I just set up a portable rig with a trail friendly endfedz and a petals battery pack. Set up on the front porch and ... nothing. 10-40m no signal at all. 20 should be hopping right now.
Pics of setup later.

Check your antenna.....I am hearing lots of signals on the air.

Brand new antenna.

Even more reason to check your antenna.  

Is the safety on?  I KEED, I KEED.  

Murphy's law, Sattenger corollary:

It works a lot better if you plug it in.

The dummy test is... tune to freq, listen to noise, disconnect antenna, noise should drop,
and get louder when you reconnect.

Slight chance you have the wrong antenna input selected, or maybe the gain controls
are turned the wrong way.

When I first got my Yaesu I had that problem.  Check your squelch and gain!

^Seek2 called it!

Field Day just ended. A large number of hams are either hammed out or haven't gotten their stations back together.

D'OH. Seek
HF was set to the front antenna. Now I hear voices.
I had to find the manual. Thanks.

Glad your rig and antenna are ok.

Thanks. I had it all set up for a while this evening. Was listening to 40m when I noticed lightning moving in my direction.
Now I want to set up an end fed  at the house for a main antenna.


ETA: grammar

I was 13.  I had helped a neighbor a few hours each day after school to build his Heathkit stereo gear.

Amp, preamp... two identical boards for each stage, left channel, right channel.  He'd stuff one board,
I'd stuff the other, check off, step by step.  Then we'd swap boards and check each other's boards.  
Next we'd solder the components.  Again, we'd swap boards, check each other's soldering, discuss
and touch up any solder joints that looked questionable.  

A Garrard Turntable (forget the model, but that was the big boy on the block in the early '60's), and
we built a pair of big floor standing speakers.  Later we did a Heathkit / Zenith color TV.  All this
was put in a dedicated listening room, and everything built flush with the wall.  The space behind
the gear was actually the end of the hallway.  He put a door across that so that it looked like a
heater or linen closet.  Ran an air duct from the A/C, so it was cooled, and he had access to
the back of the equipment.  

Nothing in the room but stereo gear, two easy chairs, a little coffee table between the chairs, and
some reading lamps.  This, my friends, was the first "home theatre" I had ever seen.

My Dad was going to buy some stereo gear.  My neighbor and I talked Dad into letting me build
Heathkit gear for the family.  Dad knew I was handy with a soldering iron, as did my neighbor who
reassured him I could do it, and Dad ordered the gear.

It was a "Compact Stereo", that is, the integrated amp and turntable built as one unit.  I later added
a Heathkit stereo FM tuner.  

Just about the time I was finishing up Dad walked in with a pair of Harmon-Kardon (they made real
stereo speakers in those days) bookshelf speakers in a nice walnut finish that matched the walnut
on the Heathkit.

I finished it!  Time to fire it up for the smoke test.  I put on a Beach Boys LP, turned on the amp, the
power light came on.  Started the turntable, record turned, the arm picked up and moved over, set
down.  Dad came in the room to watch.

The record was turning.  No sound.  Silence.  

Dad saw the look on my face.  I felt I had let him down.  I didn't have a clue where to start troubleshooting.  
I couldn't look Dad in the eye.

Then he said, "I think it'll play louder if you press this."  He reached over and turned one rocker switch
from Off to On.  It was the Speaker switch, so that you could silence the speakers when using headphones.  
Surfin' Safari filled the room!  Beautiful sound, full, rich, walking bass line, Beach Boys rich harmony!!!

"Sounds great, son!  You did a good job!  Now get it wired up to the other speakers I have for the Den."  
And Dad walked out of the room.

Lesson learned.  Check the simple stupid stuff first.

As long as we're hijacking a thread -- my first Heathkit, an A-7 amp.



Started out with a corner horn enclosure for an 8" speaker made from Celotex. Considering how inexpensive the material was, it sounded pretty good.

Later fabricated a Karlson 12" enclosure. It's amazing what 7 Watts and an efficient enclosure can do.

 

FWIW, I find that the Nifty operating guide for the FT-817ND is very handy. It helps you find various menu settings quickly. I have one for all of my radios.

If your resonant antenna is giving you high SWR with your FT-817, that's also a good time to check which antenna port you have selected. Not sure how I know that...