Hey, congratulations and welcome to the hobby! Post your callsign in your signature.

If you build my yagi exactly as described, it should be tuned and ready to go. Won't make that much difference at 5 watts. It doesn't use a matching network, so a VSWR swing of 2:1 is no big deal. I modeled it to be hi-gain but very forgiving. I think mine bottoms at 1.3 and tops at 2.4 across the band. The gain more than makes up for any impedance mismatch. Make sure you use 174U as feedline and order some SMA connectors from Mouser or Digikey for 174U. The copper sub-mini alligator clips are what works best at the feed point.

Note: You can use a wooden arrow shaft as the boom if you want, but the carbon shaft allows for element storage when you pack it. Have fun!


Hint: Once built, IF you can talk your park rangers out of the radio collar frequencies of bears/cats, you'll be able to pin point their locations. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />