For our July Fourth Safety Watch this year, I used my dual-band mobile antenna on a ground plane mount on a camera tripod. I’d purchased a Nagoya GPK-01 NMO Ground Plane Kit ($28) to test my NMO mobile antenna, because my mag mount seemed flaky.

As I was drifting off to sleep one night, I thought that the 1/4-20 screw on my camera tripod might fit the holes on the ground plane kit. It did, so now I have a robust, free-standing, dual-band antenna for em-comm use.

The antenna is a Comet SBB-5NMO with 3 dB of gain on 2 m. Not a flamethrower, but a solid antenna when used with a good ground plane.

The radials unscrew from the mount, so the ground plane kit packs up small.

Our station was up on a hill, so we had great line of sight to the whole valley. We ran a mobile rig (Yaesu FT-8900R) at 50 W from a battery, so we had a great signal. We could also hear the other stations clearly, so our station was net control.

The only thing I’ll change next time is to use 1/4-20 wingnuts instead of regular nuts. I might paint them orange, too. I was sure that I would drop a nut in the grass and never find it.

And yes, that is a classic Gitzo Reporter aluminum tripod. If needed, I could extend the center column to get the radials above eye level.