Hey thanks guys.  Lots of inspiration from this forum!  I've got a few months to get the ground system planned out.  I went with the 3" conduit when I ordered the panel thinking the extra space would be nice, but now that it's in I think I would have been fine with the standard 2".  Smaller hole, less likely to hit a stud (stupid finished basement ), and less real estate on the copper plate eaten up by the larger hole.

Aside from the ground system, I've got to get the conduit looking good where it comes into the shack.  I've already trimmed it to length, I just need a trim ring or something around it.  

Also thinking about wire duct or something coming down to the desk since it's so high up the wall.  

I just ordered a Diamond X50 and will be picking up a Rohn wall mount locally to put it up over the peak of the roof.  I've had a spool of RFC-400 for a decade or so, and am excited to finally put some of it to use in a permanent installation.  

Thinking about doing another conduit from the passthrough box up to the peak.  That'll come in handy for the X50 and the various other future antennas: 80m FWL, and 1090MHz ADS-B.

I got the hexbeam up on Kaho`olawe.  Less than normal blood was shed.  This setup allows me to operate from my room since I also install a wifi extender so we have internet in our hut.

You will be glad you went with the three inch in the long run.  I have never heard of anyone saying " There is too much room in this conduit.  I wish it was smaller.".

Yeah I'm actually drafting a letter to the CEO of the (public) utility, TN Regulatory Authority, and FCC.  I've been trying so hard to hold off from doing this because I don't want the guys who actually do the field work to catch shit.  I know from personal experience that it tends to roll down hill.  They, especially the "lower level" guys, are really trying.  After 3 years of me hounding the shit out of them, they have finally gotten some training and proper equipment.  I have been doing my best to help in any way I can.  I also understand that this is due in large part to living in a shit development slapped together by the lowest bidder.  However, enough is enough.



 

Got my new HT (Kenwood TH-D72A) programmed with the local repeater frequencies and got APRS working. Can hit (and hear) repeaters with this thing that the Baofeng just couldn't pull out of the noise or open. Something to be said for a radio from the big 3.

So true, I had a dual band yeasu that would hit tons of repeaters, sold it.  Decided I wanted a new dual band HT to have around to listen, figured hey 22 bucks with prime shipping.  It's pretty crappy, put a diamond HT antenna on it that cost more than the radio and it gets overloaded so fast.

Hopefully that's a centigrade measure.  Let's see, this week's forecast: uppers 70s.  And sunny.

Looks like you got a lot of calcite in your soil too.  

For election day we used vhf radios to support the election.  Our responsibility was to provide backup rooms between polling locations and the county registrar's office.  We used a v71 in our EOC and had people at the polling places calling reports and helping the Poll Officers understand what we were able to do.  We also determined that we have 3 polling places where we need to set up crossband repeaters out in the parking lots.  Our EOM spent time talking to us learning more about what we can do to help him solve problems.  This was a big step forward in our relationship as we have had more support from our county admin and general registrar than the OEM.  BTW the uv-82hp significantly improved over the wouxun and even yaesu ft-250 in two fringe areas.

The election coverage is better on the radio than any online source Lots of fun to hear these local old guy's voices light up and get excited like this. Some days they sound like they are in pretty rough shape. IRLP 4243 in Scottsdale if you are interested.

Made a 8 mile contact on our newish GMRS repeater. It was a low elevation contact too. Was pretty excited. Our antenna is 40' high but in a not so good location. Hit it 8 miles away with 4w.

WSS

Laying out the chassis for my vacuum tube QRP transmitter to use with my old Heathkit VFO.



Trying something new here. The VFO will drive an un-keyed Class A driver for the Class C 5763 final. Only the final will be keyed.  Hopefully there will be very little, if any,  keying chirp.

Assisted with a half marathon race, letting net control know when the first handbike, first male runner, first female runner and chase vehicle passed my point. Was also available to relay requests for medical attention but that didn't prove to be necessary.

Experienced a bit of QRM from a repeater sharing the same frequency/offset/pl tone as the one we were using but 35* miles away two counties over. Propagation must've been good on 2m today!

Looks like fun, Frank. Keep us posted!

Have been looking at building a simple 6L6 transmitter and power supply. Silly, as I'm still a "no code ham ruining the hobby," but I'm working on it.

Cheers...   Jim...

The problem with single 6L6 transmitters is the same now as always -- stability. They're rough on the old quartz slab crystals and instant death for the modern ones. Viable 6L6 transmitters most often used a 6AG7 or 6CL6 as the oscillator tube.

