Homebrew vs. Store-Bought: The Ultimate Antenna Debate for Ham Radio Enthusiasts

Whether you're a regular listener or first-time guest , we're excited to have you here and we appreciate your support and thanks for tuning into this week's episode . Let's get into today's show . I'm your host , eric call sign N1JUR , and I'm with my co-host .

You want to make sure you update our socials and check out the website , because that date and time varies monthly , but make sure you subscribe and you'll definitely get notified when we go live Without further ado . Back to our regular segment here . Now for something a little extra with Todd W1STJ .

All right , well , once again , our segment a little something extra with Todd is where we're helping Todd out to try to get prepared for his extra . If you're looking , maybe get upgraded , or maybe you're first looking to get your technician license , we'll invite you to play along .

If you've got any questions , we'd love to help you out and give you some guidance on where you can get plugged in and start getting the material . What we like to do , like I said , each episode , we test Todd and his knowledge . Now over to our favorite VE Quizmaster , paul . Go ahead and take it away .

I'm sorry , c it decreases or D it increases .

And we're all yeah , I think we were all with you , todd , with the fact that I don't think any of us ever really had the right answers either . So with that , you know , if you , like I said , are working towards getting your ticket , then you know , make sure you follow along . And you know , we also want to hear the successes too .

So , even though today wasn't a great success , it was a good it's a complete failure on my end . We want to hear if you've gone out and gotten your technician or you've gotten your general like . Let us know , send us an email at livefreeandham at gmailcom and we will make sure we give you a shout out .

And , you know , make sure you get recognized for all your efforts and you know we want to welcome you to the hobby . So cool , all right . Well , with that , you know , hopefully we'll have a better conversation tonight .

So you know , before we dive into what we're going to be talking about tonight on an antennas , let's kind of talk about what's been going on your hammering week . So you know , based off of , you know , the OCD structure , again , I'm going to follow Paul . You know what's been good on your ham week .

easily remote into my radio and it doesn't matter where you are in the world . So it's pretty neat .

And you know , hey , what more better to give them the access to ham radio anytime they want it and needed . You know that that's , I'm all for that , so it's pretty cool .

I can barely wait two days , even when Amazon wants to . You know , drop us something in my door . I can only imagine that would take weeks . That would kill me . All right , cool , well with that . How was your hammer to work , todd ? What's been going on with you ?

and we'll be . We'll be good to go and then , hopefully , once we get everything in place , we're going to measure , put the wires in all the cords and I'll have it done shortly , I hope now with your go box ?

I was going to ask you what you were going to put in it .

So that's basically what's going to be for now , but you know , things will always change and I'm sure I'll come up with some other idea or something better .

So I think we'll be in store for some very interesting stuff as to what's .

So we had to like kind of figure out where we're going to line it all up , so the radio be on the left side and the speaker and the tuner will be kind of on the right .

So it'll be simple , but it'll it'll work in it and then I think it'll be good for it's also it's going to protect the radio and it's going to be pretty rugged , so I'll be able to bring it around and not worry so much about my radio getting dinged up or anything . Who'll be all protected .

So I'm gonna have probably put messy and polony wire coax and Cut the wire stuff in the world , although they might want to get a BRs .

The nice part about it the connector ends on them are SMA , female , but they've created a modular approach , so like if you you got them the right length that you wanted in the box , you would then just put the right whatever connector on at that moment you wanted to connect you . So you didn't have to like buy a custom cable per se .

You just buy the length of cable you want . It would have the ends of the adapter ends on it and then you just pick . You know whatever ends you want to screw on it , but you know I won't . You know , just steer you away from messy and polony either I'll look into .

You know , I just want that radio because I want to be able to , I want to be able to use it more and I get nervous taking it out , you know , outside the shack , you know , and then pulling it out of the box , and you know anything can happen if it's all packed in there , it'll be . It'll be easier on my stress , I guess .

But you know , hey , you know I've always , uh , you know , but uh , you know ram , before I go buy ford . So you know , you know how it goes I .

Um , I , uh you know very much , you know kind of just said , okay , I'm gonna go play with fta . So I made a couple of Croatia contacts , made some you know Contacts that I don't normally have in my log . So , you know , I kind of rounded it up .

I kind of rounded it up , but then once again , hawaii and and alaska still evade me in terms of poeta specifically . So I don't think I'll be able to get a chance to get those on fta . But you know , we'll see one day how that plays out .

Every time they pop up , guy was on 20 meters , 10 meters , 15 meters , everything , and uh , nothing really . Yeah , nothing really works .

I'm almost at the point that if I want to like see all of my poeta , you know worked all states , or you know Uh in , uh , the poetacom app , I'm almost point of just like buying , uh you know , a couple of minutes here or there on those remote , uh you know flex units and find one that's in the midwest or on uh , you know Colorado , they were talking

about it uh on the On the uh ham radio clubhouse that you know those guys are far closer to alaska in hawaii than they can't get them , so I don't know what it is , so I don't know , it must be weird skip or something . So yeah , I guess , outside of that , I'll listen and we'll get more alaska .

