After seeing a few people on Twitter with a a shortened Arrow Antenna for satellite operations (colloquially called a “Shorty Arrow”), I decided to try to build my own. Rather than three elements on 2m and seven elements on 70cm as with the regular Arrow Antenna, the shorty arrow has two elements on 2m and four elements on 70cm. This results in a more compact and lightweight antenna at the expense of gain, particularly on 70cm. In my experience, this limits the antennas use down near the horizon especially if you have foliage in the way, and it is definitely a bit more of a challenge to get into some sats. Still, I’ve made plenty of FM contacts using 5w radios and this antenna even on weekend passes. I particularly like using this setup when I travel somewhere via airplane as this is small enough to fit in a carry-on bag.
Since you’ll need the antenna elements anyway, I suggest you buy a full size Arrow if you don’t have one already and just share the elements between them. It also saves you having to bother with measuring and centering the holes you drill; just clamp the full sized Arrow to the shorty to drill like I describe below.
What you’ll need:
-2m driven element
-2m reflector element
-70cm driven element
-70cm reflector element
-70cm 1st director element
-70cm 2nd director element
–approximately 2 feet of 3/4″ square aluminum tubing – I found four feet of this at Menards for around $10
-handgrip of some sort. I used a foam grip from a garden trowel I found at the dollar store
Tools:
–11/64″ drill bit
-hack saw
-metal file
-hand drill
-a couple clamps
The build process is actually really simple and doesn’t require any measuring:
- Remove all the antenna elements and the hand grip from the full size Arrow Antenna.
- Take the square aluminum tubing and clamp it flush against the Arrow Antenna. Make sure you don’t place the clamps over any holes.
- Use the Arrow Antenna as a drill guide by drilling through its element holes and into the square aluminum tubing with the 11/64″ drill bit. This allows you to easily drill with the same spacing as the original Arrow Antenna without have to measure and center the holes. Do not drill through the holes that are usually hidden behind the hand grip on the Arrow Antenna – these are tapped for a 1/4-20 tripod mount.
- Remove the clamps, rotate the tubing and Arrow Antenna so the blank side of the tubing aligns with the other band’s element holes on the Arrow Antenna, re-clamp, and drill the holes for the other band in the same way.
- Using the hacksaw, cut the excess length off the aluminum tubing.
- Use a metal file to round off the ends of the tubing and remove any burs around the holes.
- Slide the hand grip on your new Shorty Arrow Antenna and install the elements.
- Go work some sats!