OK Preppers, The Most Critical Piece = The Antenna! Tattoo that on a significant part of your anatomy. Your radio no matter how expensive has to have a good antenna for maximum performance.
Think about it as you are trying to get on the air where ostensibly there is no power, the world is in turmoil, the regular antenna systems are on the ground, and the 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse is here. [The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse are from the Bible. The Fifth Horseman is suggested as the Orange Horse and represents a person simultaneously declaring Marshall Law and President for Life.]
But your very 1st problem is getting on the air and determining a "how bad is it" status. That act requires having an antenna in place. The very first question regarding an antenna should be who the contact matrix is. Local communications likely would have greater import over some inane (stupid) ARRL QSO or DX party.
Some antennas like the NVIS (Near Vertical Incident Skywave) ones are quite good for local communications out to 200 to 400 miles. The Linear Loaded Dipole is another option. But structures to support dipoles simply are not there and a NVIS may be a problem. Whereas a Vertical Antenna mounted on a camera tripod with an elevated ground plane, opens the range up with low angle radiation. Simplicity, and ease of deployment by a single person rank high on the desirability list.
For the long-haul communications, an elevated Vertical delivers the low angle radiation. The antenna shown below is a folding manpack antenna 285 CM (9.35 Feet) and folds into sections no longer than 12 Inches.
My Vertical setup includes a tapped base loading coil that on one end mounts on short camera tripod and the whip connects to the other end of the coil. Three wires each 32 feet long connect to the ground side of the coax and form a counterpoise. A "T Match" antenna tuner at the radio perks up the system. BTW the interface to the Tripod was the Jeep Wrangler Bumper Mount I fabricated on my Milling Machine. It has the 3-24 Fitting built in.
Going back to the NVIS, there are telescoping masts that would offset the lack of vertical structures, but these can be expensive. See the 46' DX Engineering pole.
DXE-TFK46-HD ($300)
There are of course many other possibilities such a loading a rain gutter. But as I explained to a brand-new Extra recently who couldn't load his rain gutter... It has to be a metal gutter not plastic. That is what happens when there is only 45 Minutes between no license and an Extra Class.
Them that know, survive.
73's
Pete N6QW
