If you’d like to make your GMRS or amateur radio HT (handy-talkie or handheld transceiver) work better and have more range, a simple hack that costs less than a dollar, called a tiger tail or counterpoise, just might make a noticeable difference in performance*.
*Spoiler Alert – This hack will not result in a dramatic increase in range for most GMRS handhelds, yet it might help yours a very small amount.
The standard quarter-wave antenna on your GMRS handheld is probably being deprived of its full power because the top part, the driven element, is missing its other half, called the ground plane. In this post we’ll show you how to rectify this situation by matching these up, so that you can get the most RF power and increase range from your GMRS or amateur handheld radio or HT.
Do Tiger Tail Counterpoises For Handheld GMRS Radios Really Work?
We’ve been using this simple homemade range booster – which cost less than a dollar to make – on our GMRS handhelds for a while now and we think they do help. Please don’t take our word if these work or not, just do a quick search and you’ll find lots of amateur radio operators and radio hobbyists who swear that these can increase a handheld two-way radio’s performance. (You may also see a few online forum posts declaring that using a counterpoise didn’t help radio performance at all, for what it’s worth).
When You Need a Boost – The range of a typical, five watt GMRS handheld is largely determined by line of sight, with UHF radio waves unable to travel very far beyond the horizon line. Things like trees, buildings, fog and rain can affect the range of your GMRS or amateur HT and sometimes a little more radiated power can help your signal reach past these obstacles.
A counterpoise, tiger tail, rat tail or stinger as some call them, is nothing more than a piece of wire, cut to the proper length to create the other half of a dipole antenna that your radio lacks. If you turn the diagram below sideways, that’s basically what your handheld radio should theoretically be using for best performance, a balance dipole, with each half being equal in length.
The Theory Behind a Tiger Tail or Counterpoise
A GMRS handheld’s antenna is an imperfect version of the half-wave dipole, as seen in the illustration above. Your VHF/UHF handy talkie’s (HT) stubby little quarter-wave antenna makes up only half of what’s needed for it to be efficient. The rest of the missing dipole antenna must come from whatever metal is inside the circuit board and body of your radio. When dealing with compact, GMRS handhelds like the Baofeng UV-9G or UV-5G, there isn’t enough length of materials inside them to use for this, therefore reducing the antenna system’s efficiency.
What Do You Have to Lose?
This simple device costs only about a dollar to make. We don’t have a set of expensive field signal strength testing equipment like the gentleman who made the excellent video below does, and ours may not be perfectly tuned, but with it attached and when using a Nagoya NA-701G quarter wave antenna, held in the same spot at the same position, we noticed we can hit certain repeaters that we couldn’t before. (This was our real world, but very unscientific test and your mileage may vary.)
If a situation ever arises where one needed it, an emergency, for example, having a stronger signal from your GMRS or amateur radio handheld could be well worth the minimal cost in parts. If you’re simply looking for a small boost to your HT’s performance and aren’t expecting a miracle, you probably won’t be disappointed with adding a counterpoise.
How Much More GMRS Radio Range Might You Gain By Using a Counterpoise?
We’ve used longer versions of these counterpoises on our HT, a dual-band Baofeng UV-5R, and they seem to be most effective on the VHF bands, when cut to about 19-21″ long. A counterpoise for UHF (GMRS channels) is much shorter and manageable, but probably not quite as much of a helper as a longer one would be on VHF frequencies. (A tiger tail counterpoise should also work well on MURS radios, which are VHF.)
Our own “feels like” range boost we from using a counterpoise on our Baofeng GMRS handheld is perhaps 5%. This slight difference is fine with us, especially since these are so cheap to make. We recently used one of these on our Baofeng UV-9G on top of Colorado’s Mount Elbert, (14,440‘ elevation) with both a 5/8 wave Abbree AR-152 tactical antenna and a Nagoya NA-771G and could hit repeaters over 100 miles away, though this was due to the line of sight factor from this elevation, not any boost from the counterpoise.
