Having been in Puerto Rico for hurricane Maria, I can tell you for sure, that ham radio was the only way to get any communication trough. Ham radio has its place in communications hands down.

Excellent video and your presentation is clear and concise. I've been fooling around with radios for many years but finally studying for my license so I can finally transmit! I think antenna design will be a primary focus for me! Thanks again and can't wait for your other (hopefully in the near future) antenna builds. WITH TESTS at the end! THank You for the test at the end!

Here's a great tip a local ham told me recently. To make your length of wire more rigid than it comes, secure one end of your length in a vice and the other in your drill. Now twist the wire and you'll feel it shorten. Don't go too much or it will snap. Just enough to shorten it some. When you test it (i did several tests on various bits of wire) you'll find it significantly more rigid.

Your videos are very informative and well done, no matter what the subject matter. I really enjoy your channel. Keep up the great work!

Oh boy, how long i haven't heard this noise out of a ham-radio-device. There are coming up memories from old times. Cheerio and 73 from Germany. DH1IAR

Nicely done Matt! Love this build. Will have to give this one a go some time. Curiosity piqued! 👍📻⚡

Ah, nastalgia time! Thanks for helping to keep the hobby alive. It takes me back about 50 years when I made my first coathanger yagi for 2m AM. W2RSB portable F. 73's.

Very cool. I have established em comms with my stepson 35 miles away with 2 Yaesu ft 60r's with 2 meter verticals. We get 5X5, 5X7. This Yagi solution looks really good. Thanks. KI5FBZ, 73

The message is clear - a little know-how and a few materials and you can make contacts effectively! Great video. One thing I will add, is that a Yagi should be fed from a Balun output if connected to coax, else the feed line will act as a radiator and distortion the radiation pattern.

Brilliant I had nothing to do this Sunday and now I have. I'm building me a Yagi. Thank you Sir keep your pukka videos coming.

This is pretty great. Nice job editing it down to under nine minutes too.

Great stuff. I will have to try it soon.

I was actually looking for a way to make a mobile whip out of things I might have around the homestead, to get me by till I can collect enough pocket change to buy a new one. I do like this option for the HT I have on the patio. Thank you for the great build.

I like this antenna demo. Thanks muchly

Great idea and I like the build it in an emergency concept - Bazza ~ ZL4MB - New Zealand.

omg dude that was awesome i am gion outside now to build one i have to try this. hope you do more videos like this. this is my ham for dummies i am studying to test soon

Thank you. Good and simple.

Love making homebrew vhf antennas... tried one I made that works as a vertical for fm .. as shown on my channel. Great vid 73

Thanks for having a nice tidy shop. Watching antenna build videos and I don't know how people get anything done...

Very simple, very good, very nice. Thumb up.

2m yagi 1inch pvc pipe and 2 caps and 1 T stainless steel antenna radials from my old antenna and a wooden dowel.im going to finish it tomorrow !!!! Thank you from Rickey Parker KF4FIE

Cool video, thanks!

This is awesome. I live near there and I think I know the guy you were talking to

Thanks for the video! I'll be giving this a try this weekend and maybe as a project for the kids at our school! Thank you again! KC1LUX

Love to see how you attached the wire to the pl259 up close. I made a satellite antenna out of hangars, but I have not tried it yet. -73- W1KPS

THANKS! gr8 instructions

Excellent!

I will most likely over engineer that into a more sturdy design. I like it.

I'm all for emergency solutions when it comes to antennas and it seems that this is an easy thing to build. My local radio club is hosting a fox hunt in a few weeks and this would be a perfect down and dirty solution. Besides, I didn't want to go with the tape measure version with a tuning stub and given this will be a temporary antenna for such events, I think it will do the trick with minimum materials.

Radio was discovered by the Original Amateurs. And we still have folks doing cutting-edge development-because they can. And then there's CW!

Years ago. I made qtr wave from just an so-239 and cardboard bailing wire.

