My new antenna

Here's my new four-element quad antenna mounted on the chimney. It's supposed to get about 8 dB of gain.  I have attached it to a wood pole that I found in the garage.  I layered tape to increase the girth of the pole a little more so the antenna would be able to stay more or less perpendicular to it.   From preliminary tests, it seems the antenna does quite well on the two meter band.   It ceratinly does better than my old yagi.  I have yet to see if it will get the full 8 db gain that it is supposed to have.  Nonetheless, I have only trasmitted 5 watts into it thus far because I still have been unable to get my hands on an SWR meter.   Since it is supposed to be a birthday present, I am not planning to put it outside with the new RG-8 for a little while yet.

Old Antenna

This antenna was a great one to start with.  While running an antenna from inside your house, it is good to have a gain antenna to make up for the loss of signal that you will get from radio waves having to travel through the structure of your house.  This antenna will still serve as a backup antenna.  The yagi was not run from the location in the picture, but another room that allowed for a more open area and was a little further away from my shack.  The vexing unsolved problem was what to do when my sister came home from college and wanted it out of her room.   Hopefully, with the new antenna, I won't have to bother her with my amateur radio endeavors any longer.  Plus, she used it as a clothes hanger from time to time and that contributed to some signal loss;)