This rig has an antenna tuner... Is close good enough or will I have to shorten it to tune it?
This is why I recommend against doing the dipole build for first antenna... Grab a g5rv, string it in the trees, plug it in, hit "tune" and get on the air.....
Save all the clipping, trimming, shortening stuff for later.
The 40$ it costs for for a g5rv, will get you on everything from 80-10 with a quick tune up.. Thats all i have, a g5rv in the trees, 7 feet in the air, I just hit 20 countries today.. The antenna needs to be higher, clear of the trees, 1000 ways I could improve it, but I still get on the air almost every day, and have a blast..
Took me literally 30 minutes from unpacking the antenna, to my first qso.