Diamond in the Sky

Sat, 19 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to write a follow up to my earlier post about the Feature Tech antenna analyser. The short summary of that post was that when I hooked up the antenna analyser to a mobile whip on a magnetic base, I saw all sorts of SWR values which were often not repeatable and changed even as I was taking my hand away from the meter. I was disappointed with the device.

Fast forward a few weeks, in a QSO with Martin VK6ZMS and he was strongly of the opinion that I was doing myself a disservice by running a mag mount without grounding the antenna to my vehicle close to the base of the antenna. Another clue was one idle afternoon at home, I threw the analyser on my WARG Pogo Stick 2m antenna and it had none of the problems I had seen. The SWR readings were reliable (you could read of a value for a frequency, change the frequency then change it back and get the same SWR value) and did not alter as I handled the coax or moved away from the meter. One of the features of this antenna is that it has an coax choke at the base.

Swr on VK6MIB

Diamond in the Sky