I tried to make a 5/8 wave length ground plane antenna for Meshtastic, I had one N-connector for that one left.

82mm for the radials, 205mm (start with 1 cm more and cut later) for the straight radiator and 2 windings around a pencil as a matching coil (the wire was 270mm in total I think).

The NanoVNA showed a SWR about 1.07 at 868.5 MHz and a short walked confirmed a good signal:

Distance: 931m
SNR: 5.50 dB
RSSI: -86 dBm

Later I will go further.

#Meshtastic #Antenna

Very thankful after days of high winds to get a fairly low wind day in time for the Indy 500 so I can watch the race with my digital antenna instead of having to deal with the Fox Sports app I hate worse than anything on Earth.

#Indy500 #Indycar #motorsport #antenna

Quick & Dirty Sunday DIY Project. L-Match for 27MHz.
Toroid : T80-6 with 23 turns (~2.62mH)
Capacitor : 2pF - 30pF
Network Type : L-Match

Wait for better weather to test. But with 4.4k resistor I can match a VSWR 1:1.1

#CB #CBRadio #27MHz #Antenna #Tuner

Free stainless steel garbage cans around here. I am so tempted to make this into a dipole antenna, so I can call it a "trash can antenna".

(If you have a couple of spare Cybertrucks, we could do the same thing, but on lower bands).

#antenna #random #scavenging #hamradio

Wow! Finished building my first 868 MHz ground plane antenna for Meshtastic!

Still needs SWR measuring with a VNA and maybe shortening a bit, which will be my first time doing that, too.

For a test it already got too late but I will keep you updated about the results. Also I would like to try different antenna designs, it's quite fun!

#Meshtastic #Antenna

Inside the Quansheng UV-K5 stock antenna.
Was given an extra, so I pulled it open to see how this particular one was made.
Interesting to see a PCB instead of just a cap.
And it as space for two SMD caps.

#quansheng #uvk5 #antenna #hamradio

Well, I didn't get a chance to hunt any POTA this weekend, BUT I did finally get to put up my PAR Electronics OA-50 antenna! It's been sitting around for far too long, and now that it's getting to be summer, 6 meters should be coming alive a bit, so I'm glad to have gotten it set up.

#6m #6meter #10m #10meter #POTA #antenna #tower #amateurRadio #hamRadio