On Jun 1, 2:48*pm, 'Captain' Kirk DeHaan
wrote:
'Captain' Kirk DeHaan said the following on 5/22/2011 11:04 AM:

I'm living in a wooded area and am trying to hit our club repeater
reliably. It's cloudy now so I'm and getting a bit of ducting but I have
a lot of trees, mostly poplars, in the direct path. I would have a line
of sight if not for the trees as I'm up enough in altitude. I can cut
the trees, they're mine, but finding the right ones is difficult and i
don't want to waste the whole grove.

I go from keying the repeater with no intelligible signal to not being
able to hit it. Today I actually have an S meter reading due to the
clouds. I am currently using a J-pole and will put up a Yagi soon but
wonder if NVIS would work on 2m? I have only seen references to it being
applied in HF.

'Captain' Kirk DeHaan
N6SXR

I am still working on finding where the problem is. *I pulled the J-pole
down and checked the resistance of the separate connections. *I didn't
want to pull it apart if not necessary. *Everything showed 0.0 to 0.1
ohms. *Seems fine to me. *I then cleaned the connector as throughly as
possible using emory cloth inside and dremeled the outside with a fine
wire brush. *There was a small amount of oxidation and it appeared much
cleaner and brighter after. *I also straightened the two elements but
they were not really that bent. *You had to look down the long axis to
see any deviation. *They are as straight as they are going to get but I
can't believe that would make much difference.

I don't think anybody asked you:

How much power are you putting out?

How well do you hear the repeater; are there times when it fades below
squelch while you're listening to other people?

(No, I don't have a 2m PA that I'm trying to unload.)

Sal