Im going to get cracking with this. I have a 10m fibreglass telescopic pole (a windjammer), for which i have already worked out a neat guying system using bungy cords, and have created a radial plate for it.
The proposed design is a top-center loaded vertical. The coil will be positioned 8 ft from the top, allowing that bit extra wire for capacity. Calculations show this should be about 55% efficient. Combined with my MKARS-80 giving 3-5w, this should let me have an erp of about 2w. Not great, but the real benefit is expedience - i can get this rigged at a portable site/summit in about 5mins
Im also considering a linear loaded coil vertical. But winding the coil every time i put the pole up would be slow, tedious and inaccurate. I wonder what a slinky streched over 30ft will resonate at???
Sunday, 12 June 2011
Saturday, 11 June 2011
QRV 6m
Well, ive not updated this for, ooh, i dunno, ages. Other things have taken the time.
Anyway. I now have the doublet back up, and its working ok. Its not perfect, but its working sufficient to make contacts, including some nicely impressive DX. Yesterday, on 17m, i worked Cuba with just 10w, for example.
The 3 element yagi for 6m is up, albeit on the 'test' mast, at about 15ft. 6m is very good at the moment, plenty of sporadic E to work.
The one thing that has struck me about working SSB on 6m, is the business-like operating. No messing about, reports and locators, and then clear, but at the same time not overly rushed. Very pleasurable short QSO's.
Im still considering the best way of securing the main mast to the side of the house, im not at all happy with expansion bolts into engineering brick, i just dont think they will hold well enough if they penetrate one of the voids. Im wondering about using a steel backplate and M10 threaded rod right through the wall for the top bracket, which will take the worst of the wind loading. The pole i have is steel, so its heavy. Maybe i should bite the bullet and get an aluminium pole ordered!
Julie is not particularly keen on the 6m yagi, so would be even less happy with the 9 element 2m Tonna. But if they were up at 30ft, perspective means they look smaller. They will also perform better!
Anyway. I now have the doublet back up, and its working ok. Its not perfect, but its working sufficient to make contacts, including some nicely impressive DX. Yesterday, on 17m, i worked Cuba with just 10w, for example.
The 3 element yagi for 6m is up, albeit on the 'test' mast, at about 15ft. 6m is very good at the moment, plenty of sporadic E to work.
The one thing that has struck me about working SSB on 6m, is the business-like operating. No messing about, reports and locators, and then clear, but at the same time not overly rushed. Very pleasurable short QSO's.
Im still considering the best way of securing the main mast to the side of the house, im not at all happy with expansion bolts into engineering brick, i just dont think they will hold well enough if they penetrate one of the voids. Im wondering about using a steel backplate and M10 threaded rod right through the wall for the top bracket, which will take the worst of the wind loading. The pole i have is steel, so its heavy. Maybe i should bite the bullet and get an aluminium pole ordered!
Julie is not particularly keen on the 6m yagi, so would be even less happy with the 9 element 2m Tonna. But if they were up at 30ft, perspective means they look smaller. They will also perform better!
Friday, 2 May 2008
Getting it up
The sealant cured on the slim jim, and its now mounted in its tube at about 15-20ft. Oddly, the SWR has gone up, and its now between 1.3 and 1.5:1 across the band, the lower figure towards the high end. Ive not had chance yet to do an on-air check, but receiving using the FT-290 plenty of repeaters and a fair bit of simplex is about. Interference from the ADSL modem was still bad, but some serious coil winding has removed most of it. I found the majority was coming from the network connection.
The HF doublet is shocking. Im blaming the change to a 1:1 coaxial choke balun, from the 4:1 collins. But the state of the feeder is also a worry, its been patched up several times and im sure there is still corroded sections. I have a 100ft roll of shiney new 450 ohm ladder line awaitin gthe rebuild. Probably i will go for a 135ft version, fed right back to the shack with 450 ohm. Im going to invest in a bottle of liquid tape for weather sealing the connections, and will also wind and solder the connections from the feeder to the antenna elements. Any splices in the feeder will be done to ensure continuity of impedence, and the feeder will be stood off from the fence etc along its path using electric fence insulators. I can then experiment back at the shack entry point with baluns etc.
