homebrew dipole working

Last night I got my homebrew 2-meter dipole antenna tuned and working while the rain held off, to use it I clamped the upright to an open window and the boom with the antenna on the end was outside the window, GB3CD was able to be accessed but it seemed to be below my squelch and a little in the noise, as were a couple of the stations on the S12 net I discovered, one in Darlington could hear me as I could hear him just fine, from the location given the station in Darlington was on the other side of Darlington to myself up near the retail park and car dealers, this was enough confirmation the antenna was in fact doing its job satisfactory, GB3HG and GB3IR obviously were not going to prove a challenge for the antenna given their locations.

Tomorrow if the rain holds off and the weather is good I may set up a portable station on Richmond's old racecourse with this antenna, the radio I will take I have yet to decide, also undecided is if I will go QRP or not, my VV898 can go as low as 5 watts (QRP levels) however the KT-8900D can only go to 10 watts at its lowest settings, after all this antenna is meant to be a portable design requiring nothing more than a screwdriver to disassemble the support from the boom, the VV898 may of course need reprogramming depending on how it is currently configured.

The next antenna I'd like to make is an antenna to work the FM satellites as I have still yet to do that, this dipole is my third successful antenna, the first being the T2LT for CB work and the groundplane antenna for 2-meters that was my original homebase antenna.

The coax on the antenna itself is a short run of RG58 to a BNC, this meant I have had to use a BNC-PL259 adaptor and a SO239 coupler to connect the feedline, which is the repaired feeder that was from the groundplane antenna after it was cut and it works great and is fitted with a crimp on PL259.

I shall see what happens tomorrow and see what stations I can work simplex if I go portable.

73 de 2E0EIJ