AmateurRadio.com

Last nights exploits on the UKAC on 70cms was a bit of a surprise for me. I trotted up to Sandwith water pumping station, noted for two things, a bit of height and a bit of noise (presumably from all the gubbins inside the station and from the mast nearby.

Needless to say I wasn’t expecting much and as the wind was getting all autumnal on me I took my trusty 5m decorators pole, 7 ele Sotabeam yagi and FT817 and these are the results. G4ODA took some doing but generally I was able to work pretty much all I could hear, a few got away but not too many and the GM stations were loud as anything and gave me equally good signal reports.

I don’t think I’ll ever win any prizes but I can’t fault the Sotabeam since swapping over from the 5 ele LFA on 2m, I see to get just as far, its light weight, robust and simple. As its also good for 70cm it makes the ideal companion to my simple set up.

I’ve also yet to find a simple rig to rival the FT817. It has a number of ‘diosyncrasies and a few faults but as an all rounder you can’t fault it.

It seems a long time ago that we sat on top of Corney Fell with the sun shining and the winds blowing to set up the clubs NFD contest site. July seems like an age away. I only managed a very short time at the ‘operating table’ and with my current hiatus its taken me a while to catch up with all the results. Andrew, G4VFL popped a comment on the clubs website (http://mx0wrc.org) to say that we’d done a little better than expected. Overall 3rd in section but…

We came 1st in section for 70MHz

We came 2nd in section for 50MHz

& We came 2nd in section for 144MHz

I think we should be chuffed with those results and all credit to Andrew for doing all the donkey work in getting the bits and pieces together.

On two fronts really. The project at work that has taken up most of my energy is coming to its crescendo and that means in a months time it’ll back down to normal levels…..which means…more time for radio.

The other good news is that my planning application for a 12m mast and antenna has been approved! I haven’t had the official letter but the info is that it doesn’t come with any additional stipulations so that’s great news

Only the building of the other part of the planning application will get in the way of my new gear. Just an extension.

I recently found out that this site has had ‘malware’ on it. Kindly Google informed me that there was something there. After a frantic search I found what looked like some odd code in the header and immediately removed it. What the code did or does do to other peoples computers is a mystery to me but it’s safe to say it isn’t going to be giving out winning lottery tickets or anything nice. So, apologies to whoever it has affected and I’d love to say it won’t happen again but this is now the second site I know of that has been given some hooky code by some nefarious individuals for their own gain. Might be worth considering a change in platform.

We all have to make compromises and mine is likely to be outside the shack and in the garden. I’d love to get a full size Steppir into the back garden and whilst it’ll fit, it won’t fit if you get what I mean.

My geeky hobby is tolerated by the XYL, but only to a certain point and when planning for a new antenna I’ve looked at loads, from Quads to Wires to Beams and Moxon’s. They are all a change from the vertical I do have, which has performed well but is something I want to move away from in search of a couple of dB in gain.

I’m very keen on my Cobwebb because its compact and works well. But. A beam would be slightly better. Something I’ve not quite got my head round is if a mini beam is worth it. Ask 10 people and you’ll get 10 different answers. We all know they aren’t as good as a dedicated monobander but we all know we need to make sacrifices.

I’ve had a look at a Moseley one that comes complete with lossy traps but hey ho. We all have to make sacrifices.

Manufacturers claims show its not much more than a short dipole on 12m and 17m but may be useful on the others

The turning radius is what I’m most interested in as I need to fit it against the side of the new room but obviously not too close to windows. 3-4m looks ok but I’ll need to check / adjust dims accordingly. Its a lot of money for what it is at around 750 Euro’s from Wimo so its quite an investment.

Only another month or so until the planning application decision comes back. It may not be on the shopping list if the application gets bounced but I’ve no control on that. So for now its all in the planning stages

News is just in that SOTA – Summits on the Air – starts in a number of new call areas tomorrow including my home state New South Wales, VK2. I understand that Queensland VK4 and Hawaii KH6 may also be launched tomorrow, 1st September.

The new VK2 association adds over a thousand summits to the SOTA database. I was part of the team that surveyed the 16 regions. Hats off to Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH who coordinated the widely dispersed team of surveyors. I should publish a post here soon about the things I learnt along the way, about the resources available for SOTA summit surveying and cracking the mystery of identifying the all-important saddle to ascertain the required prominence. Flooding Google Maps is the clue.