Thanks for making the video KG5SFT

If you grab one end of the copper wire in a vice and grab the other end in a vice grip and twist it several times while pulling, the wire straightens out and work hardens as well, making it much stiffer.

@baylorjaxton5199

2 жыл бұрын

Instablaster

Hey, nice work! I work about 46 miles (as the crow flies...) away from home, but I participate on a daily net in the city I work in. I've wanted to build a super basic beam antenna and mount it on the roof so I can participate on the net on weekends as well. I have piles of materials at my disposal, so guess what I am doing this weekend??

Emergency drilling of pvc: Heat a nail and push it through, or use a bow-drill.

Nice video on making a yagi antenna our of basically scraps. LMAO when I heard Frank on your test.

Great video and must try and build it. Also lovely countryside in that lovely part of the world. Joe EI5GDB

Nice!

Someone else may have mentioned this to straighten the #12 wire. Instead of smacking the vice grips chuck the wire in a drill on one end and hold in vice on the other,end start the drill and hold tension on the wire. You will have a nice straight wire.

@chrispierce2942

5 жыл бұрын

This was a "powers out" build

@haugen4015

5 жыл бұрын

@@chrispierce2942 battery driven drill ;)

@chrispierce2942

5 жыл бұрын

@@haugen4015 true as long as it's charged when you need it when the feces hits the variable rotatng oscillator

Hey thanks for the video feat idea. I work in Indiana PA. Sal KD2OXR

You can make the elements straighter by zip-tying them to 1/2" thick wood dowels.

A double Thumbs up!

I'll try to build this antenna, I'm new to all of ham radio .. 73

I can offer an even simpler way to attach the driven elements without any soldering. Use BNC screw/ring terminals. These have a 2+mm hole in each contact where one can inserted the copper wire

Nice 2 meter antenna build. I just passed the test for Technician license and need to build a 2 meter yagi antenna for my Yaesu FT-4VR I got from the local Ham club for passing the test. It's a mono band, 2 meter HT. I can hit our local repeater with the HT and the stock rubber ducky antenna but that's about it. While waiting for my license I gotta get busy and make me a couple of antennae. First is the 1/4 wave 2 meter ground plane which I'm almost finished with. Gotta get to the post office tomorrow to get my antenna adapter from SMA female to a UHF SO-239 so I can hook a piece of coax to it. Next will be the folded dipole 4 element yagi made from 1" PVC and a tape measure.

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍💎

Now I need a way to watch this video in a desaster =P Just kidding, interesting video, thx!

73s Matt

Excellent video thank you SeanZS5X

Dont forget to use 1 wavelength of rg6 coax for a near balanced match.

In an emergency.... you might now have anything to cut the PVC .... except for the five hand saws on the wall behind you!

@iainbarclay3751

5 жыл бұрын

Ah but "saws " are redundant in a nuclear situation because of the radiation . Your only allowed to use KZread tools.

Awesome video thank you!! I have one question though, how did you attach the driven element that was soldered to the ground sleeve ring to the device?

okay i built mine from scraps took me 30 minutes and worked perfect i will put the analyzer on it tomorrow came out nice so is there a video did you add the 70 cm yet

Pony Express then. I forgot about their jamming capabilities.

Awsome idea Mat, how easy is that

Hey Matt... I tried making a 2M beam with a yard stick and coat hangers. Major fail. Never did get it to work right. I just ended up dropping the 100ish bucks on an Arrow 2M/440 antenna with the built in duplexer which works great for satellite! But I get your point with the limited materials/tools. Good stuff. Cheers! Chris - NI7IN

@MattHeere

7 жыл бұрын

The yard stick is a great idea for a boom. Non-conductive and it has the measurements right on it. Wish I'd thought of that! Coat hangers are hard to work with. The steel has strange magnetic properties that screw up all the element calculations, and it's almost completely unpredictable because the steel is made from who-knows-what in any given batch of hangers. That's all assuming you can get the coating off of the wire well enough to attach the coax...

