The 2021 Field Day was the first time member of the San Mateo Radio Club met in person since the pandemic. It was nice to see friends again after so long, but the most enjoyable part was to be in a group of people working toward the same goal …
This year for Field Day, our club decided to build a new multi-band antenna for 80 and 40 meters. The antenna had to have enough bandwidth to use the entire band without using an antenna tuner.
Our main goal as Amateur Radio Operators is to make sure that as much of the power coming out of the radio as possible is radiated by the antenna. The maximum power transfer occurs when the power source, the radio in our case, and the load or the antenna are …
Is Resonance required? This is an extract from the ARRL Antenna book1 Please recognize that an antenna need not to be resonant to be an effective radiator. There is in fact nothing magic about having a resonant antenna, provided of course that you can devise some efficient means to …
Over the last few months, I have participated in an increasing number of discussions, either on local repeaters or in zoom meetings, about newly licensed hams interested in operating in the HF bands. Two main questions kept coming back: what radio to buy and what antenna to use. It is …
When I build or install a new antenna, I always run a series of tests. Like everyone else, I look at the resonant frequency and SWR. But to see how the antenna is performing, I run WSPR1 for a few days. Then I use the data collected by WSPR …
I live in the middle of Silicon Valley in a suburban setting with small front and back yards. My property does not have tall trees to take advantage of when installing an antenna. Given these conditions, my best option was to use a vertical antenna. I got a Hustler 4BTV …