Many RASON members truly enjoyed last month's collinear antenna. This month I decided to build a 2 meter 5/4 wave antenna. This antenna is unique in that it is enclosed entirely in 3/4" PVC which makes the design a little more complicated. The primary problem is that PVC tubing has a significant velocity factor which causes RF to slow down. This means that an antenna encased in PVC will normally need to have it's physical length reduced by about 19%. To further complicate the design, a 5/4 wave antenna's impedance has a highly inductive component which must be tuned out to get a good match. Fortunately, the design in Figure 1 solves all of these problems.
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