Welcome to the club and congratulations! There is so much to learn, but we are here to help.
I have built a variety of 2m antennas from PVC and coat hangers! My collection includes an end loaded vertical half wave “flower pot”, 1/4 wave ground plane, vertical dipole, 3 element Yagi-Uda, and both copper water pipe and roll up J Pole designs. None were hard at all. Each did a great job of extending my reach! With your final output stage at risk, do you have a SWR meter? I picked up an east to use nanoVNA. They are available on AliExpress “Black Friday” for less than $50 if you look long enough. I have written up most of my builds in Word docs and slide decks. I can send them tomorrow. Search YouTube or start with this guy: https://youtu.be/4EhUau841jk?si=uGdAeDrDRons6UoD This is pretty much a single cut antenna made from stripped coax!!! 73 Dan KJ5IZK On Wed, Nov 26, 2025 at 9:19 PM Jose Enrique Ortiz Quintero via BVARC < [email protected]> wrote: > Hello everyone,My name is Jose Ortiz, callsign KJ5NES (Technician, just > passed a couple of weeks ago – still feels unreal!).I recently joined > BVARC and I’m really excited to be part of the club. I live up in Tomball > (77375), so I’m a bit farther than most of the club’s activity seems to be > centered. I’ve been trying to hit the main BVARC 2-meter repeater (146.940 > – I think that’s the one?) with my 5-watt handheld (Yaesu VX-6) and so far > I’m not having much luck.Any tips or tricks from folks who are also on > the far edge of the coverage footprint? I know a better antenna is the > obvious answer (which actually leads me to my next interest below), but I’d > love to hear what has worked for others – external mobile mag-mount on a > cookie sheet on the balcony, J-pole in the attic, etc.Longer term, I’m > very eager to learn more and get on the air regularly. One of the things > I’m most excited about right now is building my own antennas. I’d love to > start with some simple 2-meter and 70 cm projects. If anyone in the club > enjoys homebrewing antennas and wouldn’t mind a newbie tagging along or > getting some guidance, I would really appreciate it. Happy to bring pizza > and adult beverages as payment!Looking forward to checking in on a net > soon (once I can actually reach the repeater) and eventually meeting many > of you in person.73 and thanks in advance for any advice,Jose Ortiz > KJ5NES – Tech > Tomball. > 207-604-9977 > [email protected] > > ________________________________________________ > Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club > > BVARC mailing list > [email protected] > http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org > Publicly available archives are available here: > https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ >
________________________________________________ Brazos Valley Amateur Radio Club BVARC mailing list [email protected] http://mail.bvarc.org/mailman/listinfo/bvarc_bvarc.org Publicly available archives are available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
