BurnsFamily Blog

Today we installed a new antenna on chez Burns! The old antenna was a classic “jack of all trades, master of none”. It was a perfectly mediocre antenna that covered all of the usual frequency spectrum: shortwave, longwave, HF, UHF, VHF. The problem with the old antenna was that it didn’t do a great job on any of them, but it was a *single* antenna that was easy to install, was nearly invisible from the street, and did get us “on the air”. A classic “Better Than Nothing” story.

The new antenna is specifically designed to work on the two critical range of VHF and UHF frequencies used in emergency communications (”EmComm”): the 144-146 MHz and the 440MHz ranges. After much deliberation and asking experts in the area, I chose the Tram 1480 VHF/UHF Collinear Base Antenna . It’s a “gain” antenna as it increases the effective output power of the signal we’re sending, making it easier for other people to hear us. And because it’s tuned to work a specific range of frequencies, it also “hears” much better than our previous antenna. In fact, I can now hear cities near us that we never were able to receive or send to before.

This comes just in time since Julie will be the acting “Net Control” operator for the city- and county-wide radio net next week. We’ll be operating from our home, so it will be important that people all over Santa Clara county can hear her signal loud and clear — and for her to be able to pick them up too.

Here’s some pictures of my intrepid helper who kept me company on the roof, and was the indispensable 2nd set of hands to hold everything while the antenna was raised. We remove the old antenna but kept the same antenna mast, then we swapped in and mounted the new (taller) antenna in the same spot as the old one.  Did I mention that she really didn’t like being on the roof at all?  Thanks again Julie!