Yagi Folded Dipole
I recently made my own yagi for the UHF 470-480Mhz range for monitoring NYPD from South Jersey.
It works rather well and the construction came out pretty good but I have a couple of questions for the experts since several frequencies are not as strong as they could be.
I used elements from an old FM antenna which were 6mm hollow aluminum. My folded dipole is made from heavy duty house wiring wire which is only about 2.5mm. Am I losing gain by using folded dipole wire that is less than my elements? Should I try using leftover elements
My second question is that I used a surface mount type female PL259 connected to the folded dipole (one end to the center, other end to the ground side). I then used spacers and screwed them into my squared aluminum boom. After I put the antenna up, I realized that I may have grounded to the boom since the screws were metal. Did I lose gain here as well?
Any tip or advice on maximizing my gain with this setup would be much appreciated.
BTW: Heres some info on my setup if needed:
Radio is an Icom R8500
Using homemade Yagi cut for frequency of 480Mhz
Also using Ramsey Broadband RF Amplifier (added great sensitivity to radio)
Brian
|