Your video made sense! Thank u!! de WB9DBD

Nice, nice video thank you and the frequency 280 is the one I talked to a lot of Spanish people and I recognize the voice so thank you for sharing with everybody 😊

Nice job. I just moved into a neighborhood with dreaded HOA so no beams but think I will give this a try thank you. wa7ups

As a Brit, I'm always interested to hear how things are across the Pond. I notice that 146.52 seems to be used both as a calling and working frequency; our calling channel over here is 145.500, but I bet that even if it had been silent all day with you putting out calls and you eventually got a contact, if you carried on chatting and didn't QSY to another simplex channel you'd have some joker pop up and tell you off for having a QSO on the calling channel! Many thanks for the video, 73, G0CIQ

I see nowhere to connect it to WiFi. I don't have an icon at the top corner

I bought one of those resistors and the tab fell off. They are very delicate...😅

This is 5 years old when I found it. Been looking for something like this for a while, and will be looking a bit deeper into building this possibly. Have looked at a few other 6m designs over the past few weeks and very possibly will be considering building this one in the near future. Are there any updates to the design & build? Cheers Mick G6ASJ.

Is there a part one?😀

I built this antenna and could not get the swr reasonable 5.7 @ 50.00 to 17.5 @54.5 measured everything exactly feed and shorting strap as per plan not sure what gives

Thanks for the excellent video. I am just getting back into ham radio after 30 years away from it. I am planning a fan dipole as the first temporary antenna I make just to get on the air. That is when my new house and shack are built. The vice you used reminded me that I need to get one :) HS0ZQF

It does a lot more, I just ordered one for other linux ham apps that come with it, they may not have been out when this video was done, once I get comfortable with it I may do a video?

Improvement: pump the audio through the truck sound system.

Is using battery cable wire Ok or does it need to be flat wire.

I could hardly tell the difference but to me the 219 has a slight edge. I have the HM-207 on mine, which is basically for the 5100 so the buttons are labeled differently. There’s a $40 difference between the 207 & 151, but haven’t figured out why. I’ll have to try the 207 vs the 198 & see. I got the 207 for the remote functionality but I’m not using it as much as I thought, probably because the buttons aren’t labeled correctly.

That is a dumb design; Astron really dropped the ball on the RS-35. Those bridge rectifiers are rated at 200 volts (good) and 25 amps (bad). You have two bridge rectifiers put in parallel, which is moronic at best; when you have two rectifiers in parallel one rectifier will almost always conduct sooner (at a lower voltage) than the other, which means one will take most of the loading. They should have just used one bridge rectifier rated at 40 or 50 amps.

Got a question for you. I just got a used ta-33 disassembled. How can I tell which traps are which , could it be the size? Wish people marked them when they take them apart.

Nice video and I like your approach. I might look into something similar. 73, WRQD683

Hey Chris, great video! I have a couple of quick comments that I hope are helpful: 1- My co-worker WA2OQV had built a fan dipole for 10-15-20 meters made out of 3 conductor insulated rotor wire. The wires were kept together and not separated. We used it successfully on many field days. It worked very well and easy to deploy and take down and also had low wind load. Maybe an option for your viewers. It resonated on each band. 2- The regular PEX tubing I believe breaks down when exposed to UV (Ask me how I know!), but I think there is a UV rated type. Not sure if that is available at Home Depot. Quick story: Our AM broadcast transmitter site had several long lengths of PEX tubing routed along the docks out to each tuning hut for supplying fresh water to clean off the geese poop. Well, they all cracked after a while due to UV exposure :( (We have not replaced it yet). 73, Dave WA2SVM

A really nice video: informative and very entertaining! Also an interesting antenna. I built some copper J-poles for myself and for my Civil Air Patrol squadron - their VHF frequencies bracket our 2m band. As for aligning the pipe, the antennas were laid out on the garage floor and then "sweated". Figure that should work for your squalo! Thank you again de k6whp dit dit

Excellent video, thanks for the shout out. Really good setup. I had to take notes.

Thanks for putting this video up! I’m leaning towards ordering this antenna for exactly this kind of thing that you demonstrated. 73!

Hi Chris! This is Bill, W1ZY, up in Southern R.I. I just subscribed! Listen, looking at that backyard and all those trees, I suggest calling a local arborist or tree service and ask them to "shoot some lines" over the tops of those trees. It'll take them less than 10 minutes. Once the lines are up, you can begin to "play" with antenna projects. Maybe raise that OCF up to 60'. Or hang a half-square. A couple wire verticals. Etc.

The Eton is a nice radio, I personally think it is a little expensive, but for the price point, you get a lot. It is hard to use at first, but watching videos, reading reviews, looking at Online manuals (and the handheld manual) it gets easy after around 1-2 hours of researching. I wish there was a weather band, but I wouldn't even use it so I am not mad. Love the little thing. 9/10!

I’m interested to see if your wife’s radio is set up to talk on a repeater, would she be able to reach you at the house being further away. The second question no one seems to address is, the family can run on your call sign per FCC. I’m confused how that works since you would be using the call sign to identify you, how does your wife identify herself? I’m in the same situation with my wife and radios. Great video. Thank you.

I got the 2 meter version and I hit repeaters on 40 miles away with 50w radio . Pretty good antennas

So I got a used th350 can anyone tell me how to delete all the save memory channels so I can add my own thanks

When your wife was testing with the Nagoya UT-72G did she stop and try to key up or was she driving and keying up? I am only asking because my Nagoya UT-72G will make my recieve and transmit make popcorn popping sound when driving over 20 mph. Static build up on the antenna tip. My HTs with a Nagoya 771G will hit my local repeater that's 16 miles line of site from I side my bedroom just fine.

