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New POTA Antenna for 2025

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Written by: Gerry, KG8RRY

Category: Gear

Published: 22 March 2025

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New POTA Antenna for 2025- POTA PERformer

 

As we approach the month of April there are many ham operators who are getting ready for the POTA season. Fellow ham operator KJ6ER, of Campbell, California has designed a new antenna for POTA use that has become a source of interest for several industry leaders, including Michael Martens, KB9VBR, who is an antenna expert and operates a J-Pole manufacturing business.

Martens says of the POTA PERformer, "The POTA PERformer or Portable Elevated Resonant antenna is a vertical antenna for 40 through 6 meters sitting on an elevated tripod or support with feed point about five feet off the ground and two elevated tuned radials. It’s billed as a fantastic portable antenna, easy to pack, fast to deploy, very effective and highly efficient. And after using this antenna extensively for the last week, I can attest to these claims.”

POTA PERformer is the antenna's name, and the PER part of its name is referring to these characteristics- portable, elevated, and resonant. This new portable antenna is an elevated vertical antenna for 40M-6M sitting on a tripod (or an extended ground spike) with the feed point about 5-6’ off the ground and two elevated tuned radials. 

Its creator, Greg Mihran, told us, "This is a fantastic portable antenna – easy to pack, fast to deploy, very effective and highly efficient. And it is simple for you to build and deploy yourself!” Mihran goes on to say, "I have computer modeled the antenna extensively in 4NEC2 (including the tripod) and calculated optimal whip and elevated tuned radial lengths. You will have to experiment in your own surroundings to finetune these, but I typically get better than 1.1:1 SWR on all bands. Its creator, I have found through my modeling and real experience in the field, this elevated vertical is more efficient than any ground-mounted version I have ever used! You can certainly deploy this type of portable antenna for 40M with a coil (like the WRC Sport Forty) and get similar results but elevating two 33’ radials is a bit cumbersome in the field. Alternatively, you can combine the two 20M 16.5’ radials end-to-end with two fiberglass rods to have one elevated 33’ 40M radial (that is what I do on POTA activations).”

The two elevated tuned radials are 90 degrees apart to provide some directionality within the 90-degree span (about 6-12dB or up to 2 S-units). If you prefer an omnidirectional radiation pattern, you can simply place the two elevated radials 180 degrees apart.  

Milan added, “Having your tuned radials elevated dramatically reduces near-field ground losses and increases gain versus a purely ground-mounted vertical with ground-coupled radials. I regularly get comments like ‘you're the loudest signal on the band’ from hunters. It is also a great DX antenna when conditions are right with a very low angle of radiation component around 12-15 degrees.”

I am attaching a file that includes the build instructions here. And I am attaching the link to a video Martens did about an activation using this antenna here. 

If you're looking for a good quality portable antenna that is a proven performer this may be the one. If you choose to build the POTA PERformer please let us know how it "PERformed" for you!

 

Best 73,

-Gerry Sorensen, KG8RRY