Tech / Special Interest → Ham Radio > Awful Quiet In Here....

Awful Quiet In Here....

Gee....almost 3 weeks without a post.

Guess everybody's playing with their radios......
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One man's Magic is another man's Engineering.

Since you asked, here are a few updates:

There was a bit of a kerfuffle in my radio club. Some people decided not to get along with other people and stormed out of a meeting. I said we should stop the nonsense and concentrate on radio, helping people and having a good time. As a result, I'm now on the BOD and I'm a VE team liaison. I thought it felt a little different to sit on the other side of the table for exams, but it's decidedly different to walk into ARRL HQ and pick up / drop off exam materials. One of these days I'm going to break down and buy some of those books in the lobby.

Looks like the sun is waking up again, or at least turning in its sleep. 10m is beginning to show signs of life.

I'm still trying to make some time to fix/replace/modify some old antennas up on the roof.

Has anyone here tried a DSLR net? Maybe Echolink or IRLP.. how about 'real' radio.. HF or HF digital?

I need to to try to reposition my fan dipole before winter hits. Getting bad RFI back into the shack on 80m. It's turning on a LCD TV on this side of the house. And it's triggering my garage door opener. Messes up the opener to the point I have to get a ladder and pull the backup battery out to reset it. RF is a strange animal!
!!

Just got back from vacation. I bought a Kenwood TS-520, MFJ VersaTuner II, and an Icom T8A tri-band HT... all for $250.

I'm looking into indoor antenna ideas (apartment...) I'm thinking of an indoor loop. I need to get my antenna book out and have a look-see.
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"When the hammer drops, the bullshit stops"

Give the G4ILO Wonder Loop a look. I had planned on building something similar, but using some copper water tubing instead of coax for the loop. Biggest issue is locating a sufficiently robust variable capacitor.

»www.g4ilo.com/wonder-loop.html
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Smoke 'em if you got 'em

KA3SGM still "Listening"....
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ROCK 'TIL SUNSET

Well I was hoping by this time to have my tower going up, or at least started... But, no joy yet. Picked up a real nice Rohn 25 fold-over that I plan to take up to 75'. Got my trusty KLM KT-34A ready for the top of it, but that's not even close to reality yet. grrrrrr....

WoW! A KT-34 at 75' will put out a BIG signal!
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One man's Magic is another man's Engineering.

Got a G5RV Jr up to play with and playing around to get a rig blaster plus hooked up to my TS590. Me and a buddy are working on restoring my first HF rig a drake TR4
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I don't suffer from insanity-I enjoy it

Where are you in Illinois? I grew up in Joliet.
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One man's Magic is another man's Engineering.

I'm in the northwest corner, where we actually have hills! We're the part of Illinois that the glaciers missed, and its really very beautiful out here.

Oh, yeah....been out there a few times in the distant past.

Doesn't look like what most people consider "Illinois"!
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One man's Magic is another man's Engineering.

There is quite a bit of ham activity over at »www.ar15.com/forums/f_10/22_.html. Yes it is a firearms board but that particular forum has nothing to do with firearms.

FWIW
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I support the right to keep and arm bears.

I just bought a new Jeep Wrangler and the antenna options are limited to a special bracket that goes on the back of the vehicle. Locations for mounting a radio in the Jeep are basically zero. I may have to go back to using a handheld.

My truck has a dual band antenna in the bed corner behind the driver and a FT-2900 mounted between the seats with a bracket I made myself. At the time I thought the truck gave me few radio options...now I wish I had the same flexibility with the Jeep.

You could mount on the front hood lip.

If I had the cash, I would mount mine on a front brush guard.

I also had some brackets made up that mount on light brackets I purchased for the windshield hinge.

Good site. I post all the time over there.

You should check out

»www.jk-forum.com/jk-cb-ham-radios-128/

or the other JK forums

"Guess everybody's playing with their radios......"

I stopped at HRO on my way to Florida on Vacation and picked up an Arrow antenna. I've yet to make a contact on SO-50 because it seems that you either have big gun stations that dominate the pass or there are a lot of people who will not listen before the transmit so you are just fighting everyone else.

Sometimes I just wonder how a group of people who are supposed to be so smart end up being so stupid...
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I do not, have not, and will not work for AT&T/Comcast/Verizon/Charter or similar sized company.

Welcome to the "wonderful" world of FM satellites.

It's why I *rarely* get on one.
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One man's Magic is another man's Engineering.