Posted: 1/7/2014 12:35:31 AM EDT
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As you know, I got my shack set up hung the roll up J pole in my office. I'd heard about people hanging their antenna inside their apartment and getting great signal and good contacts.
So I get my new radio programmed and I'm listening to the repeaters, I key up and try to join a conversation. Nothing. No acknowledgement, nothing. I try several other repeaters. I'm getting a squelch tail on all of them, even the ones not in use, so I know I'm getting to the repeater and have the tone programmed correctly. I bring up one of my HTs and listen as I key up an empty repeater, still nothing. I very reluctantly turn up the power to 50W (antenna is ~10 ft away from me) and get a very broken transmission once, then more nothing but squelch tail. After about 3-4 days of this I've been going nuts and am now quite despondent. Then I get my first day off in 6 weeks. I sleep most of it (go figure) and when I get up I walk into my office, take a quick look around, and give myself a class AAA facepalm. I hung my antenna between a 4 ft high metal filing cabinet and a > 7 ft high metal computer rack. I'm surprised I could even hear the repeaters... Went and hung the antenna (with expert help from my 6yr old grandson) in a tree outside my office window this morning. I expect it to perform well since we hung it in 17 degree F weather. And sure enough, I made my first OTA QSO shortly afterwards. |
