That's an interesting site. The hb antenna I mentioned using is similar to the dl6wu 12 el with folded dipole. A design that caught my eye was the piston trimmer gamma match arrangement. Clever. Simple. Worth a try. Be interesting to see what the VNA thinks about it. Thanks! Ed K9EK
On May 14, 2020 at 2:45 PM Zach Metzinger via AMSAT-BB amsat-bb@amsat.org wrote:
On 05/14/20 13:41, Greg D wrote:
You'll also need an antenna. Surprised that's not been mentioned in this drift into homebrewing...
Before I got my 30 element Beam at a swap meet, I was using a homemade 17 turn Helix. It was easy to make, and worked quite well. I would not say that the beam was any better, especially since the helix is circularly polarized. I still have it, and may swap it back into service some day.
Yep! Plenty of designs out there, should one want to build vs buy:
https://vk1sotaon23cm.wordpress.com/23-cm-antennas/
One of these cheap, perhaps-not-perfect-but-good-enough VNAs would help tune it up:
https://www.tindie.com/products/hcxqsgroup/nanovna-v2/
(I have the v1, which is good up to ~900 MHz, and have been pleased with it.)
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