# Ham Radio

I started a new adventure into ham radio. The idea came to me during
the COVID lock-down but although I purchased the study material, for
some reason I got distracted and didn't follow up on it until just
before Xmas last year. To get things moving I bought myself a small
hand-held, Retevis RT85, so that I could at least listen and keep my
interest. Once I had been reviewing the study material again and
thought I was ready to take the exam I started to look for a local
examination centre.  Luckily there was a radio club fairly close that
was approved to sit the exam. I ended up joining the club and doing
the final few weeks of studying with their assistance before sitting
my exam.

I took the examination on the 9th of Feb and was informed by the
invigilator that I had passed the same evening. Monday this week I
received my certificate so that I could request my licence and
call-sign. This was all taken care of within a few minutes via an
online form.


## The myth of HT's

Having viewed a significant amount of videos online, I thought my HT
would have me easily connecting to local repeaters and having a great
old time talking with the locals. The reality sadly was much
different. We have 2 repeaters within the town and although I can
hear their transmissions, including a Hubnet connected repeater some
24 miles away, I can barely be heard on even the nearest. 5w and a
rubber duck antenna just won't cut it in an urban environment. I have
to admit I'm not helped by the terrain as I am basically in the
bottom of a valley, but I really thought things would be better than
they are. Obviously I was super keen to make contacts having put in
all the effort to gain my licence but I feel pretty disappointed
after 3 days of not being heard, or being barely heard.  Saying that
I have managed a few contacts, one of which gave me instruction
over-the-air, how to build myself a dipole antenna.


## The dipole

The instruction I received was to take a piece of coaxial cable,
strip off 19" of the outer jacket and separate the shielding and
center core and pull them in opposite directions to form the two
elements of the dipole. Through some fortune I had aquired some RG58
coaxial from the radio club last Friday evening, so I already had a
significant component for the build. I needed to keep the elements
separated and have some way of mounting it. The first thing that came
to my mind was a long straight piece of plumbing tube that I had
pulled out of the loft when we first moved in. I measured a length
about an inch longer than the total length of the dipole and cut the
tube. I then drilled a hole in the center of the tube to be able to
feed through the RG58 cable. I made a small hook on the end of the
cable so that I could try to poke it through the hole and then
proceeded to draw through the cable[1]. Once I got close to the
elements I fed in the wire section in its plastic jacket, put a cable
tie around the coaxial just below where the two wires separated[2],
and proceeded to pull it down the tube. This eventually resulted in
the braided half of the dipole being pulled in and both elements
being centered in the tube[3]. I have ordered an SMA male to BNC
female connector for the radio and a BNC male to RG58 compression
plug for the end of the coaxial along with a Diamond SRH701 antenna.
The 19cm Diamond should be an improvement over the standard rubber
duck for portable use and I will use the dipole, vertically mounted
in the loft, when at home.

There are a lot more knowledgeable people at the club than me with
regard to antenna so, I will see if we can test the SWR of the dipole
and make any adjustments on Friday evening, before I connect it to
the radio. Hopefully the connectors will be here by then...


[1](gopher://gopher.icu/I/phlog/Radio/images/dipole2.jpg)
[2](gopher://gopher.icu/I/phlog/Radio/images/dipole3.jpg)
[3](gopher://gopher.icu/I/phlog/Radio/images/dipole4.jpg)