That was us on the right tail when I was in the Army. Several billion dollar defense budget, and the troops have old, outdated, broken equipment.

On gold connectors… Are you afraid your signal will reflect back into the antenna? Do people really do that?

But yeah, also you can make sure it resonates on the correct frequency by mechanically adjusting it and looking for the feedback.

I just recently built an off center dipole from aluminum tubes that were scrapped from projector mounts that I screwed to a 2x4. It’s like 7’ ish feet tall.

That reminds me, that in the 90s it was really common to put steel wool on the TV antenna. At least in my chunk of Latin America.

Digital TV is killing our culture!! /s