Homemade Antennas!!

[gortex2]

Never said it shouldn't. Said why spend time when there is tons of aftermarket stuff for cheap. Again this is a service but appears people think its ham radio....build away..I'll order the proper stuff.

[daschnoz]

It's not HAM, you're right.  But people still like to tinker with what they are allowed to.  That said, for many people (myself included), the radio hobby starts on GMRS, and expands into HAM rather quickly.

[AdmiralCochrane]

"Proper stuff"  - are you implying homemade is improper?   Certainly seems to be the text you posted, though you may not have meant so. 

[maddogrecurve]

On 8/26/2021 at 5:43 PM, Lscott said:

The brass rod will work just fine. Being rather stiff it won’t bend out of shape from handling the antenna, that’s the advantage.

One other thing, the larger diameter wire or rod tends to increase the bandwidth too. That means you might get away with an antenna the works over the range of two services, like Ham 70cm and GMRS, or Ham 2M and MURS.

Manufactures typically spec the usable bandwidth of their antennas at the 1.5:1 SWR points. Practically most radios are OK up to a 2:1 SWR. The higher the SWR of course results in a larger usable bandwidth.

Go ahead build some antennas, experiment, do some reading and ask questions. It’s a great way to learn, and you can end up with a usable design that you hand crafted yourself!

Thank you LScott, I think I will keep doing so!  I enjoy playing with antenna designs, and my spouse won't let me put a real (permanent) base station antenna up so I am making these little ones that I can throw onto PVC pipe when I want to use them then take them down.

[maddogrecurve]

Just now, maddogrecurve said:

Thank you LScott, I think I will keep doing so!  I enjoy playing with antenna designs, and my spouse won't let me put a real (permanent) base station antenna up so I am making these little ones that I can throw onto PVC pipe when I want to use them then take them down.

Oh, I also made another wire 1/4 wave antenna but I stripped the plastic off and straightened the wire by twisting it with a drill!  Worked great!!!  

[maddogrecurve]

On 8/29/2021 at 3:06 PM, kb2ztx said:

Never said it shouldn't. Said why spend time when there is tons of aftermarket stuff for cheap. Again this is a service but appears people think its ham radio....build away..I'll order the proper stuff.

Enjoy ordering the "proper" stuff, I order tons of stuff also, I have multiple mobile antennas and radios.  I also have tons of connectors and tools for my coax and the fittings.  

I just enjoy radio, C.B, Shortwave, all radio, and since there really is no one to talk to where I live but people passing through and a couple of flaggers who think they own the FRS channels, I will keep making my "improper" equipment until I get my Ham license, then make even more because Ham is dead where I live.

Fortunately, ham is not dead where I work so I can talk to and from work.

[Lscott]

2 hours ago, maddogrecurve said:

Oh, I also made another wire 1/4 wave antenna but I stripped the plastic off and straightened the wire by twisting it with a drill!  Worked great!!!  

That's actually is very well made!  

VHF and UHF antennas are fun to build since they are rather small for the simpler designs. If you look around on the Internet you can find scanned PDF's of antenna design books. I'm not talking about the crazy vector calculus filled pages using Maxwell's equations either. They are basically construction projects that anybody with modest skills and tools can build.

This is just a sample of what you can on the Internet with some effort looking.

  http://hamradio.uz/media/uploads/2018/04/19/arrl_antenna_book_21st_ed.pdf