Vacation and Portable Antennas

Edited on July 30, 2011.  I originally blogged this as ideas for vacation antennas and portable ops with my FT-450.  Since then, I've made some purchases which alter my original plans a bit...not much.

First of all, I ordered a Balun Designs QRP balun with wing nut side posts.  I plan on making several lengths of antennas with ring end connectors for different quick change bands.  Add 50 feet of RG-8X coax for portable use.  Then, while I was in the mood, I ordered an EndFedz 20m antenna.  EndFedz has mono or dual band, but can be horizontal, vertical, L or sloper and only needs one tie-off point.  I chose the 100 watt 20m over the 10/20/40 model because if the location is poor and band conditions aren't good, that extra 75 watts might come in handy.  That is a 6 dB difference.  I also considered the 20/40 combo, but the extra $40 was spent on other accessories, and 20m is the best band overall.

If no trees are handy, I also worked on my painter pole.  The heavy duty one sits in an RV satellite dish tripod.  I added an 8 foot lighter, aluminum pole on top of that, with a pvc "T" in the middle for them to slide into.  This makes the total height 22 feet high.  I've worked northern Europe at 13-15 feet.  *Addendum: I got another painter pole and am going to try to attach them together.  That will give me 33 feet if it will stay up with guys and not fall over.

For the final touch, I got a second power supply.  I have a big and heavy linear for home use.  I got a smaller and light weight Jetstream JTPS28, which will fit in a satchel or pack nicely.

This combination of ways to rig an antenna and run portable isn't quite as fancy as a Buddipole or Buddistick, but it was much cheaper and once the antennas are cut to resonance, there isn't any of that tapping coils.

I Can Finally Put Up My OCFD!

Patience finally paid off.  Thanks to our storm in May, a broken tree is hanging in several pieces in my yard.  Another tree is growing around my antenna tower.  The tree company took forever to get to me, but tomorrow they are cutting down the damaged tree and trimming the limbs by the tower. Then, up goes my 80m OCFD, with a 4:1 Balun Designs dual core balun.  It will be nice having twice the elevation and 80/40/20/10m.  I'm not certain if I can use 6m, but it's so dead most of the time that it doesn't really matter.  While the insurance company won't pay for cutting down the tree, they can work clearing debris and removal from the house area and roof into a claim, which hopefully will pay most of the cost.  Yeah for me!

Special Event Stations & Thoughts for the Day

Well, I tried today to contact station N4S in Florida.  It's a special event station that commemorates the last launch of the space shuttle.  I think they'll be on the air until Thursday around 14.274-75 MHz.  I tried and tried, but with the kilowatt boys and beams, the pileup was terrible.  It makes us 100 watt stations with inverted vee antennas at 15-20 feet seem like we're throwing a cup of water into a swimming pool.

The 3rd week of August will be Lighthouse Weekend.  I think that is really big in the Europe.  I probably won't be able to get any contacts, but I will give it a try.

Quoting directly from Amateur Radio Newsline: HAM HAPPENINGS:  ILLW THE WEEKEND OF AUGUST 20 – 21

With only a few weeks to go to the International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend, a total of 290 entries have been received but many more expected before the event.

So far this year 13 Lightships are entered mainly from Belgium, England, Germany and the USA. There's also one each in the Netherlands, Sweden and Wales.  For those not aware, lightships are a rarer breed of the long-gone era of magnified flashes a light used by ships as they navigated along the coast and around the world.

Since 1998 the 48 hour, third weekend in August event has attracted more than 440 entrants, from some 50 nations.  This year the dates are August 20th and the 21st.  More information is on the World Wide Web at illw.net.  (VK3PC)

I've gotten some nice QSL cards in the last week.  S51ZZ sent me one from Slovenia, and I got one from The Netherlands, from PD5DB.  NK7U sent me one from Oregon.  I've been on FM for a while, but I'm fairly new to HF.  His was the first ever DX QSO I made outside of Field Day.  I was looking at my list of contacts and I really need to sit down and start writing out cards.  I got some IRCs from the post office recently.  Sadly, a card from Prince Edward Island, Canada and 2 stations from Museum Ships Weekend haven't sent me their cards.  The Canadian station even requested $1 USD.  I did get some cool cards from the USS Cavalla and USS Stewart from Galveston, TX.  The dual contact was made through an operator in the radio room of the WW2 sub, the Cavalla.  That was really cool.

That's my thoughts for today.  If you know of any special events, please let me know through a post or email.

73,
Steve

I Am Not Selling an HT

I mentioned a while back that HRO was selling the FT-60 for about $40 less.  For some reason, the wording must have gotten hits to my blog, because a lot of people hit it looking for the HT, thinking I was selling one.  Thanks for visiting, and I hope you'll come back.
Steve