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Author Topic: Yep, that would have been too easy...  (Read 3425 times)

KX4QP

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #30 on: May 12, 2019, 01:40:53 PM »

PVC, copper rod [even coathangers maybe], electrical tape, diagonal cutters, misc hardware, coax: You could make a 4-el yagi in about 20 minutes and test out the situation with your handheld, no?

I think it'd take a good bit more than 20 minutes (I'm 20+ minutes from the nearest Lowe's, though the local hardware store might have what I need) -- but coax is something I don't know how to buy locally.  The only local radio shop I know of is open weekdays, approximately the same hours I work (and a half hour plus drive from work).  But yes, I could build a Yagi.  Coax and connector adapters alone would cost $40+ from Amazon, likely little if any better from GigaParts, and I don't have that to spend at least until payday (possibly until payday in mid-June).  It'd probably take me two weeks to source parts and find working time to build a Yagi even if I had the money to spend right now.

I haven't seen a wire coat hanger in years.  It's easier to buy ten feet of solid conductor Romex and split/strip it down for the elements or get a length of EMT and a blister pack of sheet metal screws to connect the wires.

And since I also don't have an antenna tuner, analyzer, or SWR meter, I'd be risking my only working radio's output transistors keying up on an untested antenna of uncertain impedance.
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SOFAR

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #31 on: May 12, 2019, 02:51:54 PM »

Stop at Bojangles chicken and biscuits, on the way to Lowe's. Make it worth the trip.
 ;)

Edit to add: here's another site to peruse, compare priced etc.

I've had a couple good experiences with R&L electronics.
Keep in mind when comparing prices on transceivers, some sites will have a slightly lower price, but charge shipping. R&L and some others include shipping on some transceivers.

http://www.randl.com/shop/catalog/index.php
« Last Edit: May 12, 2019, 03:12:52 PM by SOFAR »
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K5LXP

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #32 on: May 12, 2019, 06:02:51 PM »


Nope, not buyin' it.  You're just whining now.  You've spent more time complaining about your situation on eHam than if you just got off your duff and did something.  I've done all the stuff you've said you can't when I was a kid with only paper route money to put a station together. 

The advertised price of a WA5VJB cheap yagi is $5.  If you have the stuff hanging around it could be less.  No excuses.  Whip one up, hook up your HT and try it.

https://www.wa5vjb.com/yagi-pdf/cheapyagi.pdf

Mark K5LXP
Albuquerque, NM
 
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KX4QP

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #33 on: May 13, 2019, 02:27:26 AM »

Yeah, okay.  K5LXP, I just got a new pair of boots, you want to try a mile or two in my old ones?

I spent my available tinkering time, a half hour or so, unzipping my HF antenna wire to length yesterday, finished an hour or so before the storm (with tornado warning).  Dang, 132 feet is a lot of wire...

I'll admit it, I haven't put any effort (other than asking questions before spending hobby time or money) into something I'm firmly convinced will be a waste of time.  If you want to come down here and test it, please feel free.  Email first, so my partner and I will know to expect you (you're less likely to have the police called or the Rottweiler sent out that way).  Bring your own Yagi, I don't have one at present.  I make good coffee, but I don't drink it after early afternoon because of my schedule.
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K4JJL

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #34 on: May 13, 2019, 05:29:54 AM »

Stop at Bojangles chicken and biscuits, on the way to Lowe's. Make it worth the trip. ;)

Wish they'd come down to S FL again.  Only time I get Bo's is when I visit the family in Atlanta.  :'(
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SOFAR

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #35 on: May 13, 2019, 03:39:22 PM »

@K5XLP, Great link Mark!

I'm looking at the 450 MHz version.

For position of DE, says 5.5 inches.

5.5 from where? Reflector?

Also, what would be the best way to optimize the 2 meter version for 146.000

Things will probably fall into place when the build starts.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2019, 03:49:46 PM by SOFAR »
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AC7CW

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #36 on: May 14, 2019, 09:12:33 AM »

I just wasted months dealing with an INTJ personality type... finally i came across what Carl Jung said about them: "they are the most useless of all the types. They will not make a move towards anything in the real world". I stopped listening to all her rationalizations for not doing the obvious things that would upgrade her own existence, sort of like hitting the ignore button at eham... oh wait, where's that ignore button thingy, ahh, good. It's all better now :)
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Novice 1958, 20WPM Extra now... (and get off my lawn)

KX4QP

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #37 on: May 14, 2019, 05:05:22 PM »

I just wasted months dealing with an INTJ personality type... finally i came across what Carl Jung said about them: "they are the most useless of all the types. They will not make a move towards anything in the real world". I stopped listening to all her rationalizations for not doing the obvious things that would upgrade her own existence, sort of like hitting the ignore button at eham... oh wait, where's that ignore button thingy, ahh, good. It's all better now :)

What this has to do with radio is unclear.

