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Saturday 7 March 2020

a small issue with the Boomerang antenna, and a bit of a catch up

So I spent Thursday setting up the Boomerang antenna however I ran into a problem with it, a narrow bandwidth that I was not anticipating so SWR on a lot of channels was higher than desired no matter how much adjustment I made and then I discovered there to be common mode currents on the coaxial cable, leaving me to build a choke which I have not done due to not having the parts, I also, that day, did a range test revisit on the handheld CBs and they performed much better from the HT to the base station, rather than one on the building and one outdoors, the only place they struggled was, as expected, in front of the shops at Princes Gate Shopping Park, though they may not have got over the S3-S5 of noise the Grant II was showing on the S-meter.

I also discovered that I was not the only Amateur in the local area hearing interference outside the local Tesco, dubbed the 'werewolf' as it has a distinct 'howl' in parts, and I've no idea what it is though one of my work colleagues, who knows nothing much if anything about radio, says he might have an idea, that was also made into a YouTube video as I went down straight after the club on the Wednesday night armed with the Yaesu FT2D.

My next video up, by this evening all being well if I can get it onto YouTube before I have to be in work, is part 1 of two on the ugly balun, which ties into the boomerang antenna, part 2 is on making the thing.

Future videos are hopefully going to be:


  • Ugly Balun part 2: making one for 27 MHz, see above
  • Dummy loads
  • Getting started with radio
  • Operating /p from Blackpool Tower with a Yaesu FT2D, a sort of follow-up to Ringway Manchester's "Baofeng's Fatal Flaw, receive overload & desensistisation" to see if an expensive Japanese-made radio from a big name brand can work where the Baofeng radios cannot
  • The NARSA rally 2020 at the Norbreck Castle Hotel, Blackpool.
  • A look at the µBitX V6 kit and assembly (I plan to buy one as a cheaper way onto HF)
  • Setting a benchmark with the Thunderpole T-3000 and the Sirio Hi-Power 4000
  • Testing out my other CBs on the same mobile antenna against the Thunderpole T-3000 (multiple videos)
  • Bowburn Rally 2020 (if I get there this year)
  • National Hamfest 2020
This list isn't a complete list as there may well be other videos made as well that I have not planned to make as sometimes happens, and I probably will plan further videos for later on in the year too.

I also hope to engage more with my subscribers soon so please do subscribe to my YouTube channel, your subscriptions will help encourage me to make more videos and make the channel better, also there is an on-air test of the Boomerang antenna still to do however I've already explained why I cannot do that one just yet, my YouTube channel is here

Latest videos are also included below










The above are all available on my YouTube channel linked to above, again please subscribe to the channel as I have plenty of content in the pipeline.

73 de M0WNU/26CT730

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