Field Testing a center tuned UHF Smiley stubby duck
Channel: Mountain Parameters
Date: 2020-10-23

We don't use 2 watt radios very often. But the TYT TC-568 2W UHF programmable radio is handy for users that need a 'tailgunner' unit. Tailgunner's are typically within line of sight, and are not far way from the main guide. 

As seen in our previous videos, we found that with the TC-568, the stock antenna can give you a range of up to 4km at 2 watts. After recently getting a shipment of Smiley UHF stubby ducks, and re-designing our UHF counterpoise to increase capacitance, I was curious to see what difference it might make to the range of the radio if we replaced the stock antenna with a proper center tuned aftermarket antenna, in this case the Smiley UHF Stubby duck.

Before we got started with the field test, I went to the bench and had a look at standing wave radios for this antenna with/and without, counterpoise. For this I used a vector network analyser to establish some metrics that would serve to give substance to my expectations for the subsequent field test.

Those expectations were exceeded when I found the small little stubby duck more than doubled the line of sight range of the stock antenna on 2 watts. The results seemed conclusive enough that going forward, I will not hesitate to recommend that model for all tailgunner applications. The further need for counterpoise would depend on individual circumstances where signal strength and quality needed to be extended as far as possible.

Timeline: 
00:00 A overview of all the Smiley UHF antennas, and our UHF counterpoise
00:15 An  overview of the TYT TC-568 2W UHF radio
00:50 Smiley 1/4 wave UHF duck
00:56 Smiley 270A tri-band tunable telescoping steel antenna
01:06 Smiley UHF Stubby Duck
01:20 UHF Counterpoise adapter
01:43 Bench testing Smiley UHF Stubby duck VSWR with no counterpoise
03:18 Bench testing Smiley UHF Stubby duck VSWR after adding the counterpoise adapter
04:30 Terrain overview of field test area using Google Earth
07:05 Furthest extent of stock antenna, as compared to furtherst extent of aftermarket antenna - illustrated on map.
08:08 The tailgunner package illustrated on order form
08:20 Fetching water, Bryant Creek (updated version with no horses)
08:45 End roll, disclaimer

Order Form: 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1N_mu7ZghUao9HmiUUJiaQuqA8kIk8m-NdMrz7GjlGy0