If it's a personal comment, then I'd like to point out the ham rules (from the front of the ARRL Radio Handbook -- I have the 1959 edition, because i was looking for tube circuits and related stuff).  One of them is something like "a ham is balanced," meaning that I shouldn't let my hobby keep me from paying the bills, taking care of my family (which, in my case, is one human, three dogs with process started for another puppy, three indoor and eight outdoor cats, plus one more that visits on occasion, having chosen a less competitive food bowl), keeping my job, etc.

With an hour commute each way and earning barely more than what some places now call minimum wage, if my car hadn't paid off last December I wouldn't even have started working to get my license.  Once I decided to do so, I set a testing date, studied up online, and passed all three exams in one sitting.  Over the same time frame, I've learned Morse well enough to be reasonably confident at 5 wpm (I'm finding it hard to progress beyond that with the learning options available to me without being on the air with CW).  I bought a VHF/UHF HT I could afford, and started the long process of building a station for the kind of radio that interests me, without a decades-old "junk box" to draw from.  I see my Elmer once a month, can't attend most club functions because they're on weeknights (and an hour's drive away with a 4 AM alarm on work days), have never yet been to a ham swapmeet (the only local one since I started this was two days before payday, and I was broke).  None the less, I have an HF radio (may need significant TLC) and power supply, waiting for an antenna and power cable.  I have a reasonably nice key, built from a kit.  I have some basic tools, some of them built from kits as well, and I have an 80m QRP transceiver (kit built), for which I've nearly completed the antenna arrangements to be able to work CW from local high spots when I can spare a weekend afternoon or more.

So, if that comment about INTJ was aimed at me, better recheck your sights.  I'm doing what I can with the resources available.
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K5LXP

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #38 on: May 15, 2019, 07:36:18 PM »


OK, so you've got it tough.  Welcome to life, we've all lived our version of a country western song.

Now, I will offer that you may be entirely correct that trying to access your distant repeater would just be an exercise of futility.  The path is just too long, signals too weak or nonexistant and no amount of antenna gain or height will get you from A to B.  Consider though you don't know this for a fact.  So why not try?  This isn't a critical ops mission or your livelihood, it's a hobby.  Everything you do in ham radio will cost you time and money and net you zero return.  But you can gain knowledge, skills, experience and friendships *even if everything you do is wrong*.  So why do you care if you try and fail?  Or conversely, if you care that everything must turn out perfectly then you're in the wrong hobby.

In an ideal world you'd fly a drone with a unity gain antenna and map out a 3D space  of RF densities around your area so you'd know exactly how high and how much gain would be required to achieve the minimum path margin you require.  OK, so since that's not happening go with what you have, or what you can source.  A yagi would be a good start.  I have personally participated in one of WA5VJB's antenna forums and I'm here to tell you this is not brain surgery.  With literally $5 worth of stuff from Home Depot a dozen people walk in to the yagi forum and out with a working antenna in less than an hour.  If you're resourceful you could reduce the material cost to zero and I know you have an hour to spare because you burned that much time already kvetching here on eHam.  This is a journey, not a destination.  Make a plan to build the antenna then come up with different ways to test the path.  Doesn't matter if it happens over the course of days, weeks or months.  EVEN IF it comes up bust, you've learned about and will have a working antenna to use for other things, you've learned what you can access and from what directions, and you're active in learning and discovering in general.  You may meet others in the process that can help you achieve your objective, or you may discover some other interesting thing to pursue in the process.  So make a plan, make something happen.  Failure is an option and is often a useful learning path.

Mark K5LXP
Albuquerque, NM
 
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KX4QP

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #39 on: May 16, 2019, 03:55:49 PM »

I haven't ruled out building a Yagi.  As you note, it might be useful for something else.  I have the tools, and can get the materials (that I don't already have) pretty cheaply (though I'm pretty sure $5 won't cover it).  I'm pretty well convinced it won't do what I need, so it's not high priority.

