I experimented with my garden 66ft doublet antenna on /p on Friday and Sat too - with views to use it on SOTA in future activations. It seemed to me like a good option, not as fast to deploy as the efhw, but it does not require to get down the pole to change bands.
I wonder how many use a doublet for sota and what is the most popular length? 44ft I suspect.
It was also nice to meet Steve G4TCU doing the 144MHz backpackers contest with some serious gear.
Doublet used: 2x9m with the possibility to have it 2x4,5 (insulator inbetween) for somewhat better performance on the highbands, but I rarely open the wire on a summit as it means to detelescope the pole (12m, so feeding point at best at 10m) a bit.
But much flexibility and never having to think whether it may not work due to an uncommon setup on an unknown summit. Very sataisfied with the performance (some shares held by the pole, too, which I like much more on the summit than on the the way to the summit…).
73, Chris DL8MBS
In reply to M0HDF:
Hi Angel,
My doublet is NorCal version (2 x 6,6 m), it is very lightweight and I am very satisfied with it’s performance. I have also endfed long wire vertical antenna, but I use it only where no place for doublet.
good luck with your antenna!
73, Mirko S52CU