First, and simplest, is make a "Tiger Tail". This is simply a piece of thin hook up wire that attaches under your antenna, 19” or so long. This provides a basic counterpoise for your stock HT antenna. Simply get a 19” piece of insulated wire, strip off an inch or so, and then partially unscrew your antenna. Hook the exposed wire around the antenna base and screw it back down-you then have a simple ground plane antenna. This is an old trick and it does boost your signal in most cases. The exposed wire must not touch the center pin of the antenna, only the threaded portion. Remove it after use if you find it too cumbersome.
Second-get a headset! And I don't mean an earbud/microphone of the type that comes with a typical Baofeng transceiver, I'm talking a REAL headset. Too expensive? No way! Heil makes a dual headset with boom microphone for $33.95 at HRO, for Yaesu, Baofeng/Kenwood and Icom HT's. Part number is HTHDK for Baofeng/Kenwood, HTHDI for Icom and HTHDY for Yaesu. These work really well, and have an inline PTT switch. I bought one of these when I worked the Finish Line Med tent at the Road Race years ago and the Race had extremely loud music and a very loud announcer close by. It made all the difference and was virtually hands-free.
Third, invest in a longer antenna. Diamond makes some great HT antennas, like the SRH77 series. Be sure to buy the right one for your connector type. See Diamond's website: Diamond® Antenna - HT Antennas (diamondantenna.net) The Nagoya NA-771 is another good HT antenna.
Finally, to prevent the all too familiar “Stuck Mic.” issues we often have at our public service events, don't use VOX while operating at these events. Check your external microphone regularly to be sure the switch is not stuck closed by an article of clothing, etc. Also, most HT's have a transmission time-out feature. It's often set to “off” by default but check your user's manual, you should be able to set it to 1 minute, 2 minutes etc. Since most transmissions are rarely that long in a public event setting, it should not bother your operations but the transmitter would shut down automatically after the prescribed time and not hang up the repeater.
Henry K1WCC
Falmouth/Cape Cod ARES
k1wcc@comcast.net