Right now my priority is on getting the rest of the stuff together to get my Cricket 80a on the air for my club's Field Day gathering, which is coming up in five weeks.  I've got the antenna wire unzipped to length (at least within the 80m CW band, can't say more without tools I don't have), have the bits to hang the wire from a kite line, adapter to connect the speaker wire to the BNC on the radio, the kite and line and a dog stake to tie it off on, have four extra 80m band crystals -- in other words, I'm about an hour's work (making up and attaching the Prusik loops to hang the snap swivels on the kite line) from being ready to get on the air at Field Day.  Hopefully, we'll have a useful breeze and no forecast of storms.

I also just today ordered the power cable for my Heathkit SB-102; once that arrives and I get it built, I can power up the transceiver and see if the tools I have can tell me what problems it has.  If not, I'll have to try to haul it to the club shack on a Thursday evening, and try not to fall asleep on my commute the next day.

As I said before, I'm doing what I can with the resources available -- some things are more time critical than others. so they're getting done first.
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K5LXP

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #40 on: May 16, 2019, 05:59:47 PM »

get my Cricket 80a on the air... ready to get on the air at Field Day. 

Have you pondered what it will be like to work a rockbound 80M QRP rig on Field Day with a kite suspended dipole?  Any one of those things would be a challenge, you've got them all in one basket.   :o  The upside is you probably won't need a dupe sheet...


Quote
ordered the power cable for my Heathkit SB-102;

That might be a more suitable FD rig if it fires up.

FD will be here before you know it, I'll be going to Hamcom again this year so there's no shortage of things to plan and do in June.

Mark K5LXP
Albuquerque, NM
 
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KX4QP

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #41 on: May 18, 2019, 08:09:51 AM »

get my Cricket 80a on the air... ready to get on the air at Field Day. 

Have you pondered what it will be like to work a rockbound 80M QRP rig on Field Day with a kite suspended dipole?  Any one of those things would be a challenge, you've got them all in one basket.   :o  The upside is you probably won't need a dupe sheet...


Quote
ordered the power cable for my Heathkit SB-102;

That might be a more suitable FD rig if it fires up.

Sometimes, it's an advantage not to know what you're getting into...   ;)

Given I've never operated on HF, never contested, only read Morse at all confidently at 5 wpm, and never had a CW QSO, I'll be delighted if I get one QSO on the Cricket (and must remember to pick up a battery operated speaker to plug into its earphone jack, so I don't have to spend all my time with buds in my ears).  OTOH, Field Day is when I'd have the highest expectation of people actually listening on the colorburst frequency of the stock crystal that came with the Cricket (I have four other 80m crystals, however).  Can't operate split with this simple radio, either -- at least there's built-in offset so I don't have to worry about not being able to hear when someone zero-beats my transmission.  That said, with a reasonably resonant dipole, I ought to be able to work a good area on the gray line even with around 1W (if I can stay that late or get there that early -- and if I can get in/out of the park that time of day).

At present, I'm prioritizing having the Cricket ready to go, because the SB-102 was sold as "powers up, no output" and if it isn't the really simple problem (bad diode in the Molex connector on the back), I won't have it fixed by FD.  All I still have to do for the Cricket is get the Prusik loops with snap swivels made up to hang the antenna on the kite line (and hope for wind on the day).  Not to mention, the SB-102 needs 120VAC for the HP-23A power supply, and while there are often generators around on FD, I don't own one and don't want to fill up someone's available outlets.

Of course, I'll have my HT with me, too, but my main reasons for wanting to go out for FD this year is that I've never been to any ham gathering other than a club meeting, never seen other hams operate -- I just got into ham in 2019, had my license for about two months. 
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SOFAR

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #42 on: May 18, 2019, 09:50:45 AM »

If you're attending a radio club field day, there's usually club stations, and antennas (set up by the members) set up.

Plenty of opportunity to operate, try different modes.

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KX4QP

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RE: Yep, that would have been too easy...
« Reply #43 on: May 19, 2019, 07:18:09 AM »

If you're attending a radio club field day, there's usually club stations, and antennas (set up by the members) set up.

Plenty of opportunity to operate, try different modes.

Yep.  I'm not really interested in digital modes, EME, meteor bounce and such anyway, at least at the moment.  My primary interest is vacuum tube radio sets and CW, SSB, or AM (i.e. something I could potentially build myself, even if I haven't yet) on bands that have potential to propagate globally without too much power.  I expect to spend a lot of time on 80, 40, and 20 once I have my main HF rig running.  Contests really aren't even on my radar, so to speak, but this is likely to be a well attended gathering with a lot of other hams also working the same day/night.  I plan to do a fair amount of listening, and a little transmitting.  As I said, I'd be delighted to get a single contact on my Cricket.
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