He goes out there and 30 below and and sets up you know bob house and and works uh , you know everything from the middle of a you know A lake in in you know some park . So you know he's out there . I just can't hear myself .

I'm like , oh , I'm bound to get a minute . I couldn't hear him .

get them shuffled around and whatnot for a few things , and I figured I'd activate a park on the way home . So it was Sussett Beach , beautiful park , very easy to activate , right on the river , you know the . The river that you know runs between the Sagamore bridge , so you know , you get that , all those views .

But I got a lay out there and I'm like , yes , I'm gonna set my Wilfrid Wilfrid recoil up . I'm gonna be super excited , guess what Wilfrid recoil is back at home . So I pulled another one of those you know .

But thank god , I was like , oh yeah , I got my , uh , you know , a task , so threw that on the truck , you know it tuned perfectly at a one and a half to one and I was just like all right , we'll just stay on 20 and and I think after , probably about because I only had like 40 minutes before I had to kind of like Play the traffic game so I don't

get caught in Boston and stuff on the way home , um , you know .

So in about a 40 minute time frame I had about like 50 , 50 , 4 contacts or so , but I think four of those , um , all of the four people and I I wasn't like you know broadcasting or advertising anybody you know on any of my socials that I was out there you know activating and I had four people all like , hey , are you doing a video ?

And I'm like I get sidetracked on that all the time . I still haven't gotten used to the , you know the . Hey , you know , I know your channel exists . I know people are actually watching and I'm like , so , you know I ? Four times it happened to me and I think after the fourth time I was like , okay , all right , this is pretty cool .

I'm sure he's gonna do it from the flex , but it's not like fun because you're in Australia , you're running flex for mom here on the us . I , you know , contacting yourself from Australia , oh , that sounds real good but cool . So , all right . Well , that was it for me , I think , at this point .

So we're gonna kind of dive into tonight's episode , um , and we're gonna get kind of in the weeds and we're gonna talk in tennis . I , we , we've been touching upon that a little bit , um , on and off and , uh , you know whether we talk about poda or talking about field day .

So we're just really gonna , you know , kind of , just , you know , get to the the nuts of both of this stuff . So you know , we kind of all use them because we need to .

I mean , otherwise , you know what's the point of playing hand radio , um , and we always have , you know , our favorites when field day rolls around or we play poda , um , but you know , when the topic kind of came up and paul had mentioned , you know , hey , maybe we should talk about , you know , a builder or buy scenario .

You know what do we do for antennas and and you know whether this commercial is kind of a better way to go , or you know , then we kind of the the typical Statement came up us like , oh well , do you build your own antennas ? Because if you don't , you're not a real ham .

You know kind of approach , and I think you know we at all fall in that same category . We're not real hams if we buy all these commercial antennas that we have , although you know I feel like I'm a pretty good real ham . You know there's not much more . You know that I can say that I don't do that . Uh , you know it doesn't .

You know , dismote me from , you know , being in the radio hobby , but so let's kind of talk a little bit around that . So I know we've got all of our antennas and we'll touch upon some of those . Uh , you know , as we kind of go through this process , but let's talk about like our favorites .

So , you know , going into this , let let's let's break it into two categories . Um , first and foremost , let's get the build out of the way . Has any of us done any antenna builds at all ? What it doesn't matter whether like the , the j pole antennas or , you know , the ladder line antenna any of you guys have done any of that at all ? Oh yes , do tell .

All right , paul , go ahead .

Uh , I have , I happen to get my hands on a , an i-com 706 mark 2g for 400 bucks . Um , it , it definitely fit the bill , for what I was looking for it was all mode , all bands , you know everything all in one . Um , it's on the radio , yeah , but so then you know what do you do for an antenna then ? Right , and so I started researching .

You know well , how do you build antennas and what are the , you know , easiest and best to build , and , um , so , for for very short money .

The first thing I did was I bought one of these cobra head adapters , and so it's a banana plug cobra head adapter , bnc A female on on the bottom , and then you put your bnc male on the coax , um , but so you can use these for many different things .

Uh , it's a quick and easy dipole , right , you can uh , either use the , the banana plug connectors , that that come with it , or you can just ring terminal it and then you know these , these caps screw off , and you can put the ring terminal on and screw the caps down , um , so my first antenna was a fan dipole , and so I , I built four sets of legs out

of uh , regular , very , very inexpensive speaker wire . Uh , because , like I said , I was building on a budget , um , and I I put up um 20 meters , um 27 no , sorry , 2012 10 and 6 were my four , my four legs , um , and I and I hung it in a Tree about maybe 15 feet up and the , and then I fanned it out as best I could across my yard .

Uh , but it worked . It worked fantastic . And and for a first antenna , uh , uh , to to not only get the experience of building it and and understanding how it works , um , you know , but it didn't cost me more than maybe 25 bucks .

