Posted on 02/12/2021 5:47:01 PM PST by tbw2
UK Microwave Group (UKuG) member Kent Britain WA5VJB talks about 'Care and Feeding of Yagi’ Antennas' - including some interesting ways to doing Yagi’s and myths of Yagi Stacking. - Recorded from the online UKuG talk on Wednesday 10 February 2021
Care and feeding of yagi antennas by WA5VJB
My elmer has a huge one 40 ft up. I only have a dipole swinging from two pine trees.
Interesting. I’m sitting here with my ham study manual open and reading some responses to a question I posted at the QRZ.com forum.
Thanks for pinging me on this.
Thanks for the post
73s
I just started this hobby. I got a baofeng talkie and started taking practice tests. 89% or more every time. Looking to test asap. I can’t hear anything on it even with Chirp programming and living less than two miles from a repeater. I’m looking to get a jpole antenna but I’m a noob
If this is a ham ping list, please add me.
If you have tone squelch enabled it has to have the correct tone frequency programmed to receive (usually a number from 88.5 Hz to a little over 200 Hz), or just make sure tone squelch is off.
Tone squelch is an additional type of squelch besides carrier squelch, the adjustment you set to stop the hiss from the speaker when there is no signal. Tone squelch keeps the speaker quiet until it hears the right sub audible tone.
Sub audible means it’s a low pitched hum that is too low to hear in the speaker, but the circuit detects it to turn on the speaker.
It’s used so you only hear the repeater you want to and not any other ones that may be on the same radio frequency. Not really essential on a hand held, but more useful on a base station with better antenna that may be able to hear multiple repeaters, or if band opens up.
I’m 10-12 miles from a repeater with a Wouxan handheld equivalent to your Baofeng and get strong reception on 2M. If there’s actually traffic on the repeater (such as automated announcements or regular transmissions), something else must be wrong.
As with the previous comment, you still hear nothing in monitor mode (no squelch)? Also, if you have a scanner you might be able to listen on the frequency to cross check if it is in range on the scanner.
Incidentally, I fiddled around with different 2M - 70cm antennas indoors and noticed only minimal differences. I can actually collapse the telescoping antenna on the handheld and still get most everything.
Added
WA5VJB has put together a whole list of free references on how to build your own antenna ...
http://www.wa5vjb.com/references.html
You’re welcome
I pulled it down from chirp. The upload matched whar they advertise. Maybe nobody is broadcasting?
Add me also
Some repeaters are very quiet, have you tried to contact the local club that sponsors the repeater? They are usually quite responsive to new interest, try showing up early to their club meeting to ask questions. My local club also has informal brunch gatherings once a week. Their web site may give phone numbers for their officers also.
I have a sloped, inverted-V double bazooka, installed over marine clay, which allows me to boom into Europe from Spain to Slovakia on 100 watts.
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