I also took delivery of a 100m drum of 1.5mm2 conduit wire today, bought especially for antenna building, in particular for trying a 'stealth' 17m vertical mounted in the tree, with four tuned radials.
The HF doublet is shocking. Im blaming the change to a 1:1 coaxial choke balun, from the 4:1 collins. But the state of the feeder is also a worry, its been patched up several times and im sure there is still corroded sections. I have a 100ft roll of shiney new 450 ohm ladder line awaitin gthe rebuild. Probably i will go for a 135ft version, fed right back to the shack with 450 ohm. Im going to invest in a bottle of liquid tape for weather sealing the connections, and will also wind and solder the connections from the feeder to the antenna elements. Any splices in the feeder will be done to ensure continuity of impedence, and the feeder will be stood off from the fence etc along its path using electric fence insulators. I can then experiment back at the shack entry point with baluns etc.
I also took delivery of a 100m drum of 1.5mm2 conduit wire today, bought especially for antenna building, in particular for trying a 'stealth' 17m vertical mounted in the tree, with four tuned radials.
Thursday, 1 May 2008
VHF Omni
fed up of having no antenna for 2m, other than an indoor whip, and with the prospect of getting the beam up still a way off, i set about coming up with a cheap and dirty 2m omni. My plan was to build a coaxial collinear, but having taken stock of what materials i had laying about, decided that for simplicity i would build a ladder line slim jim.
Initially, i designed my own, taking account of the velocity factor of the line. This worked, but i couldnt get the SWR down below 1.5:1. The matching section was made from 1mm mains wire stripped, as 300 ohm ladder line is a begger to strip neatly.
However, a review of the designs had me adding a few centimeters more line, in accordance with other designs on the 'net. This new version comes down to 1.2:1 at 145.500MHz, rising only a little at the band edges. All this is at ground level and indoors. An outside test at 15ft with the original showed the SWR to come down.
Now, its pretty much useless as is, built on a length of wood. So a trip to the wholesalers brought in some 20mm PVC white conduit. The whole assembly fits neatly into a 2m length, with plenty of spare tube near the bottom for mounting the antenna. I did a 1min microwave absorption test on a sample of the tube, and it was barely warm, no more than would be expected from being near a cup of hot water. A few holes drilled allowed cable ties to secure the antenna inside the tube, and some sealent in either end waterproofs it. The seal is domed carefully by smoothing with wet fingers at the top, whereas the bottom seal around the coax was done by shoving the mastic nozzle right in and giving it a damn good squirt. Some self amalgamating tape finishes it off by sealing the cable tie holes. Its attached to my test 100ft RG-58 cable at present, eventually this will be severed at about 5ft and a BNC added.
All that remains, once the sealant has cured is to mount the antenna and test it on air.
Initially, i designed my own, taking account of the velocity factor of the line. This worked, but i couldnt get the SWR down below 1.5:1. The matching section was made from 1mm mains wire stripped, as 300 ohm ladder line is a begger to strip neatly.
However, a review of the designs had me adding a few centimeters more line, in accordance with other designs on the 'net. This new version comes down to 1.2:1 at 145.500MHz, rising only a little at the band edges. All this is at ground level and indoors. An outside test at 15ft with the original showed the SWR to come down.
Now, its pretty much useless as is, built on a length of wood. So a trip to the wholesalers brought in some 20mm PVC white conduit. The whole assembly fits neatly into a 2m length, with plenty of spare tube near the bottom for mounting the antenna. I did a 1min microwave absorption test on a sample of the tube, and it was barely warm, no more than would be expected from being near a cup of hot water. A few holes drilled allowed cable ties to secure the antenna inside the tube, and some sealent in either end waterproofs it. The seal is domed carefully by smoothing with wet fingers at the top, whereas the bottom seal around the coax was done by shoving the mastic nozzle right in and giving it a damn good squirt. Some self amalgamating tape finishes it off by sealing the cable tie holes. Its attached to my test 100ft RG-58 cable at present, eventually this will be severed at about 5ft and a BNC added.
All that remains, once the sealant has cured is to mount the antenna and test it on air.
