Curt Nixon wrote:
Good Morning All:
So, after this last week of ISS fun, I have the bug to upgrade into some simple satellite work. I will be confined to simple FM untill I can upgrade to all-mode rigs. My question is on coax and preamps.
I will use a pair of vertically polarized yagis to begin with. One for 144MHz and one on 70cm. I have some LMR 400 I got for the ISS project on 144 but it is so stiff, I didn't use it.
I built a simple "Arrow-style" antenna using the WA5VJB Cheap Yagi designs. One on 2m, one for 70cm, at right angles to each other, with an HB9ABX-design diplexer for the two. I use this handheld with my Kenwood TH-F7E HT and get into AO-51, SO-50 and AO-27 without any real difficult. Total time for construction about an hour ;-)
If you've got an antenna analyser or even just a good SWR meter, it will help a lot with getting the 2m part right. I didn't bother tuning the diplexer much for 70cm because the MFJ-259 antenna analyser I was using didn't cover UHF - so I just woke up a 70cm repeater on the other side of town and tuned until I could hear it best.
I find it hard to get into AO-51 when it's busy and people are hammering it with huge stacked arrays of antennas. When it's in QRP mode I get in no bother at all, with good reports from all over Europe. Not bad for an aerial build out of a bit of scrap wood, some brazing rods and a few feet of hydraulic pipe ;-)
Gordon