WRQC527

Mercy sakes 10-4 on that. Seriously though, a lot of amateur radio licensees (me included) started with CB. But some of them can't (or won't) leave the CB stuff behind.

Before you give up on the antenna, check the coax. Especially the connectors. I've had to replace connectors several times over the years because the strain put on them from repeatedly flexing eventually breaks the center conductor or the braid. For an antenna to go from a good match to a 4:1 is hard to imagine. But coax is a likely culprit. One way I've isolated bad connectors is to connect an analyzer and flex the coax where it enters the connector, and see if the SWR jumps around. If it does, cut off the connector and install a new one. Checking continuity from one end to the other (both the braid and the center conductor) is also critical, as is checking for a short between the center conductor and the braid.

I ended up on his channel last year. It's pretty cool to hear yourself online.

Check out the home page here: https://winterfieldday.org/index.php#hero And the rules here: https://winterfieldday.org/downloads/2026-rules-v3.pdf It's like the ARRL Field Day On Ice.

There's a contest going this month so when you hear the suffix "WWA" on a call sign, it might be someone trying for contacts for the World Wide Award. It's a good chance to make some DX contacts.

Lots of activity on 10 meters today. I've contacted several parks back east, and a World Wide Award contest station in Boston just at lunchtime.

I have a Yaesu FT891 that I use primarily portable. I use an MFJ-945 manual tuner if I need to, but my 10 and 20 meter hamsticks do well without them. I either mount them as a dipole or on a lip mount from my van for stationary use. I just built my POTA PERformer, so I haven't had a chance yet to actually transmit. But it does tune up nice, especially with the toroid choke. I have an OPEK SS17 telescoping antenna on the PERformer that has also worked well as a ground-mounted quarter wave with 12 17' radials just sitting on the ground. I just put a Radioddity QT60 in my van with a Tram 3500 magnet mount so I can play radio on trips from southern California to Phoenix and back. I've tried the 40 meter hamsticks, but they're too narrow-banded. That's why I got the tuner, so they're a little more versatile, but I mostly operate on 10-20 meters.

My dipoles (2 hamsticks on an MFJ-347 mount) and verticals (POTA PERformer) generally behave better with this setup.

Even though conventional wisdom says anything under 2:1 is acceptable, you're saying it is as high as 2.3:1. You may need a choke of some sort, in addition to fine-tuning the dipole wire lengths using some kind of measuring device like an SWR meter, an antenna analyzer, or a NanoVNA instead of relying only on a formula that may only get you close. Depending on your source of information, inverted V elements need to be either shorter or longer by several inches than a horizontal dipole. Either way, a measuring device is needed to dial it in. It's killing the bands.

Normally I do 10 meters from my van with a hamstick. 10 meters has been finicky all week. But since the QT60 does 11 meters, I switch over to CB and there's all kinds of activity. I talked to a guy in Wisconsin who was on an old Radio Shack Navaho on SSB from here in southern California when there was hardly any POTA activations. Amateur radio folks are a fickle bunch. We look at the Solar Terrestrial Data widget, and if it says conditions are poor, or if there's no POTA activations, we turn off the radio. CB folks, not so much. Apparently they've never heard of the Solar Terrestrial Data widget, because at the same time it said 10 meters was poor, there was a pileup all over 11 meters.

"In the amateur radio justice system, RF-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In the United States, the dedicated agents who investigate these vicious infractions are members of an elite squad known as the FCC. These are their stories." Oh... Wait... Wrong show.

Yep, I've been meaning to try NVIS on 40 meters. I'd try it on 10 or 20 meters but my signal would probably end up in outer space.

I often see a lot of POTA activations in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico, as well as a lot here in California, but I can't hit them because my signal skips over them and comes down two or three states away and all over the midwest and east coast.

Is it KC4TVZ, aka "The most hated ham radio operator", aka "Kilo Charlie 4 Tango Victor Zulu"? He often transmits on or around 28.425. He's pretty well-known (or notorious, depending on who you ask) in the 10 meter realm. He transmits a recorded "CQ CQ this is Kilo Charlie 4 Tango Victor Zulu" (or something similar) out of Georgia over and over for hours. He's drawn the ire of the FCC, 10-10 International, and countless amateur radio operators. But there's also folks who use his relentless CQs as a beacon to see if 10 meters is open. In other news, I've made several contacts with Japan on 10 meters, especially in the late afternoon when it's morning there. Contests and State QSO Parties are great ways to make contacts, because everybody and their brother is on the air trying to score points. Here's a website that crammifies all the contests and QSO parties into one place. https://www.contestcalendar.com/

Broadly speaking, when you take a test at a testing session run by volunteer examiners, we charge a little something, like $10-$15, to cover our expenses. But the FCC doesn't charge for an upgrade. Only the initial license, and when you renew it.

Get your General and you'll have access to the entire 10 meter and 12 meter bands. Mod that radio so it will do 12 meters (easy, clip one wire and move one jumper). Quite a few POTA activators go above 28.500, and some use 12 meters. You'll need to add about a foot to each side of your inverted V, so make it removable so you can switch back and forth between 10 and 12 meters. The QT60 Pro is a great radio. I've had mine for a few months. I get great audio and signal reports.

It appears from the picture that your inverted V antenna is about a foot away from your house. Embedded in all that stucco is a whole lot of chicken wire. While the inverted V is somewhat more omnidirectional than a standard "flat-top" dipole, a lot of your transmitted signal is probably getting eaten up by the house, and it's also affecting your SWR and wreaking havoc on the radiation pattern. If you can get it out in the open, you might have better luck. Just my two cents, which when adjusted for inflation, is down to just over a penny.

Defective radio. Send it back. Get a replacement. Preferably before your return window closes.

My guess is that it was the wheelchair comment and the resulting exchange of, shall we say, unpleasantries.

At least you didn't start a fight with your response.

There is this option, which for some people might be a solution. This one happens to be a BNC-style, but they are also made for SMA-mount HT antennas. the idea is to put your HT's dual-band rubber duck antenna on the mount and attach it to the roof. I've never tried one, so I can't comment on how well they work, but it would certainly fit your requirement of "super-short" and "dual-band 2m/70cm". https://www.amazon.com/Anteenna-TW-35B-Magnetic-Mount-Female/dp/B07H8GNG33/ref=asc_df_B07H8GNG33?mcid=ab23b401e2ad3497b1bacdfeb7124d0c&tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=693297383718&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11318577053321875493&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9198055&hvtargid=pla-2069911870245&psc=1

An inordinate amount of his content is uncalled for. He's probably on more ignored user lists than most.

Mine sits in a radio junk box in the garage. Terrible transmit audio is the biggest issue. It also reads low voltage until I turn it off and on a few times. I really like the concept, but sadly, this radio completely missed the mark.

What kind of traffic are you expecting to hear? How do you know you are transmitting just fine through the repeater? Are you hearing your transmission on another radio? Maybe there's just no one listening to the repeater.