Monday, 7 January 2008
Getting my wood up
I now have everything i need to put the two VHF beams up (other than a rotator), pole, brackets, coax, connectors, and tape. BUt the weather won't let me! when the weather is fine, theres no one about to assist, and this isnt really a job i can do on my own.
I built today a wooden mast from 2x3 tanilized timber and galvanized bolts. This is just over 30ft tall, and will carry one end of my doublet via a pully block. It is semi-free standing. It will be fixed to a laylandii tree trunk, and have the bottom sunk into a brick lined hole. There will be a few guy ropes, but the purpose of these is to act as fall arrestors should it fall for any reason, and to swing the beast safely into the hedge. Only one guy will be for another purpose - to take the force from the antenna. I cant put this up yet, because i dont have suitable fixings to attach it to the tree yet, and besides its dark now.
Ive also constructed an 'ugly' 1:1 choke balun, from 4" PVC soil pipe, and 30ft of RG-213 i had laying about. I had to buy the pipe, but wanted some anyway for making bait stations. Just as well, 'cos its bloody expensive! About 8-9ft of coax is provided as a tail with a PL-259 to connect to the tuner, and about a 6" tail the other end for a connection box to attach the balanced line up to the doublet. The 21 turns of coax are held in place by a number of cable ties fixed through holes drilled in the pipe. Im hoping when finished this balun will prove more effective and less prone to saturation than the 4:1 colins coax balun im currently using, which is made from RG-58. I just need to find a suitable connection box now.
The doublet is performing quite badly. I think its due to the long run of coax currently in use, and the balun, which is at the moment laid on the garage roof and exposed to the rain. I have noticed rain causes tremendous shifts in tuning settings, often to an entirely diferent inductor setting, and sometimes it just won't tune at all! That said, despite the trouble, and by waiting for optimum conditions, i worked PZ5YV, the DXpedition to Suriname! at least i think i did, strange how you get a bit paranoid about these things! and the online logbook isnt working.
I built today a wooden mast from 2x3 tanilized timber and galvanized bolts. This is just over 30ft tall, and will carry one end of my doublet via a pully block. It is semi-free standing. It will be fixed to a laylandii tree trunk, and have the bottom sunk into a brick lined hole. There will be a few guy ropes, but the purpose of these is to act as fall arrestors should it fall for any reason, and to swing the beast safely into the hedge. Only one guy will be for another purpose - to take the force from the antenna. I cant put this up yet, because i dont have suitable fixings to attach it to the tree yet, and besides its dark now.
Ive also constructed an 'ugly' 1:1 choke balun, from 4" PVC soil pipe, and 30ft of RG-213 i had laying about. I had to buy the pipe, but wanted some anyway for making bait stations. Just as well, 'cos its bloody expensive! About 8-9ft of coax is provided as a tail with a PL-259 to connect to the tuner, and about a 6" tail the other end for a connection box to attach the balanced line up to the doublet. The 21 turns of coax are held in place by a number of cable ties fixed through holes drilled in the pipe. Im hoping when finished this balun will prove more effective and less prone to saturation than the 4:1 colins coax balun im currently using, which is made from RG-58. I just need to find a suitable connection box now.
The doublet is performing quite badly. I think its due to the long run of coax currently in use, and the balun, which is at the moment laid on the garage roof and exposed to the rain. I have noticed rain causes tremendous shifts in tuning settings, often to an entirely diferent inductor setting, and sometimes it just won't tune at all! That said, despite the trouble, and by waiting for optimum conditions, i worked PZ5YV, the DXpedition to Suriname! at least i think i did, strange how you get a bit paranoid about these things! and the online logbook isnt working.
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Pole Position
Today i had to do some shopping. A trip to the post office to collect the pressure sleeve UHF connectors i had ordered (finally got fed up of poor connections due to trying to solder braid to normal plugs) and to get animal feeds.
Now, i get my animal feed from a place called Hillam Feeds, a few miles away. So, with the car loaded up with sacks of feed, plastic containers etc, i headed back. As i passed a small building site, where some nice looking houses were going up, i noticed a young lad loading short scaffolding sections on a wagon. I slammed on the brakes, reversed back, and went over and asked who the scaffolder was. After explaining why i wanted scaffold poles, he went to talk to his gaffer. The gaffer then phoned the boss, and about five minutes later, told me "a tenner each", so with the help of the young lad i roped two 21ft galvanised scaffold poles onto the roofbars of my Fiesta, handed over £20 and started the careful drive home. Its only when carrying such a load that you realise how bumpy the roads are, and i had to go at 20mph to avoid the poles starting to bounce about. Luckily, the whole journey is over lightly used rural roads. So now im sorted for mast poles! All i need to do now is decide on the actual method of mounting and get the job done, and my 6m and 2m beams will be up in the air.
