Thanks! That looks good. He was about 21 when I knew him (several years older than me) so the 1938 birth date shown in some of the Google links sounds right. I'll see if I can make contact with KB8PVK.

Does anyone know anything about a blind young ham, Hal Claypool, who operated using the call W8KLD in the late 1950s or early 1960s? I have a 1959 Callbook and there's no W8KLD in it. I think Hal was pretty well known among eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania Novices. He had a guide dog named Rinny.

Good comments, guys...

N2MG: Thanks for the identification, but yes, there's no third conductor. This is old wire, probably from the late 1950s when I was a Novice. I probably bought it, with paper-route earnings, to use as a cheap, long, extension cord.

W9GB and K1CGS: Please be assured that I have NO intention of using this for house wiring! I found a copy of Richter's "Practical Electrical Wiring" that identifies this as "nonmetallic-sheathed cable" and, IIRC, reports that code changes in 1962 made it illegal for use in house wiring.

WB4SPT: Thanks, but we have no low-voltage outdoor lighting. NA4IT: I'm pretty well antenna'd... but I'm aware of current wire prices and appreciate having a couple of hundred feet of nice solid-conductor #12 available whenever I want to put in the labor!

One further question: Since plenty of modern extension cords have only 2 conductors (with polarized plugs and sockets), could I wire a modern two-prong polarized plug and sockets to this cable? Its function would, of course, be the one that modern commercial extension cords are supposed to serve: a temporary expedient.

A week or so ago I installed a new HF9V, with the TBR-160-S coil, on the peak of the roof of my two-story house. (The lot is small and does not lend itself to ground mounting.) I thought I'd pass along the results of some of my tuning. As you'll see, I'm far from done yet! I'm not wild about going 35' up the ladders to that roof, and lifting the HF9V vertically off and back onto its mounting post... but it has to be done. There are 2 radials on 80 and 2 on 40/15 (separated by only about 45 degrees, due to space and support issues), and 1 each for 30, 20, 17, 12, and 10.

Initial SWR dips in/near ham bands, using MFJ-269B and original Butternut manual settings:

1.942 (SWR=1.6); 3.926 (1.1); 7.352 (1.1); 10.770 (1.6); 14.600 (1.8 ); 19.920 (1.2); 20.020 (1.1); 25.750 (1.1); 28.370 (1.2), and 50.750 (1.2).

I'm a CW op, with radials cut for 3.550, 7.030, 10.120, 14.030, 18.100, 24.900, and 28.030. After a visit to the roof with the 269B, I compressed most coils (the 80m and 40m 3" and 4" respectively) to reduce the frequency and found these dips:

1.804 (SWR=1.2); 3.540 (1.3); 7.072 (1.4); 10.592 (1.1); 14.322 (1.6); 19.400 (1.4); 20.631 (1.5); 25.706 (1.1); 28.517 (1.3); 50.410 (1.2).

As long as I was already on the roof with my tools, I probably should have taken it down again and made further adjustments but was getting tired and cold. The 160 dip is actually now lower than my goal; 80 is almost exact; 40 is way better but still a little high; the higher bands still need work (need to reduce everything, except raise 15m).

Just a progress report... I don't see any real problems, just some work yet to do. This seems like an excellent antenna.

Cleaning up the basement back room, I came across about 100' of "General Cable MT Romex UF 12/2 600v" cable, stiff stuff with two #12 solid conductors. Many years ago I put a 2-prong non-polarized plug on one end and a two-outlet socket on the other, so I must have used it as a long extension cord. I'm not sure I would want to use it that way today (I did a lot of things as a teenaged Novice I wouldn't do now)... but what IS it good for? 

Actually, looking at the truck, I don't see how the stake-hole mount would work. On the Tacoma the top of the bed sides is covered by a thick layer of black composite material, like that which lines the bed. There are no stake holes visible anywhere. I'll communicate with the Breedlove company before I go further.

Thanks! That might be feasible.

--John K3GHH

I have a fiberglass cap that completely covers the bed.

Has anyone installed a spring mount for Hamsticks by drilling the rear bumper of a recent Tacoma pickup?

On my old 1994 Toyota pickup there was plenty of space on the bumper, to the left of the tailgate; I had no trouble drilling and mounting a base there. This new Tacoma bumper seems to offer very little space that clears the tailgate. Maybe there's room, behind the left taillight. Has anyone done it?

--John K3GHH

Thanks for the replies, guys. KEK, sorry, none of them sounds in the ballpark. WD, I always enjoyed the Carl and Jerry Pop 'tronics stories when I was a kid, but what I vaguely recall was definitely a book. FCV, "The Short-Wave Mystery" is one of my favorites! But that's not it either.

PS: I have a nearly complete set of the pre-1955 Hardy Boys books (missing only "The Secret Warning"), before they started rewriting the plots, and something like 25 Radio Boys books. I'm afraid the last RB book I read was practically indistinguishable from other teenage fiction of the period ("The Golden Boys," etc.): The (rich men's sons, in all of those series books) boys shared the radio hobby but the novel itself was an outdoor adventure with almost no radio content.

--John K3GHH

Let's see if this works. I built this enclosure for my new Orion to keep Coco from jumping onto it... but soon learned I had to lower the upper shelf a bit.


http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/502/dsc00375cocoorion.jpg

--John K3GHH

Does anyone else remember a novel in which a new kid moves to town and turns out to be a ham? I vividly remember an illustration of the book's protagonists, some nice local kids, peering with curiosity through the window of the new boy's radio shack --- in its own separate outbuilding (everyone's dream in those days!). The drawing clearly showed that he was using an NC-98 receiver; I don't remember anything about other gear.

This was not a Walker Tompkins "Tommy Rockford" novel, but a stand-alone book, as I recall. Of course the conclusion was that the local boys and girls who were suspicious of this nerdy introverted newcomer wind up liking him... and he them.

Anyone remember such a book? It's probably from the mid or late 1950s.

--John K3GHH

Win, the power supply has been repaired and is working fine. The original KBPC2502 bridge rectifiers are sitting on my desk; I replaced them with two KBPC5010's from a recent hamfest. K8AXW (and probably KD8DEY) explained how to test the originals with an ohmmeter, and I'll do that just for curiosity. But this little adventure is OVER!

--John K3GHH

Edit: Win, I should add that I very much appreciate your willingness to share your expertise (expertise I obviously do not have!) and the time and thought you devoted to your advice. The fact that the PS is now working doesn't change that in the slightest!

Since I didn't know how to test the 2502's, I replaced the pair. As I think about it, though, my replacements are 5010s, and the reason Astron used two 25-amp rectifiers was to wire them in parallel for the extra current capacity... so I bet I could have replaced the two 2502's with ONE of the 5010's.

But I'm obviously a novice at working with solid-state components, and just wanted to get my PS working quickly, so I wasn't inclined to experiment.

AXW: I forgot to look for a spare 723 (so no, I didn't replace it), and simply replaced both rectifiers without learning how to test which of the 2502's is bad. They're both sitting here on the desk --- guess I'll look into testing them at my leisure!