The news of the scheduled start has taken us a little by surprise. I’m not sure how many activators will have had time to properly plan activations for the first day. The other issue is that tomorrow, Sunday 1st September is Father’s Day.

For more news about the accelerating SOTA activity in Australia – it’s already active in VK1, VK3, VK5 and VK9 – you should follow the conversation on the SOTA-Australia Yahoo group and visit VK1NAM’s blog for a list of SOTA blogs from VK activators.

The WIA’s Amateur Radio magazine for September which arrived in letterboxes yesterday features a report on the mass activations on 11 August celebrating six months of SOTA in VK1 as well as three pages of regular SOTA news. It’s brilliant for SOTA that editor Peter VK3PF is also one of the top SOTA activators in VK.

I earlier posted about building a home-brew Buddistick antenna from the instructions posted by Budd Drummond. I posted the link to his site and instructions in the previous post. Look in the sidebar to the right for a quick way to the last post.

I delayed working on the antenna as I did not have a power supply for my radio so I was in no hurry. Well the power supply showed up this last Friday so Saturday morning, I was determined to finish the antenna and get on the air. The first this I did was finish wrapping the coils and crimp the Radio Shack connectors to the ends of the wires.

Next came long nut coupler which the antenna whip will screw into. A bolt is screwed into the nut coupler and the inserted into a small piece of PVC pipe. The nut coupler was a bit small so I made up the difference with a few wraps of electrical tape as Budd suggested in his instructions.

Next came the short piece of wire with a clip and ring terminal on each end. This is used to connect the top of a coil with the base of the antenna.

I bought a nice piece of RG-8X coax that had PL-259’s on each end. The instructions call for dividing the coax into the shield and center section and attach a Radio Shack clip to each of those. Well I spent a fair amount of money on this cable and did not really want to cut one of the connectors off the cable. I thought it would be nice to have some sort of adapter so I could use different lengths of cable over time if needed.  This would allow me to have standard sections of cable with PL-259 connectors on the ends and be more versatile in the long run without having a cable dedicated to this antenna. To solve that problem, I came up with this little thing.

It is simply a chassis mount for a PL-259. I soldered two small wires to the center and outer portion of the mount and then added the blue clips. The center wire goes to the bottom of the vertical portion of the antenna, and the wire coming off the outer part of the chassis mount goes to the radial wire. I used different male/female connectors to avoid being able to connect it wrong so if I start making connections at the top near the whip and work down.   Now I can simply attach a PL-259 to this “adapter”. I do plan on putting this little thing in a little box or somehow protecting it somehow. I might post what I come up with later.

Here is the completed antenna without the broom stick that holds it up. I am going to get a painter’s pole from the local home store soon so I can get it up higher than the broom stick.

I also am planning on getting a few tent stakes and parachute cord so I can guy it and make it self-standing if there is nothing available to secure the painters pole to.

So far I have had good performance with the antenna. I don’t have an antenna analyzer so I used an SWR meter and got the SWR as low as I could by adjusting the radial that I tied off to my fence across the yard. On 20 meters, I heard stations from both the east and west coast of the US along with scattered stations in between. I also heard Mexico, Canada, and a station in Istanbul, Turkey! I made a few contacts around the country and in Mexico. The guy in Turkey had a huge pile up so I didn’t get to work him. Considering this was the first time I have ever been on HF, I am sure there will be other chances.  I then tried 40 meters. Again using the SWR meter I adjusted the radial to get the lowest reading and went to work. Again I had good results hearing stations around the country. I have yet to try any other bands yet but I will at some point in the future.

I may post a part 3 later if I learn something more about its use.  . . . I would like to post a picture of it setup but it’s raining today. Maybe I’ll add that in the near future.

I also need to get a real kite winder for the radial wire as I doubt the cardboard will last very long. I also am planning on getting liquid electrical tape to finish things off a little nicer. And the last thing is to try to mount the chassis adapter maybe in a little box or something better than just hanging it with zip ties.

NOTE: I have decided to add a 80 meter coil and lengthen the counter poise. I’ll add a post about those results when I am done.

K5UNX