N3QO » Old Shack Posts

Shack recabling.

jeff — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:00:21 +0000

Also to note, I decided to rewire the inside portion of the shack and upgrade from RG-8x to RG-8u and also a quad Alpha-Delta switch. You can still see the existing 8x runs out to the outdoor grounding system, of which also feeds 8x up to the antennas. Only 200 feet of cable to replace… at $1.45/foot. Yikes.

The switch on the left selects either antenna (beam or vertical) or dummy load. The switch on the right selects the radio, either the Icom or the Heathkit.

Dare I say it?

jeff — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:57:36 +0000

Laurie’sÂ 1967 Heathkit SB-301 has a better recieve than my Icom 746? Unreal how this thing hears! Over the course of the last few days, we’ve worked Italy, Ireland and Estonia with the vintage rig. Yes I’m officially jealous that she has a better radio than me. But I’m saving up for 2 investments, Either a Yaesu FT2000 or a Ten-Tec Omni VII. Eventually I will buy aÂ vintage Drake B Series.

My beef with Ameritron and MFJ.

jeff — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:16:09 +0000

In the process of rewiring the shack to facilitate additional radios I had found my new MFJ wattmeter had a loose rattle inside. Come to find one of the plastic prongs holding the actually meter broke off. How!? I’ve been nothing but careful with it and have never pushed or touched the actual meter face.

And then…. I added a new Ameritron wet dummy load (the paint can type), and found that the parts used to hold the 50 ohm resistor in place was shorting the center pin to shield. Wow, great. after a little engineering and removing the “cage” from the resistor enclosure, the dummy short was finally a dummy load.

Is this the kind of stuff I’m going to have to worry about when I got to buy my 811h and MFJ auto tuner?

Heathkit radio

jeff — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:10:16 +0000

For Laurie’s birthday I got her a Heathkit 401/301 combo with the station console. She’s very much into vintage anything and the Heathkit just happens to come in her favorite color. It’s pretty rock solid on the air and just in testing I’ve gotten decent signal reports with great audio reports. Can’t argue with that. I also was quickly reminded of the scent tubes and old electronics put out. A well welcomed attribute to the shack.

Wind Cam!

jeff — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 10:45:51 +0000

To see how a Cushcraft MA5B windloads, watch the camera image to the left of this post. It’s a live feed from my roof. Weather.com is reporting 19 MPH winds with gusts to 33 MPH. Let me know if any parts fall off. Enjoy!

–jeff
KB3ELT

Updated shack photos

jeff — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:29:35 +0000

I’ve been so busy working on antennas and posting that info here, that I neglated to make any updates regarding the inside..

The one and only operator position. So far...

Alpha-Delta antenna switch. Switches between the MA5B and the 6-BTV. Channel Master rotor controller for the MA5B. MFJ SWR / Wattmeter. Rigblaster Pro sound card interface.

Radials buried.

jeff — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:51:15 +0000

…and I’m exhausted. Today Laurie (KB3SIK) and I finished burying the remainder of the radials on the 6BTV vertical. In addition we buried the RF choke coil and the feedline. I’m quite happy with the results.

Wide view of the buried radials.

Radials and RG-8x feedline buried

Hustler 6BTV – My thoughts

jeff — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:10:18 +0000

For the last few days I’ve really been stretching the legs of the 6BTV out a little. Well, as much as 100 watts will stretch it out. My most recent QSO’s have been mainly on 20 meter and some countries I’ve worked: Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Lithuania being my furthest (4400 miles). I can say I’m very pleased with the antenna. After brewing over which one to go with and realizing how important radials are in a vertical scenario I feel I’ve made the correct decision.

As of today I finished a more permanent installation of the RF choke utilizing RG-8x and terminating the transmission line to the DX Engineering radial plate and installing a 1ft jumper between the radial plate bulkhead and antenna socket.

Also to note, when I did all this, my SWR’s dropped even further on all bands except 80, of which shot up from 1.1 to 1.5 as the lowest in the band. 40 meter is still a little high for my liking 1.7:1 to 2.5:1 for my band permissions. With a little more tuning and possibly chopping 2 inches off of the 40m section, I should be able to swing it into a 1.2:1 or so.

Hustler 6BTV – Day 4

jeff — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:34:53 +0000

What a difference a day makes!

Last night after my post I was reading a few articlesÂ about BTV tuning, but N8ITF’s siteÂ happened to shed some light on why I couldn’t resonate the antenna inside of the amatuer bands properly. This morning I decided on a last-ditch effort to finally get this antenna tunedÂ by adjusting all of theÂ traps, something WB2WIK (a relative pro with these antennas) doesn’t recommend doing unless thereÂ is something majorly wrong. How wrong can an antenna be out of the box? Apparently alot! Using my MFJ Antenna Analyzer, I was able to pull down the traps for the following SWR’s:

40m – from 3.5 to 1.5
20m – from 1.9 to 1.1
15m – from 2.6 to 1.3
10m – from 1.3 to 1.2

Later today my DX Engineering radial plate and tilt over base arrived of which allowed me to properly terminate the radial field to the antenna. Here’s a shot of me performing the installation. In the foreground is an RF choke I made with some RG58 I had available. Tomorrow I’ll have to retune 20m and up as the height of the antenna above ground has changed by a few inches.

I’m thinking I can pull 40m down even more by chopping about 2 inches off the 40m portion of the antenna.

Today I was able to work F6HKA in France and got a 57 signal report. I also was able to reach J79XBI in Dominica, both at 100 watts.

Hustler 6BTV – Day 3

jeff — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:20:54 +0000

I’m pretty much at my wits end with this antenna. I know as an engineer and being a ham radio operator, I should’ve be giving up so easily, but I feel like I’ve failed with thisÂ choice in every way. I’m really starting to ask myself why I went this route instead of a Cushcraft MA5b multiband yagi. With the amount of money I’ve now spentÂ on 1500′ of 12 gauge copper wire, lawn staples installation accessories and most importantly, TIME with the installation of the radial field, I feel I could’ve went with a directional beam for the same price.

Today we laid appoximately 60 radials all at different lengths and I still can’t get the SWR’s down, after extensive tuning of the antenna without touching the traps. I was however able to work 2 stations in Italy and 1 in the Canary Islands. The Italy signal reports were both 5/3. Somewhat of a dissapointment, but I did reach them.

I’ve also looked into going the route of the Hustler / Hamstick configuration and ordered 2 40 meter sticks from a guy on ebay to use as a groundplane, in the event the radial field is a complete failure.