I finally got around to putting a base antenna at the house. It seems like it’s been a lifetime since I’ve had a decent antenna for home use.
I want to thank my bother-in-law for helping mount the antenna to the house, driving the ground rod and ground cable, and running coax into my office in a professional looking way with minimal impact exposing the house to the elements.
I also want to thank Paul K9PTF who was my Elmer on the project. He helped with putting the antenna together and testing SWR and coax impedance as well as guidance on grounding, mounting, and soldering coax ends.
I’ve used it a full week at this point, and I can’t be more pleased with the performance. At a bare minimum hitting the tall tower was one of my goals and it met and surpassed my expectation there. I’ve participated in 3 simplex nets at this point and I’m hearing and contacting stations I could barely hear (or hear at all) on my previous setup. I’m hearing tons of simplex stations and I’m easily able to hit repeaters 20~30 miles away even with Oak Mountain and double oak mountain to my north. I’m even hitting a few repeaters 45 to 50 miles to the north.
KV4S 