I love watching , uh , the new antennas that come out and I've probably watched a thousand youtube videos of Of , uh , the different antennas you know , but uh , no , I haven't done one , but uh , that seems pretty cool .

I think if , uh , that's a pretty good thing , that the way you thought about it to get it done on such a small budget , just using speaker wire Pretty amazing .

Like I remember I got my license back in 91 , so it was like in high school and I was like you said , it was like I was a high school kid so I barely had a part-time job and and whatnot , so like for me to be able to buy radios or anything like that was almost impossible . So I think the only antenna I ever did was a long speaker wire antenna .

That was really just kind of in listening mode because I wanted to take my bear cat scanner and you know Lengthen the antenna and you know , so I jury , rigged a whole bunch of you know banana clips to the inside of the posts on the , the radio and and strung of you know probably way too long speaker wire Out the window of my second story bedroom and you

know I heard the world that I was like oh , wow , this is great and you know that kind of . You know it just inspired me more to like start saving my pennies to go buy my actual true ht to kind of play around with it , but I never really . I think the only antenna I really ever built was the typical copper j-pole antenna Bees copper .

When I was younger . It was pretty cheap , I mean , you could find it anywhere . My dad always had to replace pipes , so it was something that was lying around , you know , and ready , available . And so I , you know , I was like all right , well , I'll do this design because I had an aRL .

Somebody had photocopied the aRL manual for me and said here , here's the j-pole antenna , go build this . And I I probably don't have it and I don't remember what it really looked like , but it was my soldering job was probably the most like . It probably wouldn't hold water , nor , nevertheless , the air . It was so gapped it was probably horrible .

And Back in those days , you know , you had to just tune the radio based off of listening to the static on the radio , see if you were close enough for the get the tuning matched to where it should be . Because to buy an swr meter back in those days I'm sure it was probably like ridiculously expensive .

I couldn't find a ham that you know had one , and so you know I I remember getting out on it and it was just like I was trying to connect to the local net and it was pretty . It was pretty bad but it was . You know , like you said , paul was that great experience . You learned a lot very quickly and he kind of got into it .

But I always swore that , you know , if I ever got back , you know , further into the hobby , I would big bar and steal to try to find a commercial antenna or try to . You know long for the days . I could , you know , one day put up a tower with a beam on it or something .

I just nod my head and just hang out like oh yeah . But now I've been doing ham radio . I know some of the lingo . I've seen some of the stuff . I've put up a couple of antennas . I've done my . The first time I put my buddy pole together . It took me like an hour . Now I can do that thing blindfolded , my eyes , you know , in five minutes .

Like it's just , I know how to do it now . Um , but , yeah , I mean I I wish I had more time to kind of tinker and fool around with that stuff . But for me , at least in this part of my life , with with my kids and sports and all the other things , I just find myself when I get home I have all these plans in the morning .

Okay , when I get home I'm going to do this . And I get home and I just crash . I'm like , yeah , I'm not doing nothing , like my brain isn't functioning enough to even look at .

I mean , sometimes it's even hard for me to like walk into the shack and put the headphones on and like all right , am I going to do ham radio right now or am I just going to unwind ?

I think you were with your , your , your son , and you were like you know , I've got this antenna . I can't quite figure , like , was it this connected to this ? And it's like I was like I was at a .

So that's , that's just the way I am , but I do I think , out of all of ham radio that I'm not actively doing , I , I , I , I , I do like the like , all these guys that are building antennas , that are , you know , making them for people to buy , testing them , redoing them , I mean it's , it's definitely .

I mean I , you know , the antenna has to be probably the most important part of a radio communication , because you know if you don't have an antenna , you're not reaching out to anyone , right ? You're not hearing anything .

I hated it .

I mean I the last part , though , when I did down in the airport in Boston , I I mean I literally had like an hour and I didn't even think . I mean I literally threw the thing up in like five minutes . I mean I've just got it down to a patent . It's never failed me .

I mean , knock on wood , it's always been a , a reliable antenna and it's always it's always got me . You know what I wanted , I mean . And now that I've learned the , the , I've learned how to tweak it a little bit , right . So if anyone's familiar with the buddy pole pro is , it has .

It has a elevated counter poise and there's little markers on it for each band . So you know 20 , I know is blue , and then it goes gray , orange , red , whatever , and you stretch it out . It's elevated . But what I've learned is sometimes if you elevate it higher or lower , you can fix the SWR .

And also on the antenna , you know the instructions say full right On the , on the whip . But if you're off a little bit , you want to tweak it a little bit . You could just lower it a little bit and you might get a little bit better .

So I've kind of figured out a way to get the SWR really good for most most days that I'm activating and there's not a lot of moving . Some days I just set it up my last thing and it's perfect .