@Uncle_Buzz

7 жыл бұрын

Yeah the vinyl/conformal coating on the coat hangers might have played a role, though I thought I stripped it off enough, maybe not. Didn't consider the possibility of magnetism. Cheers!

The next one you build should reach planet Neptune, that should be an interesting convo lol

@MattHeere

7 жыл бұрын

Ozzstar It's not as far for me since I'm already in outer space (according to the family anyway)

What is a good reference book for this kind of thing during SHTF?

Small world, West Alexander repeater, i use it every now and then

@DavidAbrahamOne

5 жыл бұрын

And you are 9 miles south of me. KX8DRA

@sixohdieselmafia7432

5 жыл бұрын

DavidAbrahamOne yea lol, small world

What would you half to do to make it work on the other bands?

What is that neat little tool you are using on the zip ties?

I'd like to see a remake where you buy a shitty tape measure and use that cut to correct lengths as elements (it's what they use on the little satellites) and then you could roll it up and have it automatically spring out when needed. Not so worried about making it in an actual emergency - I'd rather prepare one now in case of an emergency! In other words use the power tools now so you don't need to later.

Hi Hi great video. I am going to make this. 73s KB9JXU

Se Se puede aser una antena yagi casera para cel en comunida rural de con tubo de cobre

please make yagi antenna with aluminum element..for may ICOM IC-V8

Hi there, great video, I would like to make one too, but the thing is. Will this thing also work for 433 MHz and if no, how can I make it do so? And what is the Radiating element? Thank you very much ! sorry for bad English

@MattHeere

6 жыл бұрын

This will tune up on 70cm, but the radiation pattern will be all wrong. It won't work well. You need to build something more like this for UHF: users.belgacom.net/hamradio/schemas/3element_portable_uhfyagi_on6mu.gif

PL239, interesting

Can we get a close up photo of the driven element?

can you give the measurements for a 4 element or a 6 element beam ? thanks KF4KIE

This is a brilliant ham project - it works like a dream. Thanks for posting! I managed to get an SWR of 1:0.5! I am going to test it for distance. Would you agree with the claim that is has a 7 Db gain? I tried the original connection method - connecting to the elements offset ends but no luck - SWR of 8! Your method worked brilliantly! Any ideas for an HF aerial? 73s

@MattHeere

6 жыл бұрын

Glad it's working for you! Theoretically an antenna like this would have about 6dBD (or ~8.1dBi if you prefer) gain. Because we're hand holding it, we become part of the near field of the antenna with somewhat unpredictable results though. The gain will go down some because of what we absorb, but the front to back ratio is probably a little better.

@Federer935

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the reply - that's a good gain from a few bits and pieces! I used a tee piece with a hole cut for the coax and a 6 ft support pipe so the coax goes down the pipe. I bang a steel peg into the ground as a support for the aerial and sit about 15 ft away. Could more reflectors be added to increase gain?

@MattHeere

6 жыл бұрын

Typically only one reflector on a Yagi. More directors could be added, but of course the spacing of everything changes and the whole antenna gets longer. BTW, if you're using a metal spike then you've also stuck a grounded extra element into the antenna field. Get one of those fiberglass sticks that people mark their driveway edges and fire hydrants with in snow country.

@Federer935

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the advice - I hadn't thought of that. A fibreglass stick sounds good. 73s

hello sir thanks for this...this is very helpful to me..thanks lots ...can i have a measurement for 147 MHz?

@macgyver5108

5 жыл бұрын

147 MHz is in the 2m band. This antenna will work fine with the measurements given... You'll need a HAM radio license to use this frequency unless it's an absolute emergency to "life or property" and you have no other means of comm available, like a working cell phone. You're best off studying up and getting your technician license for $15 to play around with this and make sure it works BEFORE you need it in an emergency... Here's what the online Yagi calculator spit out for 147 MHz measurements, you'll likely need an SWR meter to get it "perfect" but this will work fine. Reflector Length 1.010m-39.76in Dipole Length 0.965m-37.99in Director length 0.897m-35.31in Reflector to Dipole Spacing 0.255m-10.03in Dipole to Director Spacing 0.255m -10.03in

