Leaderboard

You always have transmission line, whether it's just the short traces on the PCB going to the antenna connector, or 100' of transmission line. The standing wave can exist anywhere in that system, by the very nature of the fact the energy is not being efficiently radiated out due to the mismatch.

Here's something to ponder. If a 2:1 SWR antenna were connected directly to the radio with no coax at all there could be no standing wave. Standing waves need transmission line in order to exist. A mismatch is still a mismatch even without a transmission line to allow standing waves. You will still have the same loss of radiated power due to the same mismatch. The standing wave itself is only a symptom of the mismatch. The coax is just the middle man. When you have a "matching box" at the radio end of the coax things get really complicated. There is still a mismatch between the antenna and the coax but the mismatch at the match box makes a "reciprocal" reflection that cancels out most or all of the bad reflection at the antenna. The length of the coax will affect the match in this case. This is why is it best to have the matching unit right at the antenna. The icom AH4 does this for the HF bands and works very well with terribly mismatched wire antennas. You do not see these things on the VHF/UHF bands where antenna size is not much of a problem. Better to just make the antenna the right length. Just some Vince

New to GMRS and BTech GMRS 50X-1 myself... I have been using CHIRP to do channel programming and playing with settings, found it to be much easier than trying to cycle through the menus on the radio itself. Give it a look and see if it helps.

Almost all pellet guns require some testing to find "the" pellet. Even some of the choked ones. Keep with it can be very rewarding with a springer when you master it. Me, I avoid break barrel and springers if I can. Hate to have to relearn how to shoot.