[TowerTalk] Help

[Arnie Pfingst]

I'm helping my son in law on the air. He has his gen ticket, he just bought a Yaesu ft 8800 (Vhf/Uhf). Because dollars are tight we decided to build a j pole antenna until he can afford a better antenna. We built it using 1/2 inch copper. Here at my house about 4 feet off the ground, using a bird 4410 meter, and his radio, swr shows about 1.2:1 on vhf and about 1.5:1 on 70cm. We can get into repeaters from all over. Great huh? When I took it to his house we couldn't access any repeater. I checked the swr again and nothing changed. I tried different coax,  different location, higher up (up to 12 feet). Elevation made a little difference but nothing to write home about. A Comet mobil antenna performed better then the j pole.Any ideas?Thanks


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