To that end, getting the pole attached to the house, i had a chat with the chaps at Brymar. Brymar are a satellite TV company, and i had to visit them anyway for a splitter and some sat coax and F connectors, for the wifes small works project of getting DTV into the kitchen. I had to get some self amalgamating tape as well as mines nearly run out, blimey thats expensive stuff, but its a real must have, its either that or Denso, and i dont think the XYL would like me using that! Im now wondering wether to go with the T & K brackets, which i think are a bit too far a stand off, or get some A frame brackets, that spread the load further out, and i think would be less pulled by the wind loading. If it can hold a 1m solid dish up in the wind, i think it can handle a couple of VHF beams!
Now, i get my animal feed from a place called Hillam Feeds, a few miles away. So, with the car loaded up with sacks of feed, plastic containers etc, i headed back. As i passed a small building site, where some nice looking houses were going up, i noticed a young lad loading short scaffolding sections on a wagon. I slammed on the brakes, reversed back, and went over and asked who the scaffolder was. After explaining why i wanted scaffold poles, he went to talk to his gaffer. The gaffer then phoned the boss, and about five minutes later, told me "a tenner each", so with the help of the young lad i roped two 21ft galvanised scaffold poles onto the roofbars of my Fiesta, handed over £20 and started the careful drive home. Its only when carrying such a load that you realise how bumpy the roads are, and i had to go at 20mph to avoid the poles starting to bounce about. Luckily, the whole journey is over lightly used rural roads. So now im sorted for mast poles! All i need to do now is decide on the actual method of mounting and get the job done, and my 6m and 2m beams will be up in the air.
To that end, getting the pole attached to the house, i had a chat with the chaps at Brymar. Brymar are a satellite TV company, and i had to visit them anyway for a splitter and some sat coax and F connectors, for the wifes small works project of getting DTV into the kitchen. I had to get some self amalgamating tape as well as mines nearly run out, blimey thats expensive stuff, but its a real must have, its either that or Denso, and i dont think the XYL would like me using that! Im now wondering wether to go with the T & K brackets, which i think are a bit too far a stand off, or get some A frame brackets, that spread the load further out, and i think would be less pulled by the wind loading. If it can hold a 1m solid dish up in the wind, i think it can handle a couple of VHF beams!
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Theres a hole in my sealant
I finally got around to resizing the doublet from 102ft, as was for G5RV, to 88ft top section. I took the opertunity whilst scared stiff up the ladder to extend the lanyard considerably, taking the end of the antenna well clear of the buildings, and hopefully putting an end to any RFI problems triggering the neighbours security light.
As soon as i had it back in the air and went to test, disaster! nothing would tune right, and 20m (my favourite band) wouldnt work, giving an SWR greater than 6:1 if i ran high power. So, i thought, the line lengths are now wrong, so i went through the calculations and added 6ft of feeder to ensure no band was an odd quarterwave. No change. Hmm, strange. So i inspected all the joints and found one that was corroded. This being the point where the original G5RV matching section line joins the ladder line back to the balun. So, i cut the bad joint out. Still no better. Closer inspection showed one side of the ladder to have black copper oxide on it, hmm, its been wet. I cut it back, and back, and back. I cut out 4ft of line and it was still oxidized. Now, i had assumed that the water had got in at the bad joint, but now the oxidation was on a section that went vertical. So i lowered the whole antenna and had a look at the feedpoint. Nasty. Theres a little hole, right above the end on one of the lines, where the water can get in. And guess what - yes, thats the side thats corroded. All the way down the line.
So it looks like the poor tuning and performance is down to this water ingress. So i have to replace that section of line. Unfortunately i only have 13ft of line left, and the section if much longer, so unless i come up with a better way of routing the feeder, i'll have to buy another roll of ladderline.
