Terry wrote:

Thanks, John. The reason that I'm looking for something other than a
standard 1/4 wave antenna is that I have one of those now, and it
isn't working. I know nothing about antennas other than what I've
read on the 'net, but I've been told that the location of mine isn't
the best. It's on the wing root fairing, and from what I've been
told, this doesn't give it the most optimized ground plane. I read of
a case where a guy with a PA-11 had the same problem, and
installoptimumfolded dipole inside the fuselage and it worked great. I
thought
maybe the folded dipole or a copper tape system might help me out
without moving the antenna around and drilling all kinds of holes in
the sheet metal. All I need is something for communications with my
handheld in order to talk to the occasional tower--nothing heavy duty
at all. I'm open to any suggestions.

Thanks again,

Terry
Read Colins reply,
also you might try just taping a 1/2 wave dipole to the inside of your
windshield near the bottom so it's not interrupting your view. Put the
middle of the dipole in the mid point of the windshield and feed the coax
straight back use a double sided sticky cable tie block on the edge of the
dash to cable tie the coax to for a strain relief and see if that works. If
your windshield isn't wide enough to fit the dipole just bend the ends up
alongside the edges of the windshield. Yes I know that's not optimum but
hams have been doing it for eons and it will work. If you want you can
mount the center on either side of the windshield with the middle centered
top to bottom to get vertical polarity.
John