[Discuss-gnuradio] Nagoya NA-773 Whip Wide-Band Mod for SDR

[Louis Brown]

I have seen a few messages asking about small, cheap antennas to use for 
portable SDRs, considering the RF bandwidths can span two decades.  I found an 
SMA female, 12” telescoping whip and made a video showing how to remove the 
loading coil, along with the VSWR obtainable with an appropriate counterpoise 
(i.e. B200 or bladeRF sized PCB).  The OEM antenna (Nagoya NA-773) is very 
inexpensive and easy to mod with basic dremel and soldering skills.  VSWR of 
3:1 is obtainable from 200 MHz through 6 GHz, with the exception of 1.8 - 2.2 
GHz.  I’ll probably do a follow-up experiment to see if tuning can be done by 
receiving via a small, non-resnoant loop on the adjacent RX port.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFlhSkqZ9dE

Lou
KD4HSO