Posted: 1/3/2014 3:28:02 PM EDT
| I just bought a new to me Ten Tec Omni 7. It arrives Tues but I plan to go by HRO tomorrow to get all the extras. I know I need a power supply, antenna but what else will I need to hit the ground running? |
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Teach me about a good antenna ground Motorola Standards and Guidelines for Communication Sites Chapter 4 and 5. 
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First congratulations on the Ten-Tec. Great radios. I have a Jupiter myself.
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you'll need: power supply Quoted:
you'll need: power supply I have several Samlex power supplies with my main rig, my portable rig, and another I have at the club station. All have given good service with absolutely no problems. While the others are the SEC-1223 23 amp model, at home I have the SEC-1235M, which is 30 amps continuous / 35 amps surge. It has meters for V and A. But there is a new version of the SEC-1223, the SEC-1223BBM. http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamps/3382.html This is similar to the older SEC-1223 but has built in switching to charge and maintain a backup battery. If power goes out, the supply switches to the battery backup and your QSO continues. Power comes back on, it switches back to AC power and charges the battery. When fully charged it maintains the battery with a "float charge". You may want to consider this new supply if you are interested in battery backup. antenna tuner There are a number of manual tuners, but I like the automatic tuners from LDG. Does this radio have a built-in tuner? If not, any of these LDG tuners would do well for you. http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamtune/5253.html Z-100 Plus http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamtune/3213.html AT-100 Pro http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamtune/5705.html AT-200 Pro Manual tuners, the MFJ-949 is popular. http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamtune/1146.html cabling Unless you will be using an amplifier, ordinary RG-8X (aka "Mini-8") coax is very good. You can get ready made coax and jumpers, the PL-259s already soldered on, from DX Engineering, Universal Radio, Ham City (Jun's Electronics, Coaxman, and others. antennas Don't buy, make. There are a number of threads here about making various types of antennas, and options. What's "best" really depends on available real estate more than anything else. |
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I powered my old setup HF rig (yaesu 757gx) and VHF rig (Yaesu 2800m) from the same 25a power supply for a year with no issue.
With the advent of digital modes, I'd still use a 25A power supply, but I'd be more careful with how much power I use on the VHF rig. Just remember not to transmit full power on the VHF while you're sending digital. |
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Is that the 77' (shortened) antenna? At less than optimum height, inverted vee configuration vs. horizontal won't make much difference and certainly the inverted vee is easier to hang, requiring only one high support vs. three. In fact, it will probably be less directional as an inverted vee, but in the real world, patterns are fuzzy so just get the center as high as you can and don't angle the two legs tighter than about 120 degrees.
You have an antenna tuner of some kind, yes? That antenna only does the big 5 HF bands I think, but with a good tuner you could possibly match to some of the others. I don't know what typical expectations are for a trapped OCF at any length ratio. |
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Look into the ladder line fed dipole. You will need a tuner with a balanced output, which most have. Don't buy a ready-made one. Get the components and make it yourself.
Other options are: off-center fed dipole, trap dipole, fan dipole. Must have if you're serious about your antennas: http://www.arrl.org/shop/ARRL-Antenna-Book-22nd-Edition/ Wire, feedline, Dacron Rope, insulators sources: http://www.thewireman.com/ www.aesham.com mfjenterprises.com |
| just got my antenna rigged up. It isn't very pretty and due to the extraordinary tree filled property I have it was impossible to get the antenna wires totally horizontal to the ground. I also couldn't get the coax to hang straight down because I didn't have quite enough coax to reach my station. Pretty ghettofied installation but hopefully I'll be able to get on the air and there is always room for improvement. Thanks to everyone for the ideas and info. |
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but hopefully I'll be able to get on the air and there is always room for improvement. Thanks to everyone for the ideas and info. Don't worry, you will be on the air! I went for 4 months with a random length piece of speaker wire ran out of my shack room and down the hallway to terminate on the top of my wife's curio cabinet 
Work all over the US like this until I got my first dipole up outside. JLE |