Portable Antennas for POTA and SOTA Beginners

You've packed the radio, charged the battery, and hiked to the summit or found your park bench. None of that matters if your antenna doesn't work.Portable Antennas for POTA and SOTA is a complete, beginner-friendly foundation in choosing, building, deploying, and troubleshooting the antennas that make Parks on the Air and Summits on the Air activations succeed - written for licensed amateur radio operators ready to move from the home station into the field. Inside, you'll learn how to: - Understand the radio-wave and antenna theory behind every design choice, from impedance and standing wave ratio to propagation and takeoff angle- Choose and build the right antenna for the job: half-wave dipoles, end-fed half-waves, verticals, loops, NVIS wires, multiband designs, and VHF/UHF antennas for summit work- Match, feed, and support an antenna in the field with the right coax, baluns, tuners, masts, and improvised supports- Pack a complete, weight-conscious portable kit, then select a site and deploy efficiently once you arrive- Navigate the POTA and SOTA programs, plan an activation, and run confident on-the-air technique- Diagnose and fix the antenna and station problems that show up under real field conditionsAcross twenty-nine chapters, the book moves from foundational wave physics straight through to a field troubleshooting checklist, building genuine understanding rather than handing beginners a shopping list. Its core premise carries through every chapter: a well-understood simple antenna, properly matched and reasonably well placed, will outperform an elaborate one nobody understands - every time. If you're a licensed ham ready for your first activation, or you're tired of antennas that never quite perform the way the reviews promised, this is the field guide that gets you there.Get your copy of Portable Antennas for POTA and SOTA and start building the station that gets you on the air.