May be necessary real soon.

I keep a pair of weather proof GMRS radios in my truck. This is in case my wife and I need to split up or inadvertently separated as a back up to cellphones on road trips or in the event of a break down. I have two non-weatherproof GMRS radios as backups at the house. I grew up in south Florida where we prepped for hurricanes every spring. Had everything ready in case utilities were down for 2-4 weeks. This mindset carried over when I moved to GA in my 20s.

Great video. Note that one advantage of GMRS is that you are allowed to talk business; this is forbidden on ham radio. --73 N3TS / WRAT786

I have an amateur license. I recently got my GMRS for similar reasons. It never hurts to have a plan for contingency. I also got frustrated with the Elmers on ham. My wife wouldn't use a GMRS except in an emergency. I have always enjoyed radio. I was a teenager when CBs were all the rage.

Great video! I'm a ham that recently got into GMRS for the same reason as you. My wife has no interest in nerdy ham radio stuff so I figured a simple GMRS radio was the way to go. Currently looking at moving my mobile GMRS radio into the house to setup as a base station and trying to pick out cabling and antenna.

I found the diamond MC203 mobile antenna works great, need a lip mount, I bought the diamond lip mount, great gain. 6+ gain. I have two Wouxun KG935 + handhelds. We built a GMRS j pole works really well, not outside yet, but is at the highest point in the house, our local raptor has great coverage 45+ miles in any directions. The LMR coax is a good Choice especially in the band , don’t want a lot of power loss. I got my eye on mess coax that makes coax just for the vhf/uhf, 28 stranded braid center. I’m also a ham N2tim. You just never know when all fails, radio communications will be there.

use to do this all the time when staying at hotel with office colleagues during working trip which made them hard to get a sleep 😂 bring back memories..

I have many radios with the silicon Lab chips in them. Before I graduated up to the NXP TEF6686 DSP chip, this was the top radio on my shelf. The performance is outstanding. I too, like the fact it has aircraft band, which many radios still do not have. Eton has squeezed every last once out the Si-labs DSP chip, and they did a great job doing it. I think it's time Eton considers adding the NXP TEF668* DSP chip to their lineup. For SSB and aircraft, they will have to keep the Si-labs chip on a separate board, but for everything else, the TEF6686 walks away without even looking back. From what I have read online, the silicon lab DSP chips are modified DTV chips, to cover a broad range of radio frequencies. This is why their performance is somewhat limited, and most radios with them are quite similar. Depending on brand of radio, they can tweak a few things (change the noise floor, install a longer antenna, etc.) but are still limited on what can be done. OK, enough of the DSP talk... I like my Eton Elite executive. It's small, lightweight, and it does a great job. The Elite Executive is just as good as my Eton Field BT. You can't go wrong with an Eton.

I’ve used the flight radar before when meeting folks at local airports here on Long Island but the radio app is impressive when the two are combined! Thanks Chris.

I’ll give this app a try! Good info Chris. Thanks!

*Here's What You Need to Do* You need to first adjust the whip to 1/4 wavelength of the band you want to operate on. If that's a 17' whip, you are all set for 20 Meters up to 10 Meters. Then you need to lay out the two (or more) radials on the ground, in which case they are non-resonant and their lengths do not matter, in which case they should be equal. You definitely need a current choke "balun" on the feedline at the feedpoint to prevent the coax from acting as another radial. You can do this by wrapping several turns through a ferrite toroid of the correct mix. Then you need to _forget about SWR_ and focus on _resonance._ To do this, you connect the Rig Blaster _at the feedpoint through a short coax jumper._ *Do not connect it at the rig end of the feedline.* Keep sliding the whip lower section until the reactance is minimum. The impedance should read about 30 to 50 Ohms. You then short out that over-priced Wolf River coil because you do not need it on 20 through 10. If you do not do it this way, and try to "tune" the aerial with the rigblaster at the far end of the coax reading "SWR" while adjusting the amount of Wolf River coil being tapped and adjusting the whip length, you will never tune the aerial on 20 Meters and above if using a 17' whip.

I'm going to start calling regularly on 146.520 in my area. I use the repeaters here, but rarely monitor the calling channels. I guess that's a bad habit to get into. Simplex is awesome, just very range limited from my vehicle.

I am so sorry we missed your program tonight....YOU guys are so full of information for our hobby. 73's from MN KC0QNA

Date code on the original filter capacitor is 1994.

I have that same Grundig 400 and my antenna also broke! I ended up getting another antenna and hotgluing the crap out of it inside the radio. As a product designer, I wasn't very happy with this and it left a bad feeling with me. It is a very nice radio though.

Liked and subscribed De KD5INM

Does this help car audio at all?

Eton Elite Executive doesn't have an external antenna input for MW/AM band. (Executive's external is only for SW and I think FM bands.) If I purchased one, I'd certainly test the DX switch, ensuring I could receive the AM broadcasts for my rural area using the internal antenna, or without an external antenna. Usually always requiring an external antenna for MW/AM band. Funny, any end fed long wire is usually fine for AM, as long as the long wire is likely aimed correctly and likely outdoors rather than inside the house.

why did you not separate the 2 rectifiers and test,also why did you not test the cap for capacitance shorts+esr before assuming its dead,looks like you need to keep your day job! quite a fail realy.

question, can i plug directly to tv ?

Step 1, drive up a mountain. Step 2, call CQ on 146.52 and mention your location. There might be a modest pile-up. One time I quickly worked three stations that were all in a city ~200 km away.

Great show as always!

Thank you for showing the simplicity of the slim-jim antenna! I've been debating between that and the Ed-Fong but the N9TAX is looking pretty good! Thanks again!