Take a look at the 6C4/5763 "Tuna Tin Two" radio below, and the modifications that had to be made to it so it would operate with modern crystals. The oscillator plate voltage has to be regulated down to about 100 Volts to get it to operate without overheating or destroying the crystal. I don't know if the 6C4 at this voltage would be able to drive a 6L6, but it would be interesting to find out.

www.arrl.org/files/file/QST Binaries/Jan2012/w1ts_project.pdf

You can find crystals here: http://af4k.com/

Incidentally, 5 Watts CW is a heck of a lot of fun. Lots of guys and gals run QRP for the SKCC Sprints and do very well with it.

We recently had a new steel roof installed so all the superfluous stuff had to be removed..

Today I got the 5' tripod mounted & sealed.. Got the eye screws in for the "back stays" (This is going to be one end of a 160M dipole)

Next we brought up an 8' pipe with a discone on it & got that planted, leveled up & secured.

Final was getting the RG8 to the shack.. had plenty of length with a foot or so to spare.

"tenna is 10 ft higher so a tad more reach and all the swr ## look good..



Still have a tower to erect and another tripod on the barn, 3 dipoles...160, 75 & 40M

AND a TA-33 tri bander aimed towards EU for the 10, 15 & 20M bands...



That may not happen this fall as we sell and ship x-mas wreaths so that's gotta take precedence of daylight hours.



73 all...FN

Hooked up my New Elecraft Speakers

Thanks Frank, just in the research stages now. So many other projects already in work. If / when I get this built, it wouldn't be used a great deal, just thought it would be nice to build and make a couple of QSOs on a period-correct transmitter to pair with my S-20R Hallicrafters or perhaps the Echophone EC-1. But for now, the Drake TR-4 is on the bench. What fun to have all these projects to putter around with!

Mr. Harry - Congrats on the new speakers! Pleased with them? Perhaps you could let us see a photo of your completed Elecraft station?

Jim...

Packed my station up as I am moving next week. 10-7 for a while.





KC8OK

 

Worked TL8AO on 20m CW.  Waited for over an hour while he called EU and then it took about 10 min to work him... lot of callers.  Saw clublog confirmation, so gtg.

Ooops, now worked TL8AO on 20m phone too.

Purchased a few more things to get my VHF/UHF installation underway.  Got some unistrut, a stick of 1-1/2" EMT (or was it 1-1/4?), house mount for the EMT mast, got some 6AWG stranded to temporarily bond the entrance panel to the utility ground rod, and hardware to make it all work.  I ordered a Diamond X50 last week that should be delivered today.

The only hangup so far is my eaves are 24" and I got a standoff mount for the pipe that's 22-1/2".  I'm hoping with the unistrut and square washers the mast will clear the shingles, but we'll see.

Ordered an antenna and a Tri-plexer

Tell me more.  Tribander?  Which triplexer?  Why a triplexer?  Multiple ops or radios?

Comet CX-333 (144, 220, 440) Base Vertical Antenna
Comet CFX-324A Triplexer


I have an IRLP  node on 440 and the antenna it's on seems to have an issue so I wanted to replace it.
I also have the 144 Module in my K3 but needed a vertical antenna for local FM
I just ordered up a 220 Transverter for the K3  also needing an antenna for local FM.

So a Tribander seemed the best choice

I played with DroidPSK on android for a bit, ordered a cheap otg wire from amazon to see if I can get it working on my phone.

I received and assembled my X50 antenna and got the wall mounts all put together and got the pipe ready to go up.  Just need to cut and mount the unistrut and get the coax prepped.  I've got some RFC-400 and need to make sure my crimp type PL-259s will work on it.  

All this just in time for my boss to inform me I'm heading out of town - ha!  Looks like it's back on the shelf for this ham project.  Maybe after thanksgiving.  The upshot is I'll have some more seat time with the KX3 by the end of this job.

Just received my FT-8900R..so learning..........and learning more!!!

Finally checked to see if the MF and LF frequency mods I made to the K3 are actually working.  And I think they are.

I could hear a couple of signals just below the 630m band.  Nothing exciting, just an NDB and LOM from a couple of local airports.  Unfortunately I didn't hear anything in the 2200m band.  

It just might be time to build an active loop antenna.

I'm interested in the Diamond antenna X30-A.  Please report back when you get the X50 up and transmitting.

Just jumped on 20m JT65

I may not have any detailed info to offer, but I have had one of the X-50 Diamond antennas up for roughly four years.

Very good performer, even when mounted in a less than ideal location. I'm in HOA purgatory, so all my antennas need to keep a low profile. My X-50 is camo painted, and mounted in a tree only 10' - 12' high. It's also sandwiched between my house and the neighbor's just because that's where the tree was. Regardless, I can easily hit a machine 90 miles north, and had had very good signal reports on that machine as well as one almost as distant.

SWR has been very low on all the 2 meter and 70 CM frequencies I've checked. Bottom line, the X-50 has been a good performer for me.  

Cheers...   Jim

Last night I finally got my IC-7300 on the air (my first HF radio).  I live in an apartment so my antenna has to be low profile and fly under the radar.  I got one of the Alpha verticals to start off with.  Yes, it's a compromise antenna but at least I can hear y'all.

