If you built a J-Pole at the July 18th workshop and are still wondering just how well one of these things performs — Gary Siepser, KR4LUL, has your answer.
Gary finished his DBJ-2 build, swept it on 70cm at the workshop, and — the same day — took it home, hung it in a tree at roughly 6 feet off the ground, and hit the repeaters. No mast, no tower, no ground plane. Just a tree branch and a fresh coat of solder.
🛠️ From Kit to Feedpoint
📊 Checking the Numbers
Gary's 70cm sweep came in at a clean 1.09 SWR, right in line with the sub-1.2 readings several builders walked away with at the workshop.
🌳 Straight From the Tree to the Repeater
Gary hooked up with K1NIC for three test QSOs, all from KR4LUL using a sub-5W TIDRADIO H3 HT running the NicFW firmware — about as modest a station as you can put together:
- NG4RF 441.675 (70cm) — Jasper, 29.17 mi — full quiet, with a few brief, unexplained cutouts
- N4KHQ 146.835 (2m) — Jasper, 31.53 mi — solid copy, just a touch of white noise, no cutouts
- N4KHQ 443.1 (70cm) — Dahlonega, 43.35 mi — solid copy, light white noise, no cutouts
The 70cm sweep from the workshop had tested a little better than 2m, which tracked with Gary's results — the first contact came in full quiet apart from those occasional cutouts, which he suspects were incidental rather than antenna-related.
🗺️ Just How Far Is That?
Both paths climb well over 1,000 feet of elevation gain into the mountains north of the metro area — not exactly a line-of-sight gimme for a 6-foot-high wire antenna and a handheld.
🎉 Why This Matters
A sub-5W handheld, a homebrew J-Pole hung just 6 feet up in a tree, and solid contacts on repeaters nearly 30–43 miles away. That's the whole point of building your own antenna: a well-tuned J-Pole can turn a modest HT into a genuinely capable station.
As Gary put it: "Consider the power of the radio and the antenna being only about 6' high at the top, this was incredible."
Nice work, Gary — and thanks for sending in the report! If you took your J-Pole out for a spin, we'd love to hear how it performed. Drop us a note and we may feature your results too.
73, and see you on the repeaters!
