Our thanks to Allen Wolff, KC7O for once again sharing his expertise with SPARC. At our September 6 meeting, Allen spoke about building a 2m J-Pole antenna. He explained the pros and cons of various plans available on the Internet and how he settled on a design that balances performance with simplicity. We also had a quick refresher on soldering, an essential skill for antenna building. Allen will lend us his story sticks — boards marked to show the proper lengths of copper pipe in the antenna design — when we hold a club build later this year.
If you are interested in building a J-Pole for 2m operation, contact us before September 29. We plan to have a group build over two sessions in October. As Allen discussed, making your own antenna from scratch is a great way to learn about radio physics — and you get a shiny “copper cactus” to show off.