Other times , depending on where I am , it might need a little adjustment , but I've , I've , I've just done it so many times that I've I instinctually know where what I need to do to if I'm not getting a good SWR and I'm not , it's not working . I know some options of what I can do to tweak it and it's been pretty good . So I like it . It's really .

I have not a lot to compare to . You know I don't have any other antennas that I'm saying oh yeah , this is better . I mean this is the one I've been using . I am interested in a res antenna that to me is kind of like the Wolf River coil on steroids , and it really is . I mean it's yeah .

But you know I keep looking at it but it is a little pricey but it seems to be a pretty good antenna and it's certainly a really slick design .

I mean he's familiar with his buddy poll now that he can look at something and go , oh , I need to do adjustment here or here to make it where it needs to sit . I'm a lot like that with my Wolf River coil .

Now I , like Todd said , I don't take my buddy poll pro out much , but when I do I usually take it when I'm like going with family and I really need something super compact , because the Wolf River coil is a great antenna and it's not that it's not compact but it's kind of sticks out .

The the buddy pole is black , it's kind of , you know , invisible a little bit and from a standpoint of me being able to get it set up pretty quickly , I can do it because the elevator radials not really like that's the only thing I have to worry about for people walking by or in a place that's public .

So that's where I think the strong point of that antenna and the fact that , like Todd said , it's like literally you can pack it down to the size of a small little .

Like you know , carry bag that's like no thicker than a book , or even I would say no thinner than a book , but it's really just you know the great kind of that includes the tripod and everything .

You know , it's definitely a good Polter antenna . But I want to do try some other ones . You know I want to , I want to try to . You know , I know that John has a . What is he has the what is that one ? He has the vertical , the extender , the extender . Yeah , the extender the expedition . Yeah , and he loves that .

You know he's like this thing is awesome and he's . I asked him , I said how long does it take you to set up ? And he's kind of like like me goes well . You know , at first it took me a while , but now I get to do it in like 10 minutes , yeah .

make your first contact . You know all the kind of like for trophies or bragging rights . But I think you know , if I was to match that , even against my Wilfrid recoil , I think I could get my Wilfrid recoil much faster up and set up and tuned and ready .

Then he could do his DX commander , because there's a lot of elements in that whole entire thing and it's a lot of like , it's like a song , like it's almost a coordinated dance to be able to get the whole thing up at the right time . But once it's up , my gosh , that antenna is , like you know , my hexagon . It's being , you know , right out of the box .

You did , todd .

So we , I think , like if I was going to do like an all-day thing you know you have Eric , you have the hex beam right , like that's an antenna . Take some time to put up and even the expedition would be another antenna , I think would be probably better . You might get , you know , clear , you might get farther range maybe I don't know .

But for me and POTA it's perfect because it can be set up so quickly and taken down . I mean I literally can go down to the rail trail , the natural rail trail , on my lunch break for an hour . I can drive there , set up , activate for 40 minutes , take down and be back in my office within an hour and activate the park .

So and it's probably like a I don't know , it's probably like a 10 minute drive , so 20 minutes of driving , and you know I can pretty much do it and it I wouldn't be able to do that if it was like I had to fiddle around with stuff and it would take long .

So you know like when I was in Boston , at the thing five o'clock came , the guy pulled up , the ranger pulled up to me , just stared at me . He goes I'm walking the gate . I'm like okay .

You know what , from your commercial stable , you know of antennas , what do you offer , like what's your favorites , and you know what's the quicks to go to is for you .

I mean it comes with a shorter one , so I used the shorter one for a little while and then I got the chameleon , 17 footer .

But that's really easy and I just take a black Sharpie and go around it at the junction and then , you know , go down to the next band and do the same thing . Once you get it on your analyzer , where you know it's good and it's resonant , throw a freaking Sharpie on it or a paint marker , something that'll last .

The chameleon M-Pass 2.0 vertical is another great option . I love that antenna , that one . There's no adjusting it . You need a tuner , you know . So , unlike the Wolf River coil , you can adjust and then operate without a tuner . The M-Pass 2.0 , you 100% need a tuner for it . But that's got multiple configurations too , you know .

Granted , it's a $600 antenna system , but you , you it's got the ground spike , so you can , you can just stick it right in the ground . I've stuck it on the Wolf River coil tripod and run it that way , you know , and then , and then it's got the wire element , and so you know you can .

You can run a horizontal , you can run an inverted V , you can run an L . There's a whole bunch of different ways you can do it . And so you know , I mean , chameleon makes amazing products . Their wire is fantastic , the Kevlar line in the inside and the silicone in the outside . It just goes through the trees , you don't have to worry about pulling it .

You know you can . You can really break some branches Yup , bulletproof , but yeah so . And it is always good to have verticals as an option , you know , if you're at a park where space is limited . But I got to say I'm loving my wires .

I've got a wire at home , but so let's kind of just focus on Poda and portable , because you kind of really do it better than I do , even though I kind of started that route . But and I know Todd's got the same antenna where we're talking about a second . So go ahead , dive into it .

