Well done! It’s amazing how a small diy project can get us on the air. I bet you were pretty excited to see it pay off.
I’ll keep you posted on the end-fed - it’s in the mail today. 😎
73.
Ricki KJ5KUX See you on the repeater!
73 Dan KJ5IZK
Very nice, Dan. Building your own antennas is one of the great pleasures of ham radio, at least it is for me. 73, Steve W5ICR From: BVARC <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Daniel Poirot via BVARC
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2025 8:01 AM
To: BRAZOS VALLEY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB <[email protected]>
Cc: Daniel Poirot <[email protected]>
Subject: [BVARC] n00b net (On build-your-own-antenna day) Yesterday was a fun day in the backyard. I had just finished up a 2 meter quarter wave ground plane made out of 14 AWG Romex. Using the formula from studying for my license, I got a radiating element of ((234 / 146.94) * 12), or 19.1 inches. Cool. I straightened the wire, clipped the ground elements long, sanded one end clean, soldered ring terminals from Home Depot to four of them, and screwed them to the corners of a panel mount BNC. 16 AWG was used for the radiating element, as the BNC panel mount center pin is for coax and not coat hangers... I mounted the antenna to a leftover 5 foot section of 1/2" PVC pipe by threading my BNC cable through the PVC. I pounded an iron rebar rod (again Home Depot) into the back yard and threaded the PVC pipe and antenna cable onto that. Perfect. I am thinking of adding a bare ground wire from the BNC, out the bottom of the PVC to ground the whole thing. I was treated to a very clear signal to and from the 146.94 repeater. I even caught up with Ricki KJ5KUX. We chatted about our shared next project, the QRPguys 10m End Fed Half Wave! Ricki! Build this in a big flower pot on the balcony! ;-) Noticeably absent was the usual background static on both my TIDRADIO H3 and Explorer QRZ-1.
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