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Today in the world of Ham...

Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2017 9:58 pm
by TexasJohnBoy
Today, I made a J-Pole antenna out of 1/2" copper measured for 146MHz. (http://www.hamuniverse.com/jpole.html) I didn't make a balun or choke for it yet, but with the J-Pole on about 4ft of PVC so the elements were about 6ft off the ground I was hitting repeaters about 23 miles away! With my Baofeng Tech UV-5X3 using a Diamond 17" whip + 19" counterpoise, I would have a hard time hitting a repeater 16 miles away.

This is my first antenna, so I didn't check it with a SWR meter yet... hopefully will be making a meter out of an arduino before long...

After getting built and hooked up, no one was listening to the repeaters tonight, but I did get clear acknowledgment beeps.

What did you to today in the world of ham?

Re: Today in the world of Ham...

Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 10:42 am
by cheezit
I have a 3dfl that I built, it works well. It's a great desk antenna
I also have a moxon that I built also works great indoors.
Both take up less space and allow you some null of the back or can be used vertical.
Fun little projects