How to Extend The Range of Walkie-Talkie Portable Handheld Radios. 

The method in the video also applies to quarter wave antennas that are mounted on houses. Add a quarter wavelength counterpoise to a quarter wavelength vertical antenna and you have a vertical half wave dipole. I used to do it with a 261.62 centimeter vertical CB antenna when CB was popular. I added a counterpoise of equal length and made a 523.24 centimeter long vertical dipole. It was the poor man's base station antenna back in the day. It made for really good range and clear reception. It also helped to bring the standing wave ratio to almost ideal. I miss those days.

Great job explaining this concept. I have read a lot on this and yours was a very clear explanation. Thank you.

Great educational video. I have now attached these "Tails" to both my HT's and feel confident that it will help in extending the range. Many Thanks for taking the time to share. M6KVK

Thanks for helping people to understand the complex electronics concepts in a simple & layman language! Very helpful video!

i was going to put 2 tails on (1 for each band), but when gil said just 1 (for 2m) would work for both bands, i was most pleased. fyi, the 2m tail is 9.5"/24cm and the 70cm tail is 4.5"/ 114cm. 'tails' are also 'counterpoises'. once again the radio prepper saves the day!!

Good vid - thanks for posting. Your comment on polarization was excellent. Hams (well some) are fully aware of this, but when you hand a radio to a neighbor or wife, they may have never even operated one before - let alone know the right / wrong way. Insightful.

These were very good explanations of tactics to use to increase handheld radio range. Another tactic, if you are talking walkie-to-walkie (FM Vhf or Uhf), with some distance between the two radios, is to stand still while transmitting. Face in the direction, initially, that you believe your partner to be. Don't rush to make a quick, short transmission, during the first few transmissions. While you are working to extend the time of your transmission, your partner, who may have a very noisy copy on you at first, should be listening to the level of the noise on your signal, and, with his transceiver's antenna vertical, also, can extend his radio-holding hand out and rotate his body. If the quality of the received signal gets worse, go back to where you stood originally. If received signal quality improves, stand in that "hot spot", until your partner makes another transmission to you. He should look for a "hot spot" while you are transmitting back to him. Sometimes moving a very short distance (feet), while receiving a weaker signal, can have you go from receiving an extremely noisy and difficult to copy signal, to receiving a very strong and clear signal. A good way to demonstrate this, is to listen to one of the NOAA weather stations around 162Mhz (in the US), while moving around with your walkie.

Well done. I actually learned something today. You got a new sub. Cheers.

When you can show a curve in 7 miles. You sir would get a Nobel prize. Definitely a good video on working a radio.

Excellent video and great presentation. Finally a video for a newbie that goes slow enough to understand and explains in simple terms. Thank you

this was exactly the tip I needed, thank you!

Thank you! I will have to watch it again, very interesting!

Years ago in the UK and using CB radio. My antenna was a mag mount and the ground plain of the car was important. If not in the car we used metal dustbin lids to increase the range. It was imperative to have the antenna on the car as close o centre of the roof for best range. Thanks for the video. A bientot mon ami.

Great video! Thanks for taking the time. Has anyone noticed that almost everyone who takes time to write multiple paragraph lines is typically wrong, incapable of listening to what was actually said, or just a jackass? I'm a General Class if anyone really needs to know. If you know so much why are you watching a video that explains the theory of a damn Tiger Tail? He is helping new people which is more than most choose to do. How about thanking him for taking the time and helping to keep our hobby a live.

Thanks for the explanation, it was a good one.

Thank you I never knew that and you did an incredible job explaining it

well there you have it people, let's get high!

Thank you,great video learned a lot.

I always made j-pole ‘firestick’ antennas with PVC pipe, copper tubing and electrical tape. They are good, low-cost, high gain antennas. Or were before copper prices went up.

I have the TYT UV-390 and love it !!!

Ah, thank you so much for this - brilliant!! You explained all so well. Bless you :)

I would have appreciated a drawing diagram while you were talking. Either way, I learn some new stuff from this video.

Getting higher extends the range for sure. Good radio/antenna info.But there's no measurable curvature. Architects and surveyors make no adjustments for earth curvature. Shocking but true.

Man...I love this channel! Just learned about this the other day. I believe it is also called a counterpoise (is it the same as a ground plane antenna?). Anyway, great videos. Very informative and directly to the point. Thanks so much for sharing.

I just opened the radio and coiled a 1/2 wl wire in the space where the speaker is. works like a charm. also extended the antenna to be 1/2 wl. tuned for max signal strength.

Hi, Radio Prepper! I regularly watch your videos here in the Philippines! I look forward to see more of your video guides in the future! More power to your channel!

Wow. Finally some facts! Merci!

Very helpful. Very easy to understand. Thank you

Really Useful information 😎 Thank you so much 🙏🍻

Good lesson,thanks.

