I bought a home brew 2 meter J-Pole antenna for $15 last summer. I have tried it with multiple radios with no luck. I could receive but not transmit. After much trial and error, 20 minutes before our club tech net call this past Sunday, I decided maybe my problem was the antenna and not the radios (I spent most of my time navigating the mysteries of the 2 meter rig menus and wondering maybe I had not set something correctly).
I had mounted the J-Pole on a 9' wooden pole. I took it down, did some back of the envelope calculations and cut four 20" lengths of antenna wire. I stapled one of them to the 9' pole for the radiating element and soldered it to the center of the PL239 connector. I put ring lugs at one end of the other three wires and bolted them to the holes on the connector and let them hang down as return radials.
I was on the air in 20 minutes and participating in the tech net.
Conclusions:
- Thee is close to 6' of really nice copper tubing in the J-Pole antenna. In these inflationary times, $15 is a good deal. I will cut it down and build a proper 2 meter vertical with four return radials with correct down sloping angle.
- I now know why our club president does not like these antennas.
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