06.03.2020, 15:19
I did a little experimenting the other night.
With the delta connected to the co linear on Ch20 my noise floor here is around 3 bars, sometimes momentarily goes to 5 but most generally on 3.
Ch40 is usually 1 to 2 bars so much quieter.
The co-linear antennas fed by a length of westflex103 so I decided to see what would happen using a length of RG8 to connect inline.
I found a big drop off in received signal for only around 8 feet of RG8 and it shows just how sensitive things are at this frequency.
So if youre going to put an antenna its imperative to use the proper cable or else youre just killing the signal strength.
PL259 are no good you have to use N types.
It surprised me to see such a short length do so much damage actually!
Having aquired a decent swr meter for the job I tested out the co-linear.
Currently it is reading at around 1.5:1. swr.
Straight out of the box its pretty well on the money.
The yagi took a bit of messing to get the coax onto as its like trying to fit an angry snake onto the end of the N connector, the cables very stiff indeed.
Eventually after getting the yagi to sit and behave itself I found that the swr was 1.2:1.
Im very happy with that.
Swinging it around I could isolate the local noise sources from the towers on the band so at least I now can point it away from them to listen for potential voice traffic.
I will definitely fit the yagi to a tripod and take it to the hills and see what I can hear from afar...if anything!
With the delta connected to the co linear on Ch20 my noise floor here is around 3 bars, sometimes momentarily goes to 5 but most generally on 3.
Ch40 is usually 1 to 2 bars so much quieter.
The co-linear antennas fed by a length of westflex103 so I decided to see what would happen using a length of RG8 to connect inline.
I found a big drop off in received signal for only around 8 feet of RG8 and it shows just how sensitive things are at this frequency.
So if youre going to put an antenna its imperative to use the proper cable or else youre just killing the signal strength.
PL259 are no good you have to use N types.
It surprised me to see such a short length do so much damage actually!
Having aquired a decent swr meter for the job I tested out the co-linear.
Currently it is reading at around 1.5:1. swr.
Straight out of the box its pretty well on the money.
The yagi took a bit of messing to get the coax onto as its like trying to fit an angry snake onto the end of the N connector, the cables very stiff indeed.
Eventually after getting the yagi to sit and behave itself I found that the swr was 1.2:1.
Im very happy with that.
Swinging it around I could isolate the local noise sources from the towers on the band so at least I now can point it away from them to listen for potential voice traffic.
I will definitely fit the yagi to a tripod and take it to the hills and see what I can hear from afar...if anything!