Spring of 2022 I upgraded my amateur radio license to General class and bought a QRPLabs QDX to get started with FT8 on HF. For an antenna, I took some old romex from the garage and cut it for 20m. Initially I used trees to support the ends. I now have a 10 foot length of PVC (cut in half to fit in my car and with a coupling to join the pieces back together) as a mast. I printed a topper that fits over the end of the pipe and accepts a panel mount BNC connector so I can run the coäx up the center of the pipe. Inside the topper are some zip ties to allow the tension to pass through from one conductor to the other and jumper wires to connect to the BNC.
