Antennas¶
There are a huge number of antennas available, commercially as well as DIY that can get you on the air.
V/UHF¶
For VHF, it's quite common to use a 'white stick' colinear at home - they generally buy you a few dB over a dipole to help your range and are built to handle permanent, exposed installation for a number of years.
For multiband antennas like most colinears on the market, you can run two bands simultaneously - you need a unit that interfaces multiple radios to the single antenna known as a diplexer. This will prevent RF from/to other bands from running down the coax to damage your radios.
In my station, I use a Diamond V-2000 with an MX-2000 triplexer.
HF¶
The most basic system is a dipole of some variety.