2m is alive now! It’s all about the antenna

[MZeroXMZParticipant]

So I’ve been pretty disappointed with 2m/70cm – my Yaesu FT-5DE HT could pretty much receive nothing when I got it from where I live (pre license, Rx only). I upgraded the rubber duck to a Diamond SRH77CA after reading it was an improvement and I could hear the occasional QSO – guessing very very local, and once I figured out the only repeater I could reach was C4FM only could hear that in the evenings as it re-Tx’d some YSF internet room.

Today I had a Diamond X300N antenna installed up by the chimney, I’ve connected my Yaesu FTM-300 to it and turned on the Scope display and – “Wow!” there are people having QSO’s all over the band, at least 8 active channels at once – 95% crystal clear audio in FM, and the rest good enough to converse. I got my HT out (2nd floor, so reasonably high but indoors) and ran the scope display centred at the same frequency and nothing, just a weak signal where I could barely make out a voice occasionally on a single channel.

It might not be exciting to many, but I’m new to radio and knowing this makes me pretty happy. They say “height is might” – and boy is it true! An HT may not be the best purchase for a beginner if you live in a hilly area – even though I’m at the top of a hill relative to most around, in the house at the highest point on the estate.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by MZeroXMZ.

[onthesideParticipant]

As I see it 2 meters is a dying swan,

[Author]

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