Torpedo QHA.01 GNSS Screw Mount Antenna - Taoglas

Torpedo QHA.01 External GPS/GLONASS/Galileo/BeiDou Permanent Mount Antenna

The QHA.01 L-band quadrifilar helix antenna is a high-performance passive L-band antenna for demanding transceiver applications. The wide gain and axial ratio beamwidth provide excellent reception and signal fidelity across the sky.

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The QHA.01 is ready for outdoor industrial and commercial usage with full -40 to +85°C temperature rating and IP67 ingress protection.

I had used my FT-897 exclusively on HF, and only found myself on VHF and UHF after buying my Wouxun handheld. Thereafter I finally began considering what kind of VHF/UHF station antennas I should build for my QTH.

After looking at various dualband antennas like the VHF/UHF groundplane antenna presented in the ARRL Handbook, and the ubiquitous J-poles with their various improvements for dualband operation, I got to thinking about satellites. There's still an easy FM bird or two up there, and of course the ISS. Since the local VHF and UHF repeaters are very strong at my QTH, any antenna at all would do for accessing them. So I might just as well optimize my antennas for sky coverage, and try my luck with the sats—I'd still be able to work the repeaters just fine.

Eggbeater or QHA?

Eggbeater antennas are very popular for amateur satellite use, and have the additional advantage of being able to switch between right-hand and left-hand circular polarization (RHCP and LHCP). But having used QHAs for various uses such as GPS reception and telemetry transmission from an amateur rocket, I was already familiar with them and their radiation patterns and polarization characteristics. Also, the QHA's polarization remains circular down to the horizon, whereas the Eggbeater becomes horizontally polarized—not so hot for the vertically polarized terrestrial repeaters!

Also, QHAs look totally cool.

Thus I chose to build a pair of QHAs, one for 2 m and one for 70 cm. A diplexer is of course needed to connect both to the single antenna connector of a dualband radio, but these are relatively cheap (and I suppose quite easy to make as well). I finally went for a triplexer (a Diamond MX-N) which also includes the 23 cm band, just in case. For the time being, the 23 cm port is populated by a 50-ohm termination.

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RHCP or LHCP?

This is where an Eggbeater scores over a QHA—a relay-switchable phasing line can be used to switch polarization between RHCP and LHCP. With the QHA, I had to choose one. I arbitrarily chose RHCP, since that's what weather satellites use (who knows, I might try receiving those some day, as 137 MHz isn't that far from the 2 m amateur band). Amateur satellites mostly use linear polarization, so choice between RHCP and LHCP isn't critical.

Since the structure of the QHA is quite hollow, I would very much have liked to build the smaller 70 cm antenna inside the larger 2 m one. I did a lot of simulations on this, and finally decided it wasn't worth the trouble. I built them separately, and mounted them on top of each other. Below are some notes on the construction of these antennas, and here I've outlined what I learned from the simulations. There's also a program I've used to make NEC2 models of QHAs.

The QHA is composed of two wire loops, one slightly larger than the other, twisted into helices. The feedpoint is at the top, where the feedline connects to both loops. One loop is slightly above resonance, the other just below. Thus one loop is slightly inductive, the other one slightly capacitive. This causes a phase difference between the two, leading to circular polarization being radiated. When fed in parallel, the opposite reactances cancel each other, and the whole antenna appears 50 ohm resistive.

I used 3/16" copper-nickel brake tubing to make the helices. According to John Coppens's Quadrifilar online calculator, this tubing diameter is ideal for the 70 cm version, but too thin for 2 m. What "ideal" means here is still a mystery. This tubing was nice and easy to work with, and easily available, which is more important. To connect the feedline, I made small printed circuit board connection plates (one per antenna) to which I soldered the coax, and attached the helices with screw terminals.

The screw terminals came from 30-amp break-off screw terminal blocks. These are known as "sugar cubes" (sokeripala) in Finnish, I've seen them referred to as "choco blocks" also. I cut away the plastic insulation, tinned the flat surface of each terminal, fabricated and pre-tinned circuit boards, and soldered everything together. I had to grind down the terminals a bit in order for the whole thing to fit inside the 50 mm sewer pipe I was going to use as the body of the antenna.

Now the coax feedline was soldered to the feedpoint PCB. A cable tie was tightened onto the coax some way down from the feedpoint. This is to relieve stress, so the coax isn't torn off the PCB when I tighten up the windings of the balun. I applied some RF-conductive anti-corrosive goop (Butternut "Butter it's not") on the insides of the terminals.

Next the whole PCB was fitted inside the sewer pipe, the helix ends were pushed into the screw terminals, and the screws were tightened via the top end of the pipe. Which helix connects to which terminal is crucial! Getting this wrong will point all radiation into the ground, rather than skyward. Click the image on the right to see how the loops should be connected for skyward-pointing right-hand circular polarization (and yes, the helices in a right-hand polarized QHA are supposed to be left-hand spirals!). The image depicts the connection plate PCB, the black patterns are the copper foils. The coax center and braid can be connected to the foils either way, it does not matter. Here I explain how the direction of the helices and the configuration of the feedpoint affect the radiation direction and polarization.

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