"'Captain' Kirk DeHaan" wrote in message
newsZCdnVd2h- I believe it is either the trees or the antenna. The coax
is new and
the transceiver worked fine last time I used it. Also works fine with
this setup getting into the repeater on Schweitzer , 145.230, with 5 watts
and the signal report from a gentleman I spoke to was 59. That is a clear
shot and a few miles closer. Although the profiles show there should be a
clear shot to the .780 repeater I can gurantee there is a wall of trees on
the first little ridge on the profile. I found that my club, which I've
only been with for a month, has an SWR meter and an antenna analyzer. I
hope to borrow them to see what's up. In the meantime I will pull the
J-pole down and clean it up as suggested. There is considerable aluminum
oxide on the outside of the parts so there may be some between the base
and uprights. When I put it back up I will move it 180 degrees from it
current location. That will only move it about 2' but who knows.


I may have missed it, but have you tried riding around with a mobile rig and
seeing if you can hit the repeater ?

A SWR meter may not tell you much about the antenna. I think you are using
rg-8x. The coax will have enough loss at 2 meters to give a very low false
reading. YOu can probably unhook the coax from the antenna and only show
about a 3:1 swr.