Might as well Give give Matt his praise , because I mean that antenna is pretty , pretty stout and pretty , pretty cool in general . But you know , go ahead , do tell .

The , the pack 10 , I want to say , is around the same when you can get it , the the coffee and I have to say that's gone up now .

The first time I set it up I did it as a sloper and it was perfectly resonant in the digital portions of the bands . But even in the phone portions it never went higher than two to one . And that's what 80 , 80 through 10 . Oh , 80 .

It ended up being electrically no , yeah , electrically short , so the resonant frequency was up in the top of the phone portion , but even still , I mean it was less than two to one throughout . So , yeah , I mean , he just makes it , he makes a fantastic antenna . It's small , you know , I love , I love my little organizer bags .

The whole thing fits in the organizer bag , you know , and so it's just a nice easy five , 50 cord , everything all in one bag .

I , you know I was like reluctant myself to kind of try it out , but once I got it that was silky smooth , very much reminded me of like the packed tennis style wire .

And when I was just like , oh , I was just like this , when I first did that test , I did a review on it and I similar , like your experiences , I did a sloper and and I was just like , well , this is going to be okay .

And then I , you know , I barely , I didn't even touch it initially for tuning , and then I was like I'm going to play around with it and even just adjustments are very easy to do on it in terms of antenna , without having to like worry about , like cutting yourself short or , you know , cutting too long or whatever you can adjust it with .

You know , not too much of an effort . And my , I was hitting from the Cape when I did the review in my parents backyard . I was hitting Vermont and no , no , no , vermont , I was hitting Canada , upper parts of Manitoba , in that area , and I was like I think I have one contact and he was just like how much power are you running ?

I'm like I'm running , like at that point I was running the FX4CR , so I was running like 10 Watts and he was just like you're running 10 Watts , you're five , nine . I'm like I know this is a great antenna . It's as simple as that . I can't , you know , chalk it up to anything .

I mean , the radio is good but in essence the radio is only half of the equation . So , you know , I , I , I , I , I , 100% , you know , subscribed to exactly what . You agree with what you're saying . And I know Todd has the antenna yet , but you haven't gone out and play with it yet , have you done ?

The guy was like you can't throw anything up in trees , right , and I know a lot of people just bring the wire antennas and they're like , well , what am I going to do then ? Right Now , maybe you have the mast or or something you could . You could , jimmy , rig it . But that's why the vertical . I'm like I don't need that .

I go , I got a vertical on a tripod , we're good . And the guy came over he goes , oh , I've never seen that before . I'm like you get a lot of hands here . And he goes , oh , yeah , they always want to throw their wires up in our trees . So so I'm like , all right , well , I don't have any wires to throw up in the door . I did .

But but yeah , I think when it , when it gets warmer out , I think I'll , I'll give it a shot . I'll probably do it first time at the rail trail and see how that works . Probably my probably my new mast out too and see how it works .

But it's definitely a cool antenna and I think you did a lot and all the reviews everyone that I know that's used it it said it's just phenomenal .

If you're looking for an N Fed , I would say before I was a reliance , you know , a fanboy , I used to use the ELFS antenna , that chameleon antenna . I can remember chameleon , yeah , chameleon . That is a great antenna . We had another 40 through 10 N Fed , good construction . I took it down to Florida .

When you know I went down there to go during spring season for my son Last was a 20 , yeah , 2023 . And I made contact with Todd , you know , right from you know an island in Florida and so you know , and that was . You know I was like clear as day , you know it's like , and that him and K murder what are my two . You know big , big scores for that .

You know activation . But I ran into the same problem . I didn't have a park ranger come over to me and say you know you need to put your antenna not in a palm tree . I had the problem trying to figure out how to put the fricking thing in a palm tree .

You know it's not as easy as like hey , you look at pine trees up in New Hampshire and you're like , hey , I can hit a bridge . The palm tree is just like everything's like that far up . It's like you know , and you don't know if it's going to come out , I'm going to hit that coconut or not , you know , and .

I have actually looping it around one of the leaves on the side of the , the , the actual tree itself , the trunk of the tree instead of the actual , you know , pine , the palm boughs . So I was just like , okay , whatever it's up , I'm not going to worry about it . You know , let's just go for it and play .

So you know that actually good .

You know I'm sure we're talking a lot in terms of you know , we had the experience and those that you know know obviously know the experience and have had a chance to get out and do potas and and you know you know activations and stuff , but like say , say , they're a new ham , like we bumped into a bunch of new ones , and they're all like excited to get

out there and do potas . But what would you guys kind of recommend to them ? I mean , like I mean we've obviously done a little bit of both . But you know , in your opinion , if you were asked the question you know , from a new pota and new , you know green , you know guy gal that said , hey , I want to , you know , do pota .

What , what intention should I get ? What would you throw at them ? What would you recommend ?

You know , I think cheaper is better , or I shouldn't say cheaper , less cost , because it's not a cheap antenna , but less cost might be a little bit easier for people . Now , if they said money wasn't an option , then I'd be like , yeah , we'll get the buddy pole . Then I mean that's my number one thing , but you know that costs like what is that ?

A couple of three hundred bucks or something ? Yeah , I think it was like three hundred dollar price tag at the door . Yeah , you know I talked earlier about I've been looking at this res antenna , right , and the one thing that's cool about that antenna is it does 80 meters .

You can actually do 10 through 80 on that , on that vertical , and I think that would be .

That's what kind of is cool for me , because you know , especially if , if I like to mess around with and jump through the bands and on activation , you know , if I get my first 10 , like on 20 , like that's always the go to band , I like to mess around and try to go to 10 , see if 10s work in or if 10s not , like just , and I'll look like , oh ,

there's not a lot of people on like 15 . So I'll go on 15 just to see , and then , like you'd be surprised and it's quiet , you know there's not , you don't get the pot , you don't get the interference , a lot . So Well .

Like , like , I don't think that's a deal breaker in terms of buying an antenna a lot of times , because so I just don't have a potent antenna that'll do 80 .

Okay , so you just want to talk about your ailments and , and you know , the last time you , you know , went to your doctor visit , you know you want to make sure you have that capability , Okay , so so my hemorrhoids are flaring .

I think it would be a major hit , because I can't . I mean , these guys are they're , they're committing felonies on their air , like literally threatening to kill each other because one guy has one opinion and the other guy and I've heard these guys , I know where you live off I'm like what is ?

What so if you're doing a late shift and you know in the summertime and you're , you're at a nice park and you're you decide you want to see what happens on 80 , you'd be , I bet you'd be surprised on who you could get . And who knows , maybe you'll get some angry hands yelling at you for taking up their space on uh , what the hell is this crap ?

This is for POTA , this is for Wrecked Chew , this is for us Hating people . It is crazy Good this is . You know , in that intent of the resident . You know from what I looked at . It comes in a backpack , it's all packed up . I mean I'm thinking , well , this could be a cool . You can have this backpack , have this intent of putting there .

It's got enough room for everything else . I could throw all my antennas in there , right , and then I could just throw them in the bag in my truck , in my Jeep , and just leave it there and then be like boom , what intent do I want ? I don't have to worry about thinking which one did I bring , which one didn't I bring ? So I don't know , it's , it's .

It's a lot of money , but it's , it's on my , it's on my wish list . How about that ?

And I know Todd obviously went wire , but you know what , what ? What's your thinking on it ?

I saw a video the chameleon LED FS 40 through 10 , and I didn't realize that it had a dipole option . Oh , the new . That was , yeah , the new , the new one , because the original does 80 through 10 , did the new . The new one is 40 through 10 with a dipole option .

I thought that was really ingenious of them to set that up , because then if you can run it as a dipole , you run it as a dipole , if you can't , you can run it as a vertical , you can run it as a sloper , you can run it , you know , any , any which way that you want .

And I think , with somebody just starting out , you want , you want an one antenna or two antennas that are really versatile , because otherwise , I mean , it'll get away from you and you'll spend a fortune on antennas .

You know this one over here , this one doesn't do what I wanted to do for this one and this one , the pain , the astatoon . So you know , I'm going to , you know a , we're going to change , you know a direction here . So , man , you guys have all great points .

So I don't know how to to phrase this , because originally my thought was , oh , go vertical , and I was going to , I was going to steer towards the Wilfriver coil , but only with the specific version of the sporty 40 . And the reason why is twofold . One , it's a smaller coil .

It's really kind of tuned for 40 and below and if you configure it right , even out the door , after you've got a larger base and a bigger , better whip and the smallest 40 , 40 coil , you're probably still in this a little bit cheaper . You know , south of what you'd pay for a buddy pole pro or you know any of the you know the more expensive .

You know chameleon whips and stuff like that that are very like you know , if you want a brand that's versatile and you know interchangeable chameleons kind of the way to go , like you , you know you start with something chameleon , you can just add on to it and , just , you know , create this whole new , you know setup for you .

So I think you know , if you're into that , that's a great direction to go . But for me , I think when I did all of my research and I , you know , started out , I was like I need something that's not going to affect my , my interaction at the park , and I didn't know at the time .

And when I did start doing parks , on the other , never really was that issue with a lot of the park rangers , with throwing stuff up in the trees , unless you were kind of at a national monument or something .

But I always just was like I don't have time to spend throwing something up in a tree , I just want to plop it down on the ground , run my coax to it , figure out how to frustrate myself enough to tune it and then , you know , once I figured out how to work the bugs out of it I'd be good to go .

So that's where the Wolframer coil really worked well for me . And when I think of it , when I paid for it out of the box with a 24 inch base and the coil the platinum coil , and the standard 17 inch whip I think it was it was , like you know , roughly a little shy of like 300 , you know , out the door . So it worked really good .