I fired it up at the office and had some interesting experiences - which led to some purchases today.

First thing I wanted to do is see how the antenna tunes.  It worked just fine with the onboard tuner.

I built a cheap CW key from a microswitch so I could do the reversebeacon.net stuff.  Don't want to drop some $$ on a paddle or key then decide I really have no effective way to do HF - and it actually works pretty darned good!  I wanted to see how far I get with the antenna out of the box. I got all the way from EM26bc (my work) to the far northeast, northwest, and southwest corners of the country.  Even got picked up by a couple of club stations in Calgary.  Reached all these areas on 20, 40, and 80.  So far so good.  Had crappy SNR figures but at least my 20 amps is making it that far.  I was definitely able to see the collapse of 20M a couple of hours after sunset.

Went through the filters on the radio.  There was a CW contest going on 40M with TONS of tightly packed CW so I had plenty of opportunity to practice using the filters.  I looked up the contest they were calling - cwops.org .  I was able to look up the callsigns to get an idea of where I was getting reception from.  Very interesting watching that much CW on the waterfall.  They were even stacking multiples on the same frequency.  Some running 800Hz, some 1500Hz, some 2000Hz, etc.  Never thought of that but great idea!  I'm still working on learning CW so I had FLDIGI helping me with the decode for the faster stuff.  I can send a good 15-20 with no problems, just still suck at copying it.  Need practice - lots!

About those purchases.  I noticed while holding the 'CW key' microswitch I was getting a darned good burn from the ground when I would inadvertently touch it.  Not pleasant.  Figured out I'm getting lots of RF coming back down the coax so I bought a 1:1 current balun to put on the coax.  I'm hoping it also cures some of the RF noise I was running into.  It should also keep that power going out the antenna instead of energizing my equipment chassis.  I also have to sneak in a grounding cable on my apartment soon.


Also got more Anderson Powerpole stuff in today.  I'm adding a 50A connector to my Astron power supply to connect my power rail to so it just snaps apart instead of using the screw terminals.  It's going to be screwed to the side of the case so it looks factory.  I'm also going to use a 50A connector on a battery/solar pack I'm working on.  Everything else is already running the 15/30/45 PowerPoles.

Oh, I got my ARFCOM ham radio patches today.

Put my new 144, 220, 440 antenna up

Participated on a 7:00PM 80m Carolina based net tonight. With band conditions the way they were, very little decent contact within NC - most signals very much in the mud -, but out of state contacts were pretty good up until about  8:00PM when the band began changing again & local copy improved.  The FWL's (80m & 160m) definitely did better than the vertical (6BTV) regardless of band conditions.

Nick

Been cracking down on learning code. I guess its common, I'm having a harder time copying.


Still finding it tough to reset my noggin when I miss a letter. In due time...




And I finally got off the schneid and tossed a few bucks at GoatBoy. Damn freeloaders..

Try a different pitch

My hearing is messed up and lowering the pitch helps

Thanks Mr_Harry. I do need to figure out what the 'right' pitch is.









I shoulda stayed with it when I was learning code as a kid. Much tougher now...



 
 

I spent a lot of time listening for an opening to work Antarctica.  I can hear them right at my noise lever.  Maybe my hex beam at 30' just isn't going to cut it with current band conditions.

I also pickled up wire, breaker and outlet to run a new 240 circuit for a new Acom amplifier.  I can't swing the amp until I receive my tax refund but I'm going to go ahead and run the circuit now so everything is ready and waiting.

Changed the batteries in my Winkeyer USB.  

They were dead, dead, and dead.  

Put my secondary RX antenna back up.

Now that it finally cooled down I got up into the attic and took down the chameleon emcomm I had strung up. Still searching for a good base solution install

Made my first QSO on HF

Congratulations!! Tell us more  What band/mode?

Congrats! I remember when I made my first, last year, it was exciting.

Hi Glock,
When you miss a letter, let it go . . . ; otherwise, you will miss some of the following bits. Eventually, you will begin to get those that you originally were missing.
73,
Rob

I interviewed Ed Fong (PVC J-pole fame) for an upcoming show re: NVIS

What a Super Nice Dude!!!

felt good didn't it!?

Thanks, Rob.


That's exactly my issue. I miss one, and have that 'oh crap' moment, then miss the next one, 'oh crap', and then it steamrolls from there - and I'm done for.




I know recognition will come in time. I just have little patience...




Eventually. Gotta keep telling myself that.




 

 
75 Meter phone

Radio: Kenwood TS-480HX, set up in my house

Antenna: G5RV Jr dipole, made by True-Talk...this antenna is not rated for bands below 40 Meter, but my Dentron Super Tuner tuned it up no problemo