Hi I can't open the link, looked good though

Great video.. I'm curious, what handheld do you use and/or recommend? I have never used a Ham Radio but was thinking of getting one for disaster situations. Thanks- Rick

@MattHeere

7 жыл бұрын

Your best bet is to find the nearest ham radio club. Amateur radio is licensed by the FCC, but the entry test is easy (no Morse code anymore) and the local club almost certainly runs the exam sessions. Once you've met the club members you can get some recommendations that will cover the bands that are active in your area, and equipment that the other guys know and can help you out with. Not to mention that most hams have 3-4X the number of radios they actually need, so odds are you can pick one up 2nd hand.

Excellent!!!! Sir , how many watts can I use on the antenna on 2 m & 70 cm? Thanks !!!

@MattHeere

6 жыл бұрын

Enough to cook your arm at least! The copper wire could easily handle legal limit power. What you use for coax and/or connectors would ultimately be the failure points. You hit the MPE numbers using it hand-held though long before you're even on high power on the mobile rig.

@tagspayapa

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks !!! Awesome for simplex 👍👍

Realizing the electrical conduction efficiency of copper, could you offer thoughts on different material(s)? Solid SS filler metals for welding, and common brazing wires are readily available to me. Also, does-will diameter, or sectional density impact the desired results?

@MattHeere

Жыл бұрын

Anything that conducts will work. Different materials will have different inherent capacitance characteristics, and so different lengths for proper tuning will be required. Magnetic materials are particularly unpredictable when it comes to tuning, although for something relatively narrow band like a VHF Yagi even steel tape measure works acceptably. All else being equal, larger cross-sectional area materials give you a wider bandwidth antenna. On the 2M band it isn't typically relevant except in very high-Q designs like magnetic loops. On 70cm it is sometimes relevant, especially here in the U.S., due to the amount of spectrum allocated to the amateur band.

@geoffroberts1126

3 ай бұрын

I've done similar with 2mm manganese-bronze brazing rod, which is far harder and more rigid and unlike Stainless or Aluminium, you can SOLDER it easily.

Just got here by curiosity and will like to know which basic radio you recommend for emergency that does not cost much, thanks.

@macgyver5108

5 жыл бұрын

LOL Down the rabbit hole... HAM radio can get expensive quickly. A Baofeng UV-5R+ is a decent 8 watt radio for about $40 on amazon. However, the stock antenna isn't the greatest. Most factory handheld radio "rubber duck" antennas kinda suck clarity wise and they don't have much range! Depending how close you are to your nearest repeater you'll probably want to build the Yagi antenna shown in this video which will cost a few dollars for cable and any fittings or at the very least an upgraded antenna like a "genuine" Nagoya NA-24J 16.2-Inch Ultra Whip for $18 off Amazon, or even better yet the Super Elastic Signal Stick antenna which has higher gain and is nearly indestructible for $20 and has a lifetime warranty. There's cheaper antennas but they aren't as well tuned and will limit the transmit strength of the radio and also cheaper UV-5R radios for about $25, but the battery is half the size of the UV-5R+ and they only have 5w transmit power compared to 8w of the UV-5R+... With the larger extended 3800mAh battery mine can last about a week with moderately heavy use several hours a day. You'll also need to look up and program your local repeater frequencies from repeaterbook.com. You can't program them by hand very easy, so you'll want the $20 programing cable and a free program called "CHIRP", there's a ton of videos that show how to use CHIRP to set up the UV-5R generation radios. Don't get the cheaper programming cables as the driver disk that comes with them is FULL of chinese spyware (no joke!) and they don't have a legitimate FTDI chip in the cable, so half the time the drivers don't work! You'll want to check how well the radio works and that it can key up the repeaters BEFORE the need arises so you're well prepared to actually USE the radio in an emergency right?! However, to TRANSMIT with these radios in "non emergency situations" you MUST have a HAM RADIO LICENSE! Study up and at least get your technician level license, it's only $15. I recommend the free app "ham test prep" to study for the tests. While you're at it though... go ahead and study for your General license too, as you can take that exam in the same sitting for no extra charge right after you pass the Technician level exam and it allows you access to the "high frequency" HF bands with some real serious range that you'll likely end up wanting later if the repeaters around you go down in a major disaster. Getting your General later is another $15 each time you take the exam so it's worth it to just study for both. That should run you $93 including your HAM license. "www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075H7ZMNV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1" "www.amazon.com/PC03-Genuine-Programming-Cable-BaoFeng/dp/B00HUB0ONK/ref=pd_sim_107_5?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00HUB0ONK&pd_rd_r=290e77c6-17c9-11e9-a96d-590add2e911b&pd_rd_w=m3qqo&pd_rd_wg=SxlvZ&pf_rd_p=18bb0b78-4200-49b9-ac91-f141d61a1780&pf_rd_r=2VQ5BNSDSQWJWQ98JK8A&psc=1&refRID=2VQ5BNSDSQWJWQ98JK8A" "www.amazon.com/Authentic-NA-771-15-6-Inch-SMA-Female-BTECH/dp/B01H2HOKI6/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00KC4PWQQ&pd_rd_r=290e77c6-17c9-11e9-a96d-590add2e911b&pd_rd_w=p2cdp&pd_rd_wg=SxlvZ&pf_rd_p=6725dbd6-9917-451d-beba-16af7874e407&pf_rd_r=2VQ5BNSDSQWJWQ98JK8A&refRID=2VQ5BNSDSQWJWQ98JK8A&th=1"

