Simple Ham Radio Antennas

An easy to understand tutorial from Dave Tadlock (KG0ZZ) on how to design, build, and test a simple dual band (2 meter/70 cm) radio antenna for contacting amateur radio satellites. There are many low-Earth orbiting amateur and educational satellites that can be found with this antenna. You could mount this antenna on a camera tripod and adjust it manually as your favorite satellite crosses the horizon. A dual-band HT will work fine with this antenna and will give you many enjoyable contacts on a free afternoon. For more Amateur Radio news and events, please check out the blog sidebars. These feeds are updated daily. You can follow our blog community with a free e-mail subscription or by tapping into the blog RSS feed. Thanks for joining us today! Aloha es 73 de Russ (KH6JRM).

An enjoyable musical slideshow featuring various portable amateur radio stations from VK5SW. Although winter holds much of the mainland United States in its grip, spring and summer are on their way. Perhaps this video will give you some ideas on how to set up your station and antennas in the field. Doing portable operations with your amateur radio "go kit" is a good way to practice emergency communications or to prepare for the upcoming ARRL Field Day during the last full weekend of June. Enjoy the show. Music Credit: "Geronimo (2004 Digital Remix)" by The Shadows (Google Play, iTunes, and Amazon MP3). For the latest Amateur Radio news and events, please check out the blog sidebar. These news feeds are updated daily. You can follow our blog community with a free e-mail subscription or by tapping into the blog RSS feed. Aloha es 73 de Russ (KH6JRM).

. Here's another great operating idea from "Tinker John" (W5CYF). This time, John uses a slightly modified 2 inch clamp for an easy and handy antenna mount for the "Hamstick" type of antenna. John uses a counterpoise wire on the clamp to help bring SWR under control. Tuning of "Hamstick" antennas can be difficult if you don't adjust the "stinger" quite right. With the proper adjustments and the use of a counterpoise wire, this antenna will serve your campsite very well. This is a great weekend project. Good luck! For the latest Amateur Radio news and events, please check out the blog sidebars. These news feeds are updated daily. You can follow our blog community with a free e-mail subscription or by tapping into the blog RSS feed. Thanks for joining us today! Aloha es 73 de Russ (KH6JRM).

Nice video from KP4COD on the operation of the Swan 260/270 Amateur Radio Transceiver. During my first years as an amateur radio operator, I owned a few old tube and hybrid rigs, because that was all I could afford at the time. Among my early rigs was a well-used Swan 260 Cygnet transceiver I bought from my mentor, Dean Manley (KH6B). I carried that old rig to field days, portable operations, and even into my garage room ham shack. After I let the old girl warm up for 30 minutes or so, it was fairly steady with very little drift. Combined with a simple 40 meter inverted vee, some ladder line, a 4:1 balun, and an old Drake MN-4 antenna transmatch, I worked the world. I always got good audio reports, both CW and SSB. I usually ran the rig at 50 watts or less in order to save the final tube, which was one of those TV horizontal oscillator tubes that couldn't take a lot of abuse. I later gave the rig to a newly licensed ham who had as much fun with this old classic as I did. KP

Rain Gutter Antennas : Rain Gutter Antennas (http://www.eham.net/articles/33775). from Greg Danes, KJ4DGE on February 22, 2015 View comments about this article! Rain Gutter Antennas Pic courtesy of N6CC website By Grey Wolf I got this idea about writing about my antenna because I had one once in the condo that worked very well down to about 40 meters. First YOU have to use a tuner! Mine was a MFJ “travel tuner”. Very simple and the system worked for me. I ran a open length of coax cable to the aluminum gutter and to a screw at the base, no ground was used as this caused noise on the feed line. It was really resonant at 20 meters and higher. I made my first European contacts on 15 or 17 meters using the gutter antenna. The whole length was close to 125 feet in an inverted “U-shaped” configuration. Since I could not turn the condo around with a rotator it worked a nice North-South path. It also worked greyline East-West fairly well also making contacts in NM, NV, WA and CA.