At our July 2019 meeting, club member, Dr Roger Bleaney (M0RBK), gave an illustrated talk about the problems faced by the newly licensed, particularly, when having to operate from a small plot.

He explained the benefits of using a simple dipole where there is sufficient space and the advantage of the newcomer using commercially made antennas to quickly gain on-air experience. The desire to experiment with antenna design would soon follow.

Roger is a fan of using vertical antennas, with buried radials. Fibreglass poles, such as those used for angling, with an inner radiating wire are easy to erect and take down and they are neighbour friendly. 

Roger highlighted the advantage of using an AMU at the base of the antenna and showed how a manually adjusted matching unit can be easily and cheaply made. He illustrated the point by displaying his own ’home-brew’ matching unit (see picture).

Finally, he drew the attention of those with a bigger budget to magnetic loops. They are becoming more popular and some, with additional hardware, automatically maintain a low SWR as the transceiver frequency is adjusted.