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Made myself a flowerpot antenna for my HT! (europe.pub)

submitted 5 days ago by Steamymoomilk@sh.itjust.works to c/amateur_radio@lemmy.radio

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I had my first net over the weekend and my transmitting was a bit rough. So i took the stock antenna from my yaesue and disassembled it. Followed a youtube video and took a spare coax cable and built a half dipole antenna!

I get better RX but will half to test my Transmitting come this weekend for the net!

Im really hoping to get into HF at some point but am waiting for flea market season to pick one up :P

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[–] linuxguy@piefed.ca 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Is your coax TV/video coax? If so, be careful with that because the impedance is likely 75ohm and your HT very likely expects 50ohm. How big of a problem that is is up to you to research/decide.

If you don't have appropriate coax some things you could try:

Adding a tiger tail to the existing antenna (assuming you could reassemble it)
getting higher up
If you can't reassemble the OG antenna, use the connector and solder the dipole radiators to it directly

[–] Steamymoomilk@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

It was coax for a tv antenna, RG6 if i do recall. After some research its not ideal for ham as you said 50ohm is what the radio expects. So i will be loosing some signal because of the ohm differences.

I still get alot more range compared to my whip antenna.

Im very much a novice in this regard, so please do let me know if there is something im missing!

Thanks for your insight aswell!