For , you know , the first antenna that I had . I still go back to it a lot and I , you know I very much love that antenna , no matter what I've gotten . I've gotten , you know , adding to it and throwing it in a center loader configuration and a few other things and tweaking it and whatnot .

So it's a great intended to learn how to cut your teeth on and that . That . I think that's kind of like .

The message I want to send to people is that no matter what antenna you're going to get , you're either going to get super frustrated or you're going to be like I'm in love and this thing's great and it just works out of the box and tunes , you know , one to one or one and a half to one out of the you know , or even two to one , you know perfectly fine

, no matter , you know what environment you're in and you just go with it . So you know , I guess I think all of us , you know , come from different walks of life and all of us do have different experiences .

But all of those experiences are very valid and important because , you know , for the new ham , I think all of our questions to them , or the first question to them , is like , well , what do you want to do ? And that's , you know , going to dictate whether they go vertical or they go wire , right ?

That's kind of like my sweet spot and I'll get anywhere , you know , from like 100 to 200 contacts . It's , you know , it's fun and it's worth it for me , you know . But I definitely can see how , like you know the lunchbreak , you know , set up , you want it to be really compact , you want it to be really easy to go up and really easy to come down .

And you know a lot , of , a lot of the wire antennas and the vertical antennas . They fit that mark . So it's , it's what , what , what works for you .

Well then I look on the on the map and I said , hmm , what park could I hit on my way to the next meeting ? And you know I've done that . I hit a Vermont park , two , two Vermont parks , because I was Ken down . I was up in a town called Warren , new Hampshire , and then I had to come down to Claremont . So I took 91 .

I went out farther west , hit 91 , came down and came back . So you're right on the river there . So I hop over to Vermont here's a park right off the road here and able to set up , activate that , and then um , and then head to the next meeting . And it killed me , you know , killed an hour and a half at times , yeah , and that that's how I like .

I mean that's like when I can do quota , you know , in between meetings or a wall met work . But uh , you know I do like to sit down . If I had the time to just sit down like you would do in like four hours and just sit there and relax and Crank out 200 contacts and and do all the working . But I just don't have that kind of time .

When I retire , oh yeah , I'll be doing that . You heard it here . I gotta . You know people like oh , you know , why do you want to retire ? I'm like , trust me , I got a whole plan . I'm gonna be very , very , very happy person in my retirement .

So I'll be flying my model airplanes and doing parks , you know , every day and hopefully I'll be down on the beach and I'll be taking swims in the ocean .

I just , you know , because I'm like Todd , like a lot of times I'll squeeze in , I will like try to use and milk every Bit of every minute of the day , you know , when it comes to trying to figure out how I can fit in a part of activation , like so the Cape was a perfect example .

Like I was coming home and I was like , alright , I'm gonna leave at a certain time , and my time slots lit an hour and I was just like , okay , well , I literally have about half an hour to activate . Okay , let's just get to the park .

I don't care , you know , if they lock me in , fine , but if they don't , I'm just gonna , you know , go for the 30 minutes and I'm gonna work , work it hard and work it quick and work it fast . And and those , for me , are thrilling because it's like it's a heart pumping kind of adrenaline rush .

It's like , you know , you're either gonna have a successful activation or you're gonna be having those activations where you're Begging and pleading people to . You know , answer your CQ when you're out there , and I love both of them .

I mean , I can't say enough about , you know , those moments , you know , when no one hears me and I'm like did I actually spot myself on the spotting page ? You know you kind of sit there thinking like maybe my cell phone signal didn't actually say it was posted , you know . And or the those moments where you just like , is this ever gonna stop ?

I mean like this just keeps coming . It's like , oh , a break , no , it's more again . And you know you kind of go back around through that cycle and you know Paul's got the stamina to withstand four hours of of operating Poda .

I'll be right back , don't leave , I'll get you all . I promise I won't leave , it's gonna get you all . And they waited and they come back and as soon as you call , you think it's like yeah , so it's such a great feeling though . Yeah , I love the pile . It's so much fun it's it's .

It's what makes you know , I , when I was studying for my technician , I would watch . I know you guys don't think I'll be like a total geek , but I would watch like live YouTube of people doing 13 colonies and I just watch them doing Pile ups and I'd be like just amazed . I'm like I'm never gonna be able to do that . Like what are they ?

How they even doing it ? And then now I see myself in portal like I'm doing what I watch them do . That I said I'd never probably be able to do . And and you're , you know it's like they're calling you , they're looking for you , they want to talk to you and it's it's , it's pretty cool .

So you feel like you're , you're one of those professional hand , you know . You know not professional , but those D Contestors that are like so you know , you're like , well , look at that . They and people I mean you get to a rare park , like I've been to some parks .

I like you know I'm down in Mississippi like parks that no one even goes to and they're like Thanks for the new park , man , that's awesome .

