First antenna

[kd8ezj]

I have been trying to convince my little HT to act like a base 2M radio for me. I know this is silly, but this is amateur radio after all....

I have an SMA connactor, a few meters of 75ohm coax, a spool of 12 guage enamel solid copper wire and a 12 pack of miller lite. The Miller Lite told me that a half wave dipole at least 1/2lambda over ground should be in the neighborhood of 75 ohms. I am thinking I should cut off a pair of 19.5 inch sections of the copper wire, solder one to the center, one to the shield, plug it into my HT and stand in my attic. After that, I have one more Miller Lite, then key up and start calling CQ.

Any thoughts?

[kc7jty]

I have an SMA connactor,
Any thoughts?

They can be a bich, try lowering the capacitance and going in through the pi network.

[kc7jty]

seriously:
Be very careful of SMA adapters. They can damage your HT by just being a few thousandths of an inch too long.

[WØTKX]

That being said, they allow you to hook up the HT to a "Real Antenna".

You can certainly make a dipole, you'll want to arrange it vertically for most FM uses.

This is a really cool little antenna, I have built a few. Slip it into a skinny piece of PVC and suspend it inside the pipe (capped at top) so it stays stretched out... it looks a lot like a WiFi vertical, just longer. You'll want an SWR meter to tune it, even better borrow somebody's MFJ antenna analyzer.

But this little booger does pretty good taped to a window, or suspended from a ceiling/rafters. Height matters.

The good-ol' twin lead j-pole.

[kd8ezj]

I ended up making a very simple vertical suggested by N8YX and suspending it in the attic. Less than 1.1:1 SWR on 146 MhZ, full quieting on the other side of town at low power and less than an hour to make. I am a happy ham :)

[KG4CGC]

One of the things you'll learn about amateur radio is that we say "fine business" and "hihi" a lot. Fine business is like 10-4 or roger and hihi is like LOL or lulz.

[kc7jty]

and old man, which means old man.