Tuned vs. Un-tuned Counterpoise – An excellent video can be found below, explaining how a properly tuned tiger tail counterpoise works better than an un-tuned one, and when done right, can increase the radiated signal from a handheld as measured by a field strength meter.
How We Made a Tiger Tail For our Baofeng UV-9G
Our Baofeng GMRS radio has an SMA male connector on the radio and SMA female on the antenna, making attaching a ring lug at the base not as practical as radios with SMS female connections. Instead we attached our counterpoise to a screw on the body of the radio after verifying it had continuity to the antenna’s ground side.
Make Your Own Counterpoise For GMRS Radios – If you have a soldering iron, some wire and a terminal ring lug on hand, it’s really easy to just make your own counterpoise for a handheld GMRS radio.) Here’s how:
Finding The Length of The Counterpoise For GMRS Frequencies
To find the length you need for the missing half of a handheld radio’s 1/4 wave rubber antenna, we used a handy calculator that can be found at the link above. For GMRS channel 19 or 462.650, a good middle point frequency, one half of our missing half-wave dipole comes out to 6 1/8″, a very manageable length for our tiger tail counterpoise. We cut our wire short, at 6″, with the connector making up the rest of the length.
(Hamuniverse.com recommends adding between 5% to this calculated length for best results. This might matter more on VHF, since we haven’t noticed any real difference in performance using an extra 0.3 inches on UHF.)
Making Your Own Low-Tech, GMRS Handheld Radio Booster
There are several videos online showing how to make a counterpoise for your handheld amateur or GMRS radio, each with slight variations. To make one for GMRS frequencies basically you just need to attach a 6″ length of flexible (stranded) copper wire (between 14-16 AWG) to any point on your Baofeng or other model GMRS handheld that has continuity to the ground side of your antenna connection (the outer part). To find this point, we used a multi-meter, set on the continuity setting to give us a “beep” if the circuit is being completed.
On our UV-9G we rarely use the belt clip, so we just removed the little plastic piece and attached our counterpoise wire there.
- Step 1. Find a screw with electrical continuity to the antenna’s ground side – We know the spot above on our Baofeng UV-9G will work, since the circuit is completed between these two points. Because there’s some internal circuitry between these two points, attaching it here instead of right next to the antenna might create slightly more counterpoise length than we need, but that’s OK.
- Step 2. Cut a 6″ length of 14 to 16 gauge wire and using a soldering iron, attach a terminal ring lug type connector. (High temperature ring lugs are more durable) A thin flat washer can be used if your radio’s screw is too small for the ring terminal lug.
- Step 3. Cover with shrink wrap and seal using a heat gun.
- Step 4. Attach to radio using the screw from step 1. (You may need to sue a small, thin washer if the hole on your ring connector is too large for the screw.)
For these to work most efficiently, they should be held 180 degrees away from your antenna.
Variations of the Tiger Tail Counterpoise For Handheld Two-Way Radios
Depending on your radio’s antenna connection, you can use a larger 3/8″ terminal rig lug connector around the base of the antenna instead of attaching it to a screw on the body of the radio. Unfortunately this method doesn’t always work on some Baofeng GMRS radios that have a SMA male connection on the radio.
The Bottom Line on Tiger Tail Counterpoises For HT’s
The tiger tail, rat tail or stinger counterpoise for GMRS and amateur radio handhelds seems to be an inexpensive way to boost performance. They don’t always deliver the same results for everyone though, which is probably due to tuning issues, but they’re definitely worth trying if you’re looking to get the maximum performance from your GMRS handheld.
You can see more GMRS range boosting tips on our post “How to Increase GMRS Range”
Disclaimer: You may not see any difference in performance from your GMRS handheld using a tiger tail or counterpoise. Your radio’s warranty could be voided by performing the modifications described above.
This post may include affiliate links to products we recommend. There is never any extra charge to our readers for using these.
Resources:
Half-Wave Dipole Calculator – https://kc2our.org/?page_id=228
Hamuniverse.com – HT Antenna Modification For Increased Performance. https://hamuniverse.com/htantennamod.html
