It was the first antenna I erected as a newly-hatched technician class ham, a J-Pole (essentially a type of end-fed Zepp) I made out of .75" copper pipe. I built it exactly to the dimensions shown in the ARRL Handbook but, no matter how I tried to change it, I could not get the thing to resonate within the 2m band. Even after adding an extra two feet to the overall length in a moment of desperation, it was always resonant at 160MHz or above regardless of where I adjusted the tuning.
After a number of attempts, I eventually gave up trying to fix it. I just ran my rig at low power and lived with it—until today, when I finally decided to do something about it. I took it apart, cleaned it up and rebuilt it into a "Super J-Pole," which is a co-linear 5/8 wave vertical with matching stub and a 1/2 wave section mounted above it, the two sections tied together with a 1/2 wave phasing section.
It took about four hours overall, which was longer than I expected, but the fucker works like a champ. It actually resonates at 146MHz and, theoretically, has 6dB gain over a 1/4 wave ground plane vertical.
Goddamn it, I love this hobby.
Those same J-Pole dimensions are still shown in the current Handbook, BTW. What the fuck, ARRL?
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