Thanks K7AAO for the first psk31 contact!
73 de KG7CUL
I made my first PSK31 contact today. Luckily I still have my cousins tennis ball launcher and was able to shoot another line over a close maple tree. I pulled up some old wire, with some old rope. and called it an antenna.. So with my Icom-7200 with the AH-3 tuner, the random wire does great for many bands. I was hearing east coast stations clear too. I'm feeling pretty green when it comes to operating digital, but I sure have done my studies. My station is now closer to an exterior wall and looking great.
Thanks K7AAO for the first psk31 contact! 73 de KG7CUL
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I ordered some extra protection for my station. Currently only one piece of coax is running in the house, and here it is, passing by the ground bar, but we will be adding some more antennas soon. Just wish these protectors weren't nearly $50 each! Also I have recently added a PVC LB entrance panel. Can't wait to add the AH-3 tuner and the 500+ft loop. I just got 1000' of antenna rope, so it's going up soon, can't wait to share the photos.
We just got back from a trip to Beaverton, OR., while visiting family I made a stop over at the local Ham Radio Outlet. I picked up this IC-7200. First impressions are good, I wish it had an internal tuner, but lucky for me a have plenty of Icom accessories. I tested it out today with my AH-3, and 75m Hamtenna, I tuned up in 40m and checked in to the noon time net. Pretty excited to get this setup mobile! That antenna top will be about 16' off the ground when on my suburban.
Well I have to sadly report that my Icom 765 has been cutting out power when I approach about 75watts output. It also had a very delayed power up. So today I cracked it open again, (last fix was the vfo). I was so happy to see the standard Icom 6-pin power plug. So I found a icom wire harness and plugged it into my power supply (the samlex 1235m) with the anderson power pole connection. I'd have to say it was pretty simple. Having common wire plugs sure makes everything easy. Those fins are SHARP! Fix it or Flip it? My radio works top notch without the internal supply. I read it might just be a bad solder. Looking at it from up top it might be a couple bad solder joints now..
I decided the peak of this side of the house was the most open spot to place the station. I've been uploading to wunderground, it's pretty neat. Very happy with it but I wish it could be slightly higher, but of course would need guy lines.
Picked this up at Costco today, threw it up on the mast. Got almost 1/2 in of rain in no time. USB interface allows for connection to wunderground and another web based personal weather station system. I didn't really want to wait long to get it up and running, might not be getting the most accurate reading yet, but I put it up in less than 10 minutes.
A Country Cousin of mine recently sold me his amplifier, I took a trip to Oregon to see him, and here is what I came home with. Although I want to run this amp immediately, I decided I'd purchase a Ameritron buffer to protect my Icom 765. This should help me quite a bit, as I'm doing two net control nights in October on the Western Country Cousins Net. 3.970 *9pm pst 365 days a year. So it's a Yaesu FL-2100B, it runs two 572b tubes. Well see how well it runs, but it has had some work done on it, KK7N did some work for the previous owner N7PJT, and another ham had those newer 572b's. Pretty excited to see how well it works here... Stay tuned, the keyer will be here Monday!
73.. -KG7CUL Thanks to my cousin W7TAO for the lending of the tennis ball line launcher! I made some videos and took some photo's. The first day of using the launcher, I picked a cedar tree that was surround by a bunch of maples. I launched that ball quite a few times, but just couldn't get it to do what I wanted, The cedar I was shooting for is in between the gravel pile and the white suburban in the photo. The tree I eventually used is the maple above the yellow slide seen beside. Used the slingshot today, didn't have a whole lot of luck but managed to get a dipole up in the tree's. After breaking a fishing reel, loosing a bunch of weights, I finally got a system that works the best. Seems the 1oz weight is the one that shoots the best. 2oz is a little heavy for the slingshot but falls through the maple foliage much easier. I ended up making smoother shots with the reel top on the slingshot. Currently I believe I'm only around 45' off the ground, I really like the way my dipole uses the back yard and front yard, instead of being over the home. I first tried to feed it with a run 450 ohm window line, I don't know why I couldn't get my SWR down. So back to coax, I had a spool of RG8X. Soldered new connectors, put a balun I had laying around. Might need some more rope to do a full 160m loop, but glad to have this dipole up. 73. KG7CUL -Bryan |
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