Troy - KD3BTG
@KD3BTG@mastodon.radio
I am a relatively new ham, having a lot of fun learning many new things. In addition to #hamradio / #amateurradio I am also interested in: #BadgeLife #HardwareHacking #Soldering #Curling #Theater #Music #Kayaking #mtb/#mountainbike/#mountainbiking
mastodon.radio
RE: https://ioc.exchange/@flyingsaceur/117011857542955774
Co-signing this.
Yes antennas can be simple and inexpensive and easy to build. But when I bought my HF rig this year I also bought a commercial antenna so that I could have some assurance that everything should just work and if it doesn’t it’s not because of a faulty piece of homebrew equipment. Now I have a “known good” baseline where I can experiment with different antennas (or radios or feedlines or …) and compare the result.
Quoting
Advice I wish I didn’t get with my General #hamradio ticket:
Random wire antenna
This should not be your first HF antenna. To use it you need an antenna tuner, and many starter SDR rigs have an ATU built in. In myself and others around me, the ATU gives a low SWR and the appearance of perfect operation, but you have no intuition for how much of your transmit power comes out as RF energy vs. heat
At that point there are a thousand points of failure you don’t know to check, so the first time you call CW to the void you have no idea if yuure holding the mic wrong, your rig is misconfigured, or if the band is closed
Work to minimize unknowns by making as many parts of your kit known quantities. This is why I wish someone told me to just get a pretuned 40m EFHW out of the gate
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