Modifications to the Diamond V2000

This kind of antenna has grown in popularity over the last years because it gives you a decent performance and triband capabilities. But its 50 MHz design is far from optimal. Here you can learn how to improve its 50 MHz performance in a very easy way.

The physics behind the V2000 is very simple. A 5/8 antenna on 144 MHz is almost a slightly loaded quarter wave on 50 MHz. So it is not very difficult to modify the matching network to use the lower 5/8 144 MHz element as a 1/4 wave element for 50 MHz. It’s very easy to do. But a quarter wave vertical antenna antenna needs an earth plane to work properly. The V2000 antenna uses a quarter wave radial as a counterpoise for 50 MHz. This is the way its uses to get it working at the three band simultaneously.

There are many antennas working with this principle on the market. Some of them are: Moonraker SQBM-1000, Watson W2000, Comet CX-725 or GP-15 and Diamond V2000. This modification have been performed on a generic V2000, but surely it can be done on all the others as well.