Elmer

I took along the old slim jim antenna I bought at my first ham fest. I understand now better how to tune it: I need to make it a little longer, not just slide the feed point up and down the batch.

The antenna was a little short by measurement with the NanoVNA. I hung it from a fan in the middle of the room to measure it without interference. I lengthened it at the far bend by soldering some extra house wire in the bend.

Now it looks perfect for 2m and 70cm.

There were only 3 of us at the SPARC elmer night, but we were on the same page. I compared notes on packet/APRS and WoAD with KC3QEH, JJ. We both had these new Btech-based radios. Even on the hill, our HTs with small antennas didn’t pick up much inside the building. I tried an external antenna from another club radio and I started receiving lots of packets. Sending APRS messages worked under the Signal menu: KC3QEH-7:TEST MSG