CHAMELEON ANTENNA TD-2 Portable HF Antenna

The new TD-2 Portable HF Antenna includes many product improvements over the original Tactical Dipole including:

• Easier to set up and take down.

• 30% lighter.

• Includes a durable military-style backpack to enhance portability.

The CHA-TD-2 is designed for short to long-range portable communications and is ideal for Amateur Radio operators, Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES), Military Affiliate Radio System (MARS), Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and other scenarios where portability and rapid deployment are essential.

The CHA-TD-2 is configurable to facilitate Near-Vertical Incident Skywave (NVIS) communication and its broadband design supports Automatic Link Establishment (ALE), frequency-hopping, and spread-spectrum modes and will operate from 1.8 - 54 MHz without any adjustments and an antenna tuner is usually not required.

This antenna can be deployed into a variety of useful antenna configurations by using the supplied components. The two primary antenna configurations are the Terminated Inverted “V” and the Terminated Sloping Wire configurations and include a floating Insulator Ring on both Antenna Wires enabling other antenna configurations that require elevation of the Antenna Wire, such as an Inverted “L” antenna. The CHA-TD-2 can be deployed in the field in approximately 10 minutes, using almost any available support, with no masts or guying required.

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When the CHA-TD-2 is deployed in the Terminated Inverted “V” antenna configuration, it acts as a broadband medium to long-range HF antenna and provides good medium range sky wave propagation on all frequencies and long-range skywave propagation above 10 MHz. It will also provide NVIS capability below 10 MHz. Below 10 MHz, the antenna is bidirectional broadside to the antenna. Above 10 MHz, the pattern contains multiple lobes. Bringing the ends of the antenna towards each other to form a “V”, when seen from above, converts the Inverted “V” into a Sloping “V” antenna. This will cause the directivity of the antenna to go from bidirectional to more unidirectional favoring the opening of the “V” on all but the lowest frequencies. An opening angle of 90° will provide good overall performance, but opening angles between 180° and 60° can be used. Larger opening angles increase performance on lower frequencies and smaller angles on higher frequencies. The Terminated Inverted “V” antenna, when raised to 25 feet, and with both the Antenna Wire and Counterpoise Wire elevated, requires 163 feet of space. If needed, the Counterpoise Wire can be laid on the ground, reducing the space required to around 110 feet.

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When the CHA-TD-2 is deployed in the Sloping Wire antenna configuration it acts as a broadband, short to medium range HF antenna. It is designed to provide acceptable ground wave and skywave propagation. This configuration is predominately omnidirectional on lower frequencies, becoming more unidirectional towards the low end of the antenna as the frequency increases. Positioning of the ground Counterpoise Wire also produces directivity towards the end of the Counterpoise Wire on higher frequencies. The Terminated Sloping Wire requires one support and is a good general-purpose antenna that is excellent for hasty deployment or when there is insufficient time or space for deployment of the Terminated Inverted “V” antenna. It should be raised to a height of around 25 feet for best performance. When raised to 25 feet, the Terminated Sloping Wire antenna requires 55 feet of space for installation. One Terminating Resistor Unit and one Antenna Wire are not used in this configuration.

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SWR is typically less than 2.0:1 and subject to frequency and configuration.

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Additional Features and Specifications

• Frequency Range: 1.8-54.0 MHz continuous - Antenna Tuner is Usually Not Required.

• Power: 100 W continuous duty cycle (AM, FM, RTTY, and all digital modes), 250W CW, and 500W PEP SSB.

• Water Resistant equivalent to IPX-4 (not laboratory tested)

• Antenna Connection: UHF PL-259.

• Length: 170 ft. (maximum), 60 ft. (minimum).

• Space Required: 163 ft. (maximum), 55 ft. (minimum).