Informal, entertaining, and had me smiling most of the time from the shenanigans. Never stumbled on this channel till now, gotta new sub!

I'll admit that I'm surprised that the coax heading to the DX Commander didn't soak up all the power. This definitely falls into the category of trying stupid things and getting surprising results. I love it. I also love that you are instilling the fun of experimentation in your kids. More of this, please.

Really enjoyed your video. So nice to see such a close bond with your kids, family. Keep it up. Thanks

I don’t get off work until after the stream stars but I will be tuning in to the stream as much at I can. 73s

please also keep in mind that not only is the polarization hugely important (around 20 db loss for cross polarization) but when you make tests like this over a large swath of time the propagation changes minute by minute and sometimes second by second. You could hear the Raleigh fading occurring even during some of the tests with the same antenna. conditions on 2 meters are often better during the morning with some possible inversion from the cooler air up higher and the warmer air mass down low. As the day progresses and the air mass heats more evenly during the "heat" of the day, typically propagation conditions get worse as the day progresses. you still had fun and hopefully learned a few things. In any case testing and having fun is the better part of amateur radio. 73 de James K0UA

Awesome video! Definitely justified the need for an antenna switch!

As others have noted, the tape measure Yagi and the Buddipole dipole should have been mounted vertically instead of horizontally to match the polarization of the remote station. Cross-polarization will cause a large path loss between your station and the repeater. You might want to repeat the tests of those two antennas with them mounted vertically and I suspect you'll note a huge improvement in the performance. Otherwise your video was informative and fun. I encourage you to continue experimenting and posting your results!

SO heart warming to see how much your girls adore you.

You guys are awesome!!!

Doing crazy stuff with antennas is always fun to watch!

"Rubber Ducky" antennas are designed to work best when MOUNTED on the radio. The radio acts as a counterpoise. The next time try dropping 1/4 wavelength piece of wire under the ducks. The antennas that you had horizontal should have been mounted vertically. You get about 20db LOSS in signals when both station are "crossed polarized". Oh, DON`T use the cheap Chinese adapters, on VHF you can get 3db of loss, thats half your power! Continue experimenting, it's FUN ! Congrats on getting ur ticket !!!

You’re awesome, I was literally looking for just this haha

Have a homebrew DXC for a about a year..... tested 2m and 70cm when I made it. Have a 20M and 40m wires installed. Able to hit many repeaters in my area.

Testing antennas is awesome, thanks for sharing. I'm curious about ground planes for HT antennas in the test setup. I learned in one of Josh's videos that the Nagoya, rubber duck, and Abreees require ground planes -- our bodies are part of the ground plane when clutching an HT, hence the need for tiger tails or similar. I confess that I've thrown out perfectly good Nagoyas after testing with a specan and coupler but then realized that I did not attach a tiger tail or other ground plane. Thoughts if it affected performance? I may have missed something on the setup...

🤜🏻👍🤛🏻♡♡♡

What a fun test guys, sorry I missed the live stream! Just curious on the Yagi that Becca built, in the picture you had it horizontal, for FM usually you would set it vertical just wondering if you tried both? Maybe a shoot out video Yagi vs DXC with the Yagi at 10' and zeroed in on the repeater best you can just a thought. The DX Commander is a great antenna that covers so much didn't know 2m also until you mentioned it before. Thx for the video.

I have a 259 and a 259C....I have never let it sit long enough to see it go to sleep, must try that.

How does impedance affect performance? I noticed that many of the low SWR antennas also had 20ish ohms of impedance. Doesn't the impedance on the antenna need to match the 50 in the radio? I too am new to this, and trying to learn.

Why does the analyzer measure resistance? I've been trying to figure out how to apply the impedence measurement from my NanoVNA, but isn't resistance DC?

And a neat shirt!