Testing an antenna for the 2 meter and 70 centimeter amateur bands / 2016-10-30

Diamond X-30N antenna mounted on painters pole in the window of our dormer, CC-BY-SA

I have the idea to put up an antenna for the 2 meter and 70 centimeter amateur bands on the dormer on our house and camouflage it as best as possible. With this idea in mind I could not resist the offer of a secondhand Diamond X-30N antenna for a very reasonable price. I know there are antennas with a lot better gain but I also wanted to minimize the visual impact. I had the time to test the antenna and used the painters pole I used earlier in TV DX experiments, receiving DVB-T television from 167 kilometres away.

On the painters pole out the window the antenna is even higher than the PA0FBK j-pole antenna, which made me try an experiment: participate in the Zondag Avond Roep Ronde (ZARR) radio amateur net which is operated from Maren-Kessel (near Den Bosch) which is a considerable distance on 2 meter. Earlier I was unable to hear the CQ calls for that net on my own radio while hearing them via a nearby 2 meter SDR (mounted at serious higher elevation than my antenna).

But this time I heard the call when the directional antenna of the net manager was pointed in my general direction and he heard my answer, so I had a nice contact on 2 meter FM.

This position of the antenna is quite temporary and I brought it back in after my participation in the amateur radio net. But this makes a better place for the antenna on the roof of the dormer and some camouflage to make it less visible a good idea.