Ehmm! How does the repeater works without main? Anyway a good kind of yagi...

@davidfrith7565

4 жыл бұрын

My radio club's 2m repeater ZL1ROD has no mains power, just solar cells & storage batteries. Been running like that for years, no problem at all.

Matt would you send me the dimensions of that antenna

What about a balun, did you make any balun or choke for this antenna?

@MattHeere

3 жыл бұрын

No need. The impedance of a Yagi is a little low to direct feed it like this, but it works and it's under 2:1 SWR so no harm will come to the radio. The idea here is to get something workable with the fewest possible number of parts and least work. You could obviously build a better antenna if you're not really trying to emulate an emergency scenario.

@avaughan585

3 жыл бұрын

@@MattHeere Thanks for your really fast reply! Cool, I've got the metal, I'm going to use aluminium modelling wire for the elements. Maybe copper for the driven element if I can't solder the aluminium. And maybe wood or plastic conduit to make a 6 el Yagi and see how it goes!

Hey! What's the procedure if I want to connect the coax directly to the driven element? Do I have to cut the wire in half and the solder the conductor to one and the shield to the other half?

@n3ssaya972

6 жыл бұрын

Or is there a way to do it without soldering?

@MattHeere

6 жыл бұрын

Soldering is best. You could probably get away with simply wrapping the conductors around the elements and taping it, but if it comes loose you'll have a sky-high SWR.

@n3ssaya972

6 жыл бұрын

Wrapping should do it in an emergency situation, of course soldering for the long run. I just went and bought 2,5mm wire (10AWG) because I couldn't find 2,0mm (12AWG), is the .5mm going to do any harm? And I couldn't find PVC pipes thinner then 300mm which is around 12in and that's more than a handful to hold for a longer period of time. Can I use a wooden broomstick or something else?

@billtr96sn

6 жыл бұрын

N3ssaya really? You're a licensed ham and you're asking this?

@tonyv8925

5 жыл бұрын

@@n3ssaya972 all the larger diameter wire will do is increase bandwidth of the antenna, which can be a good thing if you need communications from 145 to 148Mhz...the SWR will change less with wide band elements....73 and good luck

Straight wire? Try a copper welding rod sir.

way you dont show center of dipol . abaut contekt antenna cable* TA3BS from Turkey

What radio are you using? I don't have a license but thought about getting that cheap BaoFeng just to listen when I'm out and about.