All this has come at an awkward time, just as my friend Andy G7PZL is finally equiped for HF and wanted to do on air tests. I couldnt hear him at all, and hes only 25miles away or so. Im considering a Cobwebb antenna for the higher bands, this at least is coax fed. It all depends on what the XYL will let me have. Shes already not happy with me wanting to put two VHF beams up. It would still mean i would need antennas for 40m & 80m, maybe even topband 160m, but i could perhaps get away with a fan dipole for these and coax feed.
Either way, i need to finalise the antenna system before spring, for both HF and VHF, after which no further work can go into them except normal maintenance, likewise the shack. It has to become operational only, no engineering.
As soon as i had it back in the air and went to test, disaster! nothing would tune right, and 20m (my favourite band) wouldnt work, giving an SWR greater than 6:1 if i ran high power. So, i thought, the line lengths are now wrong, so i went through the calculations and added 6ft of feeder to ensure no band was an odd quarterwave. No change. Hmm, strange. So i inspected all the joints and found one that was corroded. This being the point where the original G5RV matching section line joins the ladder line back to the balun. So, i cut the bad joint out. Still no better. Closer inspection showed one side of the ladder to have black copper oxide on it, hmm, its been wet. I cut it back, and back, and back. I cut out 4ft of line and it was still oxidized. Now, i had assumed that the water had got in at the bad joint, but now the oxidation was on a section that went vertical. So i lowered the whole antenna and had a look at the feedpoint. Nasty. Theres a little hole, right above the end on one of the lines, where the water can get in. And guess what - yes, thats the side thats corroded. All the way down the line.
So it looks like the poor tuning and performance is down to this water ingress. So i have to replace that section of line. Unfortunately i only have 13ft of line left, and the section if much longer, so unless i come up with a better way of routing the feeder, i'll have to buy another roll of ladderline.
All this has come at an awkward time, just as my friend Andy G7PZL is finally equiped for HF and wanted to do on air tests. I couldnt hear him at all, and hes only 25miles away or so. Im considering a Cobwebb antenna for the higher bands, this at least is coax fed. It all depends on what the XYL will let me have. Shes already not happy with me wanting to put two VHF beams up. It would still mean i would need antennas for 40m & 80m, maybe even topband 160m, but i could perhaps get away with a fan dipole for these and coax feed.
Either way, i need to finalise the antenna system before spring, for both HF and VHF, after which no further work can go into them except normal maintenance, likewise the shack. It has to become operational only, no engineering.
Monday, 26 November 2007
Short
Typical, isnt it. I have only one scaffold pole, and its 12ft long. I need at least 6ft between the stand off brackets, and theres a 2m 9el tonna and a 6m 3el yagi to go on it. So this pole is nowhere near long enough. I need 20ft at least, and none of the local scaffolders will sell me poles. Like it would hurt their business to sell one or two poles. Ive got everything else i need except a rotator, but then i cant afford one. Ive even got a 100m drum of RG213 coax at the ready.
So, how do i get a pole? of course i could always look further afield, but then how do i get it back here? i dont have a truck! Ive put another request on the freecycle group, but i dont expect to get anywhere. So im stuck, i cant get the yagis up without it, neither can i work on the doublet, which needs it as one end support, or put up a new TV antenna for the missus.
oh where oh where can i get a pole?
So, how do i get a pole? of course i could always look further afield, but then how do i get it back here? i dont have a truck! Ive put another request on the freecycle group, but i dont expect to get anywhere. So im stuck, i cant get the yagis up without it, neither can i work on the doublet, which needs it as one end support, or put up a new TV antenna for the missus.
oh where oh where can i get a pole?
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Corned Beef Hash
I had corned beef sandwiches for breakfast yesterday, and whilst pondering that corned beef is the chipboard of cooked meats, i worked into Oman on 17m. That was followed up by working the ARRL club station in Connecticut, W1AW. I could hear Isreal as if they were next door, but as always they were only calling stateside. Whats with this obsession with the Isrealis and Europeans for wanting to work the states? I can get the states most days on 17m, im much more interested in Africa and Asia, and the Pacific, or South America. Theres, someone told me, 600,000 hams in the US, so its hardly going to be rare to find one on whatever band.
