2 Meter J-Poles
First of all, I want to say thanks to the staff of Hamblog.com for the reintroduction of their fine website.
I went to the Cary, NC Hamfest this morning. This is the same hamfest where I passed the Technician class license exam last year. That means that I have been a licensed ham for one year now. Hooray!
I was mostly broke today, so I didn’t pick up anything tremendous. I just scrounged around, looking for connectors and doodads that I didn’t want to buy are Radio Shack. I did pick up a nice 1:1 balun for $1. It looks to be in good condition and is cased inside PVC. I also picked up some cheap 300ohm twinlead. 100′ for $2!
I bought this with dipoles in mind, but I remembered seeing a website or two about 2-Meter J-pole made with this stuff. I didn’t currently have a working 2-meter antenna. My magmount base is screwed. I haven’t found out where though. I just know that the SWR is shot to heck. I went to this page first: http://www.mvw.net/radio/jpole.html. The illustration was kinda confusing, but this one: http://www.bloomington.in.us/~wh2t/Jpole.htm helped fill in the gaps.
I built, and taped it to a tall cardboard box. It worked! My signal report was weaker than I liked, but it was better than nothing.