Antennas, APRS, and storage

Its not often in amateur radio that several diverse problems can be all sorted out in a mutual way, but a few of the problems I currently have, that is, the poor reception of APRS signals at my QTH, my lack of directivity for 2m SSB operation, and my lack of segregated storage for components.

But it seems all these can be alleviated by grouping them all together into one task - create storage space.

The first part of this combined task will also remove one more thing that Julie has told me to sort - the growing number of empty butter tubs under the sink!

So, with as many of these as I can use now labelled up with their future contents, ive mostly used them up. But that leaves me facing another problem - lack of workshop shelf space. That problem can be relieved by a simple expedient - stop clogging the shelf up with a currently unused 144MHz Yagi in a box! And, at the same time, make some space by moving a 2m collinear out of the workshop!

So, If I do that to create space to put the butter tubs on the shelf, I need to put those antennas somewhere. And clearly, the sensible place to put them is up in the air! So I will change the layout of my 'test' mast (the only one currently available) to accommodate these two antennas. By putting them on the mast, I will improve my SSB capability to the SE, and at the same time my 2m FM and APRS reception!

It would help, of course, if I completed a few projects that are on the bench!

Much of the time at present however is taken up with testing and charging batteries, to get the Lions radios ready for use with the Christmas Sleigh. On the subject of batteries, ive finally had an alert that the special multpurpose charger, which will do the 7s LiPo's for the Clansman, is in stock. That is now ordered, along with the LiPo battery!