@MattHeere

7 жыл бұрын

If you just want to listen then get an actual scanner rather than a radio. You'll have a better receiver, better memory management, and cover a wider frequency range. But what you should really do is get the Technician license :) It's stupid easy these days. No Morse code requirement and the actual question pools are available for study on line. Hams are a great community and there's a lot more to the hobby than just chatting.

@acer6669

7 жыл бұрын

hi Dale i own a uv5r they are a top little radio well worth $40 bucks....

Any good for activating satellites?

@MattHeere

6 жыл бұрын

So long as the bird is V/V or V/U. This thing receives 440 just fine, so a UHF downlink is no issue. However it tunes pretty poorly and the radiation pattern is who knows what for 440, so it's no good for transmitting on that band.

Can this be used for simplex?

@MattHeere

3 жыл бұрын

Sure can!

Makes an antenna to show how to do it in case of the apocalypse, during the apocalypse he may make a video on how to order an antenna online with an ongoing global outage.

Do you need a Balun? I just learned the word and already hate it. Thank you

@MattHeere

3 жыл бұрын

Technically a Yagi is just a dipole with some extra bits to direct the signal. Since a dipole is a balanced antenna, you should have a BALanced-UNbalanced (BALUN - please do not say bay-lun) transformer at the feed point IF your feed line is coax. Now is this really necessary - of course not. You will get some common mode current (RF on the shield of the coax) if you don't have one, but it is easily manageable with a couple turns of coiled up extra coax for a choke somewhere in the line.

@alaskanalain

3 жыл бұрын

@@MattHeere awesome thanks, learned more from you in a paragraph than all week from the general discussions online.

I just found your page because of this video. You're only about 70 miles away from me. I can you get into the Mt Pleasant repeater?

Can you pick up the ISS with this?

@MattHeere

2 жыл бұрын

Easily. This ISS generally comes in fine on a rubber duck HT antenna. It's lower orbit than the average satellite.

@djbeezy

2 жыл бұрын

@@MattHeere Awesome!! Thank you for the quick response. I'm thinking of building one with my kids today and seeing if we can hear anything tonight when it goes over.

MiniNEC says 38" should be resonant at 145.3MHz with a 13.7:1 gain (70We on 3W transmission) & 1.23:1 SWR

Just put the wire in the drill. And the other end in something that holds it. The turn on the drill for 3 seconds. Done.. and straight as f...... :P

One thing you forgot to mention is to preferably use a 50 ohm coaxial RF cable for the feed line such as RG-8, RG213, RG-58, or LMR-400, so you don't risk cooking your radio and for the best performance! If you end up using regular cable TV coax to build an antenna those are 75 ohm, the impedance mismatch with your 50 ohm handheld will raise the SWR, lowering the performance at the least, or worse kill your radio over time. If you buy a cable that has either a PL-259 or SMA connector you're good as those are usually made with 50 ohm RF coax.

@MattHeere

5 жыл бұрын

This was RG58, but for this specific antenna implementation it actually makes next to no difference. The feed point impedance of a dipole (which is all the driven element of a Yagi is) is 73 ohms in free space. In the middle of a Yagi at the end of your arm is hardly free space, but the point is you don't have a 1:1 match with either 50 or 75 ohm cable. So the cable will be transforming the impedance on the way to the radio and it's nearly impossible to predict which one would come out closer to 50 by the time you get there. Fortunately, most HTs operate perfectly happily into a 3:1 SWR with no problem (rubber duck antennas are notoriously unreliable) or even higher if not set to full power. So long as the radio isn't frying, the only other reason to think about SWR is line loss, which is hard to get too concerned about with a 2 foot cable :)

Why Ham Radio he says... LOL

Hi what did you get the vswr down to M7CAZ

@MattHeere

2 жыл бұрын

Don't remember exactly, but it was well under 2.0 (likely under 1.5) for the repeater input section of 2M. Certainly usable with any HT on full power.