Very useful information... thank you 😁👍

This is why it's best to get your amateur radio license so u can learn al off the cool shit. Mobile radios, ht's and qrp, sdr, psk etc

Very educational! Good video.

Great video thanks for posting 👍

What A Wonderful Explanations ! Really Thankfull For The Video :)

Thanks again for a good video. Ive learned so much from you,in fact more than any other.

Great Intel. Thank you

Cool flag love it

I have another tip for PMR band (446 MHz). For other bands, you would just need to adjust the length. I have a dural tube, 31 cm long, 10 mm thick, but note, must be hollow! Then I have a little plastic tube which I can easily put on the standard anthena. The plastic one should be put on the anthena similarly like you put on gloves on your fingers. The aluminium/dural tube needs to be tied together with the plastic tube, thus, when you put the plastic tube on, the dural tube is placed along with the anthenna and goes parallel. Needs to be as close as possible. I use some ductape for fixing these two together. Do not touch the dural tube when receiving/transmitting, otherwise, you would distune it. This hack can be well used with stock PMR transcievers with non-removable little anthennas and it improves the signal by 1-2 radio, so if you hear somebody 3R, you can get 4-5 R from that.

Great advice. Thanks for sharing!

You make very good tutorial videos! Congratulations! I tried this with a tuned 49 cm long pig tail wire and the result was only a little bit better than originally. (Baofeng UV-9R Plus, with original stock antenna, VHF, 145.500 MHz, 1 W, and a field strength meter.) However when I unscrewed the wire from the body of the radio, and I just squeezed the wire with the back of the radio with my hand, the field strength jumped to double! Can you imagine how I surprised? :) I think in my case this capacitive coupling it was better than direct coupling! Worth to try! :) 73DX! HA0NC, Op.:Zsolt, from Hungary, Debrecen

Thank you for share.

Merci beaucoup. Excellent information. Will adding wire improve the signal of AM on a handheld?

Thank you!

Great video. I've been a fan for a while now an appreciate your videos and website.

Excellent point that isnt brought up alot 🤘

Great tips sir. Thanks. Liked & Subscribed.

Thank you so much

Guys the section about polorization is a knowledge bomb of truth. Ask anyone who works with antennas, keeping consistent polarization is key!

excellent thank you

Wait, the Earth is flat. Maybe a mountain is in the way. Just kidding everyone. Settle down.

Interesting video, thanks

Range = height above local terrain, the "radio path horizon", antenna efficiency in "dbd"", antenna impedance match to transmitter, receiver sensitivity and selectivity, and at the very last, transmitter power. You can have all the power you can carry, but the type of antenna and its height over the surrounding terrain is what makes the difference. I stood at the top of Cheeha Mountain in Alabama, with a one watt amateur VHF transceiver brought up repeaters in four states with the rubber duck antenna alone. On 6 meters with a three element beam horizontally polarized during a band opening, I talked to a ham in Maine with a Yaesu FT- 625 RD at one watt. Height can be everything.

Thank you! You got another subscriber.

In American movies, gangsters shoot from weapons held horizontally. Increase the range of bullets? Walkie-talkies are also kept horizontal. ;-)

Yeah, height and polarization are big, especially height, although the antenna is something that should be given attention, for sure... A true quarter wave whip can improve range immensely, as opposed to the popular rubber duck antennas. In addition, and this is common in relation to using hand-helds inside buildings, one can often improve range to an astonishing degree by simply moving around and finding a sweet spot, this phenomenon presumably being due to the nature of muti-path RF behavior... Anyway, for better range, definitely get a longer antenna!

Merci ! 😎🙏

Great video... Just switching from miles to kilometers units confuse people a little bit. Sure X kms x 1.6 = Y mls, but yet... You've got the point. Thanks.

Great video will try it tomorrow on my anytone as I have problems getting into a repeater. Also need to make a slim Jim which you showed me but need to buy the parts and a NanoVNA. Thank you and happy Christmas. M7TRS 73's

Take my subscription!

What curvature, don't think so!! If anything you missed some vital points, the air is super dense, obstacles and other radio or emf interferences.

Deploy a reusable drone. Hook the radio to existing structure. Old Easter basket. Abandon or retrieve. -- Harry Hamster ;-)

waiting for the flat earters to show up

So if you have that radio in your left hand plus a Quarter Pounder from McD's in your right hand = half wave ? Enjoyed the video, just gave up on all that 1/4 wave stuff.

This is just as smart as standing on your roof

They also wind a coil around to get the length. So the wire length in the antenna is 1/4 or half length, no matter how long it actually is. It is wound. No walkie talkie antennas I know of are whip...

Thank you very much. I'm still looking for an antenna that can be mounted high. Like on the home or vehicle.

I have a client that has some sets of icom radios, they want to be using it over a very long distance. It was initially configured some years ago and they said it was connected to the a mast

Good job. Nice tree!

