joltman
Rising Sun Member
I've just managed to get power to the back of my rig and can power up my Kenwood TM-D710G and Wouxun KG-1000G radios. Their control heads/mics aren't permanently mounted yet, but they're working. The antennas are Diamond NR770HAB. The antenna connectors are Diamond C213SMA that are mounted to Diamond SuperGainer K540 mounted to my Gamiviti roof rack. I watched several videos on how to configure APRS and I think I got the settings correct. This morning I tried the APRS feature of the Kenwood as I took my son to daycare. I checked aprs.fi after I got home and I didn't see my call sign at all. I verified that I was using iGPS, the TNC was on, and I was beaconing. The radio head was also showing my GPS coordinates, so I know it had a clear enough view of the sky. I also turned on the audio setting where the unit beeps when it sends an APRS packet. So at this point, I'm wondering if I need to do an SWR test on my antenna line. I was curious if anyone had an SWR meter that they'd be willing to loan/help me in person. Obviously willing to travel to meet up. I'm kind of out of ideas. I don't have anyone to test simplex with down here. I did scan the FRS/GMRS freqs, and I did hear a couple convos, but the weather stations were weak. Even on my Yaesu FT-65 in my house, I'm getting good reception on the weather station WX5PA3 (162.450). So this leads me to believe I have a bad antenna run, which would suck considering I ran all the wires through the hatch lid, above the headliner and down the D pillar, over the wheel hump to my radio. I could try swapping the antenna leads at the radios to see if one works better than the other. But I think an SWR meter reading would answer a lot of quesitons. Thanks!
