Yep, longer is better, but perhaps not as portable - I'm just tryin' to
get these glider crews decent communications as cellphone coverage is
relatively poor beyond Marfa Airport, and there are very few airports
around. So a crew at Marfa should be close by when the pilot gets low
and needs to know where the wires / fences / gates are located. Good
crew underneath a pilot out here can save a glider!

My Dad (Fritz Compton W4LJH) had very long wire ham antennas (extended
zep, etc.) on our gliderport near Miami. He hated coax especially in
the Florida humidity so he and I made "open wire feeders" like he did
as a kid in the 1920's. He also wound his own antenna tuners - would
check power by tuning for the strongest spark off the coils with a lead
pencil! Classic.

Dad was one of the first to use ham radio in his LK-10A sailplane at
the 1946 Nationals in Elmira, NY and in 1947 at Wichita Falls, TX.. He
would transmit one-way to my Mother on the road. He painted his
contest number on top of the trailer so he knew it was her. More than
once he told her to pass a slow truck on a long uphill grade - trucker
thought she was crazy - but Dad had told her "all clear".

Educating folks about crew car antenna tuning (by length) and seeking
efficiency with good SWR is important. In the 1960's my Dad built
homemade 1/4 wave VHF crew car antennas out of a wire and a flattened
tin can that we would slam into the top of the car door. Simple, and
we had close to 1 to 1 Standing Wave Ratio for 123.3. We had a simple
three letter code so he could tell me where he was on course and his
optimism about the sky ahead. It worked extremely well.

So thanks for the advice. As my Dad would say, "Lots o' watts is OK,
but good radio is mostly in the antenna." He is 90 years old - living
in Texas - but his signal is fading.

Burt Compton
Marfa Gliders, west Texas
www.flygliders.com