(Ham radio) antennas question

[WolfLoverPro]

Hello I recently got into ham radios and I have the uv5r + and I am still new so I don't know much about antennas yet but I have a question.

 

ok so the question is you know the tv antenna the ones what are in the roof and the wire comes inside and plugs into the tv can I use this on the radio? The end of the wire has been cut so I tried putting the copper wire touching the radio thing were you screw the antenna on   and it actually picked up radio I think it picked up 445 uhf frequencies. So I'm not sure if it works I picked up fm radio but haven't tested it on normal radio like 446 channels should this work? 

[Alfred14]

I'm not an expert but a TV antenna is usually a 'yagi' style and will be tuned to receive at a certain frequency (from my understanding they don't transmit efficiently).

 

I'm not sure what country you are in but you would normally need a licence to transmit on HAM radio bands and in the process of obtaining the licence you learn about alot of these things.

 

If you just want to receive the TV antenna will get you started but i would look into getting the correct COAX plug for your radio and wiring it up correctly.

[OleST]

you cant use that antenna with your radio, firstly its not built for transmitting and second, it isnt built for the frequencies that your radio transmits on.

 

your radio is capable of transmitting on both the 2m and 70cm bands, there are many antennas available for this that are tuned for both bands, you can get a decent upgrade for pretty cheap if you just do a quick search on the internet. (example: ebay)

[Alfred14]

1 minute ago, OleST said:

you cant use that antenna with your radio, firstly its not built for transmitting and second, it isnt built for the frequencies that your radio transmits on.

That's the simple answer but if he is just receiving and there's a strong signal it will probably 'work'. 

[OleST]

2 minutes ago, Alfred14 said:

That's the simple answer but if he is just receiving and there's a strong signal it will probably 'work'. 

with an antenna tuner you can use anything big and metal as an antenna, i wouldnt recomend it but you can. (an antenna tuner capable of this will cost thousands of dollars and is absolutely not worth it)

[knightslugger]

On 2/13/2017 at 6:26 AM, WolfLoverPro said:

Hello I recently got into ham radios and I have the uv5r + and I am still new so I don't know much about antennas yet but I have a question.

 

ok so the question is you know the tv antenna the ones what are in the roof and the wire comes inside and plugs into the tv can I use this on the radio? The end of the wire has been cut so I tried putting the copper wire touching the radio thing were you screw the antenna on   and it actually picked up radio I think it picked up 445 uhf frequencies. So I'm not sure if it works I picked up fm radio but haven't tested it on normal radio like 446 channels should this work? 

no you cannot use the antenna on the roof (without a lot of reflectivity) without a 6:1 balun because the impedance on your radio is 50 ohms and the impedance of the cable/antenna is 75ohm. once you solve that you could transmit as they are rather broad spectrum (log periodic) but don't expect stellar performance as they get noisy really fast as they are not tuned very well.

 

On 2/13/2017 at 7:32 AM, OleST said:

with an antenna tuner you can use anything big and metal as an antenna, i wouldnt recomend it but you can. (an antenna tuner capable of this will cost thousands of dollars and is absolutely not worth it)

funny, my MFJ 259C only cost about $300... brand new. ... which is all you really need to chop a radial down to size. auto-tuners are pricy, sure, but you don't need one if you have a file.