All in all a good couple of days on the radio, not gone flat out, but worked some interesting calls. However, im now, inevitably i suppose, on the trail of RFI! I first noted that 7MHz wipes out my ADSL router, but thats not surprising as its totally unsheilded, cheap BT rubbish. But these past few evenings ive noticed that my neighbours new PIR halogen lamp, is triggered on by my operating on 20m. If i keep to 10W its fine, but 100W and it lights up. So i made a note to myself to operate low power on 20m in the evenings. When i mentioned this to my neighbour, Mick, he told me that their touch controlled bedroom lights also react, seemingly dependent of frequency, and flicker with my signal. Oh Dear! He told me he wasnt bothered, and that it was actually a bit amusing, but that really isnt the point, its RFI and i need to sort it.
I have been intending recutting the doublet down to 88ft anyway, so i have bumped that up in my priority list. Im going to keep the feedpoint in the same position, which will mean extending the lanyard cord at the house end by some 7ft. Hopefully that increased seperation will negate the RFI problem. Im also, with Micks help, going to carry out a suite of on-air tests, on all the bands i use and at all power levels, to see which cause problems. If nothing else it will give me a guide of frequencies or powers to avoid when the interference would be likely to be troublesome. Theres no evidence of TVI, so a LPF wont help here, it looks to be direct pickup.
Oh, and the receive longwire has come down again. This time snapped at the mast end. I really must put a proper insulator on it this time...
All in all a good couple of days on the radio, not gone flat out, but worked some interesting calls. However, im now, inevitably i suppose, on the trail of RFI! I first noted that 7MHz wipes out my ADSL router, but thats not surprising as its totally unsheilded, cheap BT rubbish. But these past few evenings ive noticed that my neighbours new PIR halogen lamp, is triggered on by my operating on 20m. If i keep to 10W its fine, but 100W and it lights up. So i made a note to myself to operate low power on 20m in the evenings. When i mentioned this to my neighbour, Mick, he told me that their touch controlled bedroom lights also react, seemingly dependent of frequency, and flicker with my signal. Oh Dear! He told me he wasnt bothered, and that it was actually a bit amusing, but that really isnt the point, its RFI and i need to sort it.
I have been intending recutting the doublet down to 88ft anyway, so i have bumped that up in my priority list. Im going to keep the feedpoint in the same position, which will mean extending the lanyard cord at the house end by some 7ft. Hopefully that increased seperation will negate the RFI problem. Im also, with Micks help, going to carry out a suite of on-air tests, on all the bands i use and at all power levels, to see which cause problems. If nothing else it will give me a guide of frequencies or powers to avoid when the interference would be likely to be troublesome. Theres no evidence of TVI, so a LPF wont help here, it looks to be direct pickup.
Oh, and the receive longwire has come down again. This time snapped at the mast end. I really must put a proper insulator on it this time...
Saturday, 22 September 2007
All quiet at the BBC
Ive just spent a week at the BBC training center Wood Norton. Pleasent enough place, excellent restuarents in Evesham, and very good training, learning about TV signals. But as far as radio goes, the place is dead! I only took the 2m handheld, but i thought i would get something. Even with the stonking great 7/8ths whip i could only get two repeaters, nothing on simplex at all. And of those two repeaters, only one would respond to 1750Hz toneburst. As i dont yet have CTCSS in this radio, it pretty much limited my options.
It was however fairly academic anyway, as it turned out the 12v EBP-18N battery pack i had chosen to take has a bad cell, so i could only transmit with a decent power level if plugged into the charger. Hardly practical with an antenna attached that reached the hotel room ceiling. Even the telly in the hotel was badly tuned, although the one in the bar was probably more due to having a half dozen telly techs, engineers, production people or whoever retuning and adjusting it every five minutes!
So, i now need to recell that battery pack, and maybe even the 7.2v pack as well, although ive not tested that one properly yet. I do however have the EJ-12U CTCSS unit for the handheld on order from R&L in the states, so hopefully that should be here soon.