I'm in the state of Massachusetts sitting on Cape Cod and all of a sudden , once I say Cape Cod , they're like oh my gosh , cape Cod , you know gotta be . You know I gotta get in the log of like . Yeah , it's just Cape Cod . Guys , I've activated this whole thing in . Massachusetts .

We're like , wow , we did an island on Island , on the island Newcastle we're just focused on our roof .

Yeah , you know , figure out how quick we can do it in and see whether or not we cross wires . So , yeah , hey , maybe maybe it might work out too . You know , if we do it , as you know , when we get our club call , so you know we'll have to , you know , do it at that time I prefer to go .

So I mean , we obviously talked about , you know , balance of bulls , commercial , and you know , build your own type antennas , you know .

So I think the consensus is and correct me if I'm wrong is that if you're , you know , and you , ham , and you've had no prior experience in electronics or you know kind of an engineering field or whatever , that there's nothing bad about buying a commercial antenna , and we've mentioned a bunch of them . I think that would be , you know , fit the bill .

Well , and and and definitely are widely available and and you can pick them up Pretty quickly .

But is there anything that we'd want to throw in like as a kind of a last , you know Bit of advice to someone who's just , you know , join in in this hobby , maybe tune into this podcast , and you know , heard us talking about you know antennas , and , and you know , have been blown away by the deluge of you know information that's out on the YouTube space

About antennas out there . You know any one last bit of thing ? You know advice you'd want to throw at them . I .

You go , it's not on , eric's bringing everything , and like we didn't really know at least I didn't know what the heck I was doing , so just let you take . But I think that was a good kickstart for both of us even to really get Moving , because we actually all three of us did it .

So if you can , if you're interested in doing polo , I know there's guys in our club that are have never done it , really interested , and I keep saying let's go out , let's go out . They're like , oh , as soon as it gets warm .

So hopefully you know between all of us will have enough guys in our club that are gonna want to go out there and learn how to do it . I think if you do it once and you make you activate the park and you get a little pile up going , they're gonna be psyched .

It's just gonna grow that part of ham radio and it's gonna get more people on the air and you know . That's what this is all about . That's what we're trying to do here is is really just inform people , get people out on the air , get them their tickets and Enjoy the hobby like we all do . So that'd be my only advice , and they have fun with it .

It shouldn't be a stressful thing . It should be . It should be fun and always have someone you can call , like like when I called Eric and I said I don't know how to set up this , what am I doing wrong here ? And he walked me through it .

But you know , whether you decide to build or buy right , even if you buy right , I encourage everybody to experiment and build , because you you learn so much by experimenting and you know these days , you know the the tiny V&A is really affordable for most people and it I don't really Like it as an analyzer because I don't understand all of the settings in it ,

but it it's , it's affordable and it works and you can very easily start testing antennas and building things and seeing how different things work . And , yeah , just have fun with it and and Try it out . Experiment .

The first antenna , whether it's commercial or you build it , whatever your comfort level is is just you know , don't be afraid to Be okay with whatever your choice is , because in the , if you're surrounded yourself with good hams and other people that love the hobby , they aren't gonna ridicule you .

For you know , though , you built commercial or whatever , and if they do , then go find another group because , in essence , you know you're with the wrong people . But just you know , try it out , play with it , you know , learn a lot from it . You will make a ton of mistakes . That's the biggest thing I think .

I think from I as a takeaway would be is you will fail . Just you know . Keep that in the foreground of your mind . You will fail . No , it'll be activation . You'll fix coax . You will forget your battery . You will forget how to set your radio SWR , you know , or you'll forget your logger . I mean like simple things like that you know .

So you know , don't worry about it , just get out , have fun , know that next time you'll come around and you'll be that one step better . So you know , when it comes to antennas , think the same way . You know that first antenna you have is not gonna be the last antenna you use in your life .

So , knowing that , I think you know you're armed with a bit of information to get out there and try , and so , if you're in the market For looking for antennas and the choices that you , you know , heard from us , you know you want to find more information . I'll definitely check their websites .

All the links will be in the description below , but more so , feel free to email us .

We're happy to help out , we're happy to give more advice , we're happy to you know , point you in the direction of other Resources that we've learned from and that other people that are smarter than us , you know , and then a build in tennis , you know , for most of their life , can Provide , you know , better information and get you on the road to , to where you

need to be . So you know that just get yourself a .

Let us know how we're doing and you know . If you're gonna any questions , we'd love to you know . Bring those onto the show next time . We know when we post to our socials , you know you can get the latest information , shows and content . So make sure you subscribe to all of those .

And , as always , if you want to help the show , you can support us through our patreon or buy us a beer links and those are all in the description notes below and on our website at live Free and ham comm .

And , as always , if you want to catch any of our or talk to any of our hosts , you can head over to our website At live free and ham comm and you'll find all the links there and comment form if you want to Reach out to us . So again , as always , thanks for listening to follow us at live free and ham . 7 3 . We're my mouse , damn mouse .

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