Had a neighbor down the road give me a home made dual band
antenna last year. Was going to hang it in the attic, but
other things took my time and attention.

Well, with COVID, I decided I had time to do something
with it, so I ordered 50 feet of coax with the ends already
on it. I put the antenna outside the bedroom window and
ran the cable through to the HT I keep by the bed. Of course
I got the wrong end on the antenna side. LOL

So I ordered an adapter to make it work. It is on a short
pole so I hammered it into the ground and...

Silence... <sigh> Local repeaters were quiet for HOURS.
Finally made a contact on the closest repeater and then
started hearing one farther away. I can hear (and talk to)
on that one from the mobile rig in the truck, but could never
even hear it on the HT. I was hearing it PERFECTLY but they
couldn't hear me when I would try to key it up.

My mom has a television antenna on an old tower that she
doesn't use anymore. She offered it to me if I want it,
so I'm planning to get it and mount in on the end of the
house by my bedroom, which is the OPPOSITE end from the
power cables. I'm going to mount the antenna on the tower
and see what I can do, and then later I might get a better
antenna and I'll already have the tower.

Then the next step would be to replace the HT with a
'base unit' down the road, but doing it a little at a
time as I have time, attention and a little bit of
money at a time. :-)



... For a transcript, get pen & paper and write very fast!
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