Hi Steve, welcome aboard!
I can’t really add to the good range of suggestions above, except to say do consider home brew. As others have said, there is great satisfaction.
Much of the difficulty is in making a neat, robust and weatherproof structure for a permanent installation. But, for occasional portable use, none of those is especially important. Give it a go while you are awaiting delivery! It has never been easier to find a design online…
Hope to catch you on the bands,
73
Adrian
G4AZS
Roll-up J-poles work well. They are made with 300 Ohm twinlead, which can be hard to find these days.
In W6, we use a dual-band (2m, 440) design by Ed Fong, WB6IQN. You can get the QST construction articles or buy the finished antennas from his site.
Definitely try a home brew one 
I’ve used a co-axial collinear, made up of several cut lengths of coax, performed quite well, and (just about) fits on the length of a sota pole. Also had several s2s qsos on ssb (cross polarised to the other stations, obviously not ideal, and also on 70cm using the same collinear)
Also used a j-pole, useful as you can get it fairly high off the ground on the pole, An Elk antenna (I replaced the ‘mount’ with a piece of plastic pipe, and a 15mm pipe clip which fits onto the pole, and also allows me to quickly change the polarisation if required.) The Elk is a bit of a faff to ‘build’ on a hill, especially when it’s cold and wet…
Latest one is a small moxon I built for an overseas trip which was very easy to make, using readily available hardware, I did put the details on the reflector somewhere, a search will probably find it.
Don
m0hcu
Hmm. I bet a 2m Moxon could be made the right size to be a pack frame.
wunder
Actually, someone did post a photo of exactly that in my ‘how I made my antenna’ post…
See Gerald’s backpack photo down at the bottom of the post
Very neat 
Don
m0hcu
You cannot fail building a small version of a WA5VJB cheap Yagi for 2M. Portable, dirt cheap, quick, and simple. Good luck and have fun! 73 John K5JS
I have a commercial 2m Moxon, it breaks down quite small but to support it you need something stronger than a SOTA fishing pole though.
Another idea Steve - if you have a 1/4 2m mobile whip on your car screw it on the back of the FT-817ND, switch the VHF/UHF antenna setting in the menu to rear and that works quite well (better that the supplied rubber duckie) - you can also hold this horizontally when running 2m SSB. For FM it is below the rig, but works fine, the metal case of the 817 works as an “OK” groundplane.
Ed.
Welcome aboard!
I use 2 homemade antennas, both with good results:
Slim-jim, made of 300 Ohm ribbon
VHF SOTA Antenna – Slim Jim | CT1DBS/CU3HF
4 element yagi
This 4 elem goes toghether in moments without tools and it’s homemade!
To be publish very soon on https://ct1dbs.wordpress.com/
I use the excellent article of IZ2UUF to make it
100 grams 4 elements VHF Yagi-Uda – IZ2UUF.NET
The 4 elem yagi on one activaction (CT/ES-003)
Vy 73 de Pedro, CT1DBS/CU3HF
Another vote for the 3 element Arrow which goes together in moments with no tools. I also suggest getting the split boom option for backpacking. Works great throughout the 2 meter band. -AD4IE
A big thank you all for the almost overwhelming response to my request.Just goes to show the community spirit is alive and well.
I’ve ordered some ladder line so I’ll have ago at constructing a slimJim to start with, then possibly move on to a Yargi. I’ll let you all know my progress in the next few weeks
Thanks
73 Steve G1VXS
Have a look at Homebrew – M0UKD – Amateur Radio Blog. I built one and used it on 6th August in backpackers contest. Easy to build and it worked really well.
G0WPO
Neil
Hi !
Don’t forget the fine Oblongs and Hentennas found at:
http://dk7zb.darc.de/start1.htm
They work pretty well, and are easy to build and carry.
73 de Robert.
I use the DIAMOND RH-770 antenna for SOTA … works nice!
73 Martin, OE5REO
Hi Steve,
I have a couple of options available.
The simplest is a end-fed coaxial dipole:
This one is usually included in the antenna bag on all activations. Low cost and light weight. Can be used as a vertical or horizontal with a little thought.
I also have the option of a 6-element Yagi, based on the DK7ZB design but implemented a little differently:
I take the latter if I am expecting to use 2 m SSB in particular, but it can also be used vertical.
Try building an antenna yourself: it lowers the cost and increases the satisfaction!
Cheers,
Peter VK3PF
Hi Steve
I am currently using a Popovic antenna for 2m, it is also a duel band so will cover 70cm. You can make this very easy. I made mine out of welding rods and connected to a choc block, so all can dismantled very easy for portable work. here is a link for pics. http://www.pa2old.nl/page.php?id=30
and just Google “popovic” images for dimensions in English. You will not be disappointed, works a treat!
73
Dave, ZL1DCO
That’s neat. One might argue it’s centre-fed, but through the end. Another variation is the Flowerpot Antenna. In both cases a λ/4 of braid is being made into a radiating sleeve balun by means of a crude common-mode choke (i.e. coiled-up coax’). I’ve found this style to be effective (I made one in a bit of tubing) but wonder how it compares with a physically-separated sleeve balun done this way:
By the way I tried the dual-band variation of Flowerpot. On 70cm the match is good but I suspect the radiation pattern is all to pot!
Hi Simon,
Yes - I chose my words poorly… The simple dipole is an implementation of a “bazooka” balun, similar to the Flower Pot antenna (which was named because the writer of that story used a flower pot to hold his antenna vertical…). I guess a coaxial dipole is more correct. I based mine on a commercial product I acquired here several years ago, complete in a nice mount & radome, designed for services at a frequency below the 2 m amateur band. I managed to get the radome off without any damage, measured the antenna and rescaled it to 2 m, then reassembled the antenna. It worked a treat. Radiation pattern & gain should be the same as a dipole, because it is just that - a dipole.
The choke “balun” is similar to the commercial unit, but wound on a lightweight piece of plastic that I had at hand.
I typically tie the end of the antenna onto a squid pole supporting a 40 m & up link dipole. With a handheld FM radio connected, I worked a 55 km obstructed path with the antenna held horizontally by holding the feedline - we could not complete the contact on vertical polarisation.
The 6-element Yagi works a treat, with the squid pole lower sections forming the support mast & the Yagi at about 4 m above ground. Using the FT-817 at 5 W, I have made several contacts greater than 100 km on 2 m SSB. I will cart it to the hilltop on occasions that other Activators are know to be out playing VHF/UHF SSB.
I have not tried the Flower Pot dual band design.
Not cheap but worth the money…hard to beat the Arrow stuff. I bought the dual band version so I could work satellites easily when portable. I ended up using it for a couple of VHF contests portable hilltopping. The design lends itself really well to sticking in a backpack and quickly assembling. Lightweight to boot. I really like mine
Here’s a wekend antenna prject, a DIY 2 element 2m yagi using TV rabbit ears for the driven and reflector elements, mounted on a PVC boom. Total weight is 250 grams (9 ounces).
73 Andrew VK1AD
