mini-yagi!

So, seemingly, this thing works! I have since made some additions to the antenna to make it more functional. I did camo it up like in the original video, and definitely did a better job of wrapping my antenna. Took an entire roll of camo form. Looks nice and it doesn’t clank around as much when the elements are folded up. I opted for the Kryptek Highlander camo option because it was the best looking camo option that had green in it. Seriously, if they had plain olive drab camo form, I likely would’ve bought an entire pallet of the stuff instead!

I also added some small gear ties to keep the coax in place and for better grip while in use. I can mount the antenna to a bag with the gear ties when I’m out on the bike too, so that’s a plus. Yes, the bright orange completely kills the camo vibe, but I’m not planning on hiding this thing anywhere and I’m also NOT a ninja.

My opinion on this antenna is that it’s still too pricey for what it is. All up, I’m in about $110 CAD as currently configured. Being a UHF-only antenna limits its usefulness for most of the radio work I do (2m FTW!). I can still use it for monitoring the 2m band, I just don’t think any of my radios would enjoy the higher SWR on transmit. Would likely be pretty good for radio-direction finding (foxhunting for all you commo nerds).

There is also a non-collapsible version from Twayrdio for about half the price which should offer identical performance where a permanent antenna installation would be better. This antenna is definitely a compromise, but for specific use cases where a yagi would be nice to have around without needing a truck to get it to where you’ll be using it, it’s good.

I was also able to catch a bit of the latest SSTV pass from the Russian segment of the ISS a few weeks back with it. I could hear the signal. Not really too well though. So I’ll need some more practice with aiming the mini-yagi at spaceborne objects, but it is also a much lighter option than the Arrow II is for the same type of work.