For local work a vertical antenna works fine. Here's an example:

quarter wave vertical

Vertical antennas on bands like 2 meters and 70 cm are used for local qso´s and for working via repeaters. If you want to work longer distance stations you will need to build or buy a beam. A beam is an antenne with one reflector at the back, a dipole and then followed by a number of directors. The length of the boom and number of directors make the gain of the antenna.
Dipoles on higher bands are not matched to coax by a ferrite balun or via a antenna tuner, but via a coaxial balun or a gamma match. There are more variaties like a T-match but they are not often used. The gamma match is shown in the diagram of the Yagi beam.

Never use open feeder line (300 or 450 Ohms) like on HF because the losses are to high!
A folded dipole has an impedance of 300 Ohms and needs to be matched via a coaxial balun as shown in the picture below.
4:1 balun

The length of the balun is the wave length divided by 2. Example: 2 meter band frequency 144.300 MHz / 2 = 72,15 cm. The coax has a shortening factor around 0,66 so the result should be multiplied x 0,66 ... 72,15 x 0,66 = 47,62 cm length.

VHF Yagi beam example:

VHF antenna

On the HF, 6 and 2 meter band you can use PL259 connectors. It is always better to use thicker coax like RG213. On 70 cm coax like RG58U gives noticable losses and the use of BNC connectors is advised.

Last updated 11.9.2001