Getting on VHF/UHF

I have a Yaesu FT-991A, it's a great radio and it's served me well on HF, since replacing the broken FT-900, however, it's also a VHF/UHF rig too! That was one of the reasons I settled on it over the Icom 7300. Anyways, I finally got around to setting up a VHF/UHF antenna and getting on the air.

I ordered Dr. Ed Fong's (WB6IQN) DBJ-1 antenna back in May. Just this past week I finally got the antenna set up and on the air.

With my dad's help, we tried to first run the LMR-400 I ordered earlier this month through the wall like how the coax for my HF antenna is setup. 

However, up in the attic we ran into some issues drilling through the wood, so we tried a different approach and drilled a hole right in the ceiling. It's not pretty, but it got the job done.

The hole drilled in the ceiling

We took a break for a few days because it was muggy and humid and I had to work anyways. Then yesterday, after cutting the PVC pipe recommended by Dr. Fong that I picked up at Lowe's and piecing it altogether, it was time to go up in the attic.

Up until last week, there was an old TV antenna that was installed when the house was first built by my grandfather, we removed that and tossed it in the trash since it was of no use as this house has long been wired for cable. You can see the TV antenna in some of these photos.


And up went the new antenna.

My dad hooking the antenna into place.

Originally the plan was to mount this outside and I brought an antenna bracket for that purpose off Amazon. But so far, I seem to be hitting the repeaters I want, so I might hold off on putting the antenna outside.


That's all for now, sorry I've been lacking in updates here, there hasn't been much going on with me and ham radio anyways aside from operating FT8, but that will hopefully change! You can always find me on Twitter though, I tend to update that more often this blog.

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