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This is a weird topic! The critical things for VHF reception and/or transmission is simply the TX output power, minus the path loss - end to end - and then the sensitivity and noise performance of...

Do you mean the boom - the tube that all the directors and half wave dipoles attach to, that runs horizontally out from the support tube?

The other thins are mode and polarisation. As soon as you move from local chat on 2m to DX - you move to SSB, and horizontally polarised antennas. You can use verticals for extending your local chat,...

People have been transmitting with technically terrible radios since the says when we built them. Think about it a bit. You need a stable RF source that is accurate in frequency. That's pretty...

What they're suggesting is that you don't really do what you said because it simply doesn't work very well.

If you have a ten metre dipole, this usually means it's 2.5m up from the centre...

If somebody passes an exam to be a ham, I'd really hope they understand the difference between 13.8 and mains voltage. Scary to think they need this kind of advice.

Free space is always the answer, although in practice, your version is much, much more common and worked fine for me for many years.

What's reception like? Do you get a sharp peak in performance at the frequencies you think the antenna is resonant? Does the background noise shoot up at a certain frequency and then drop off again...

Not quite sure what you mean? The brackets and support tube are metal aren't they? The DC ground is done via the outer of the RF cable - so this would normally provide the ground link - but in my DC...

The tyt th9000d we buy in the UK is TX/RX up to 174MHz. Is the US version limited to ham bands only?

I'd also check that 168.495MHz frequency. 5KHz spacing is a new one for me on repeater splits...

The Yaesu, based on previous products will still be working in 20 years time. The Baofengs are disposable. If you break it, you buy a new one. Yaesu will keep spares, and give you support. In real...

The concept of peppers is alien to folk in the UK, so forgive me for asking this - but if the idea is to prepare for the day when everything breaks down, and you're on your own - then surely you buy...

I talk to people on the ham bands, on network radio, my business UHF repeater, and hire radios and marine band. Some people are interesting. Some far less so. On all the bands.

I don't have an CB...

Lifespan used to be the issue using a high current, short duty cycle battery instead of a lower current long duty cycle RV style battery. Has this changed?

I'm very wary of removing the cables because I saw some pictures of the damage a disconnected lightning conductor caused a civic building when a section had been inadvertently removed and the...

An old battle scarred veteran of UK electric smiled at me when I asked him about grounds for lightning protection. He spent most of his life working for the BBC on new installs and in later life...

I wonder slightly differently. There seems to be an expectation that worldwide, there is some kind of 'emergency' radio system, when the reality is - there isn't! Most of the emergency services are...

What did you mean by short runs? Absolutely NOT short runs joined together - as every connector has a small amount of loss. To be honest, 2dB loss is quite workable in real life.

The rules are broadly similar in the UK too - but realistically what people forget is that administrations really do not want the hassle of licensing in any band unless there is a need to do it. The...

You totally misunderstood - the point with trying too use ham radio is that it is simply poorly setup for emergency use. Lets say you have a genuine emergency - that $1500 is cheap if it saves a...

Confused what is the QRG that is bad - are we talking about interference, as in QRM?

The link doesn't work?

I don't disagree. My very first icom 260E cost over three hundred quid. nearly three weeks wages! A Chinese radio is now the price of a visit to McDonalds!

Just one question? Two answers - so I couldn't complete it. I do not keep a log at all. It's not a requirement nowadays, although most active hams keep one, but not all - like me. When I returned to...

I'm at a loss to understand what it is you are trying to build? A multi-band antenna needs to resonate at frequencies within each band. You need to do some reading on antenna theory - there's a very...