Good Vid,I can confirm @27.78125mhz with a 4 Watt FM handheld transceiver (President Randy 2 AM\FM CB )and a quarter wave counterpoise on a ring terminal. The stock factory supplied rubber antenna gave me a extra 4 S-Points in receive by a station and 4 S Points back to station. Thats +24dB gain roughly based on 6dB per S-Points give or take. My set of four CB handheld now have these counterpoise wires and easy to fold and deploy in field. Not bad for a piece of wire! Ground plane is def more critical at Higher end of HF band 25-32mhz and Low-band VHF from 30-88 Mhz of radio spectrum. To get the antenna more effective radiation due to compressed antenna generally used on HT. 73's Rob

Thanks

Interesting 😃👀👍

I've always just used the rat tail wire, and put a ring terminal on it. Before screwing the antenna on, place the proper size ring terminal over the antenna connection on the HT, then, screw the antenna on. You can also use 2 wires....one for each band. A fan counterpoise, so to speak.

I have a pair of kids walkie talkies that have better range than a baofeng because the radio works horizonal and vertical somehow. My baofeng is limited by the polarization

SUBSCRIBED.

Eveytime i turn on my car engine the recieve signal of my uv5r scatter and its annoying.. but if i go out in the car the signal is ok

Some advice please; I event direct an ultra marathon. The race is on salt flats i.e. as flat as earth can be. On the flats are water stations for the runners. Base camp/start-finish is at the Southern edge of the salt flats with runners on the salt flats to the North. Further South of the base camp is a 100m high escarpment overlooking the salt flats with no obstructions. On the escarpment I placed a person with a 2W T800 Motorola walkie talkie. Then each water station had its own 2W T800 walkie talkie. The furthest water station from the escarpment walkie talkie was 32kms. Everyone at the water stations on the salt flats could hear the person on the escarpment but the escarpment couldn't hear anyone more than 15 - 20kms away. How do I fix this? I was based at the start finish and was using the escarpment person to relay messages from the water stations to me 1kms forward of the escarpment. Is a repeater set up on the escarpment the solution? More power walkie talkies everywhere or something else?

That is so fantastic i now know what to do with my Baofeng

Very informative video...... :) I have a VHF motorola xir p6600i walkie talkie and I use this in dense forest area. What length will be appropriate for rat tail to increase range?

If the curvature of the earth is an issue then what about those short wave radios picking up stuff from Germany , England etc? According to the spherical trigonometry used by scientists these locations are obscured by many miles of curvature.

The Quansheng UV-R50 radio clip does not connect to the ground on the battery. It would have to be done on the inside between the battery and radio, but theoretically could work.

Is the polarity the same on the radio for SMA male and female connectors? Hope you dont mind me asking.

I think outside the box, the antenna plug looks alot like a TV cable, would it work if you plug in to that would you get a world wide signal, or use a aligator clip like you have it set up and connect the other end to the biggest metal structure you can find, or the copper water pipes

So this is the famous rat tail. I will give it a try!

This is taken right from the Technician test. Why do VHF and UHF radio signals usually travel somewhat farther than the visual line of sight distance between two stations? (T3C11) The Earth seems less curved to radio waves than to light I do agree that holding the antenna properly when using an omni-directional antenna is correct.

Have acquired my call sign and GMRS license, now seeking and debating to either purchase a FRS/GMRS radio or MURS? Seeking advice as participative in Jeep roundabouts jamborees, camping and mountain biking escaped. Seeking suggestions since again assurance getting a suitable means of communication for me, family and friends.

10 kilometers are 6,2 miles :-).

I actually learned something today.

So if you are buying an antenna, do you have to take the length of the radio into consideration?

you said any dual band vhf uhf antenna works on walkie talkies? what's the name of that antenna on video? thanks

10 kilomètres is better than a CB radio! :o

Thank you i just bought some survivor cord and wanted to know how I could I use the included wire

What do you think of the stubby antennas on Amazon, 2 iches high?

I live in the city there's a lot of electrical noise I was thinking about using a loop antenna that instead of attempting to pick up the electrical component of the radio frequency it attempts to detect the magnetic component. I think that will give me a better signal to noise ratio and make it easier for me to detect a weakee signal. Any ideas as to whether an external loop antenna would work better and what size does it need to be

What two way radios do you recommend for long distance? For people without a license

Rat tails... I will figure a way to do this to my uniden walkies. Thanks for the tip.

Hi, Please is it required to connect radios to mast if needed to be used over more than 20 kilometers distance?

I would draw a straight line with two stickman on either side and then draw a bunch of little box houses and buildings in between and you having to get higher above those structures not the curvature of the Earth in a 2 mile range radio 😂

Loved the video! Thanks for the Rat-Tail trick! I never knew :) Hey, by the way, my wife and I can't decide where your accent is from. If you're willing to share, where is your accent from?

Buildings in high is signals reach other side how we fix the problem