The DR-130 is now fully installed in my car, along with its huge whip antenna. Supposedly a 50W set, ive adjusted it to run at 25w, which im more comfortable with. Even so, using its low power setting of 4w i can hit the Hull repeater from my driveway, a good 30miles or so, and i can hold the Flockton repeater, close to my works at Emley Moor, all the way home from work, another 30miles. As it stands, this radio has only 20memories, but i found a chap in Italy on ebay selling various Alinco modules (sadly not the EJ-12U), and bought the EJ-19U 80ch memory module from him. This my son Sam and myself installed into the radio this morning, Sam passing me the tools from the passenger seat. He knew exactly what we were doing and how to do it, not bad considering he's only 3 and a half. So now the radio has 100 memories, plus the calling channel. My intention is to program them up with all the repeaters and their CTCSS tones that i am ever likely to be within range of in that car.
Sam helped me repair and reinstall the receive only longwire today. It had been down for over a week after the feed connection broke. Unfortunately the insulator got stuck on a newly grown branch in the tree, so could onlu be brought down by wrapping a carrier bag around it to smooth its passage. If i had taken it down the other way i would have needed to rethrow it into the tree, doing it this way left me able to pull it back up, as i had put an extra length of rope on its fixing line. Once back up, and its counterweight (a house brick) attached, we tested it. For around an hour at about six o'clock we had solid copy on 12MHz of Kyodo news FAX, so its definately working fine. At least, that was after we had solved the QRM problem that was covering the bands in S9+ hash. This turned out to be the portable telephone on my radio desk, but only when the phone is charging. Ferrites on the power lead make no difference, so the trick it to turn off the charger when using the radios.
Theres still plenty of VHF QRM, from the broadband router, but thats something to deal with another time. Im now looking for a AKD/NASA HF-3 radio for Sam, these radios are very simple to operate and Sam would enjoy tuning around, on a radio he cant break!
It was however fairly academic anyway, as it turned out the 12v EBP-18N battery pack i had chosen to take has a bad cell, so i could only transmit with a decent power level if plugged into the charger. Hardly practical with an antenna attached that reached the hotel room ceiling. Even the telly in the hotel was badly tuned, although the one in the bar was probably more due to having a half dozen telly techs, engineers, production people or whoever retuning and adjusting it every five minutes!
So, i now need to recell that battery pack, and maybe even the 7.2v pack as well, although ive not tested that one properly yet. I do however have the EJ-12U CTCSS unit for the handheld on order from R&L in the states, so hopefully that should be here soon.
The DR-130 is now fully installed in my car, along with its huge whip antenna. Supposedly a 50W set, ive adjusted it to run at 25w, which im more comfortable with. Even so, using its low power setting of 4w i can hit the Hull repeater from my driveway, a good 30miles or so, and i can hold the Flockton repeater, close to my works at Emley Moor, all the way home from work, another 30miles. As it stands, this radio has only 20memories, but i found a chap in Italy on ebay selling various Alinco modules (sadly not the EJ-12U), and bought the EJ-19U 80ch memory module from him. This my son Sam and myself installed into the radio this morning, Sam passing me the tools from the passenger seat. He knew exactly what we were doing and how to do it, not bad considering he's only 3 and a half. So now the radio has 100 memories, plus the calling channel. My intention is to program them up with all the repeaters and their CTCSS tones that i am ever likely to be within range of in that car.
Sam helped me repair and reinstall the receive only longwire today. It had been down for over a week after the feed connection broke. Unfortunately the insulator got stuck on a newly grown branch in the tree, so could onlu be brought down by wrapping a carrier bag around it to smooth its passage. If i had taken it down the other way i would have needed to rethrow it into the tree, doing it this way left me able to pull it back up, as i had put an extra length of rope on its fixing line. Once back up, and its counterweight (a house brick) attached, we tested it. For around an hour at about six o'clock we had solid copy on 12MHz of Kyodo news FAX, so its definately working fine. At least, that was after we had solved the QRM problem that was covering the bands in S9+ hash. This turned out to be the portable telephone on my radio desk, but only when the phone is charging. Ferrites on the power lead make no difference, so the trick it to turn off the charger when using the radios.
Theres still plenty of VHF QRM, from the broadband router, but thats something to deal with another time. Im now looking for a AKD/NASA HF-3 radio for Sam, these radios are very simple to operate and Sam would enjoy tuning around, on a radio he cant break!
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