Category: Antennas
September 24, 2020
Took the antenna down today after the afternoon CWT. Made some DX CW contacts with Sweden and Croatia before shutting it down. Didn't have any issue taking down the antenna or taking it apart. The hexbeam fit nicely in the box my hammock frame came in. It's amazing how small it all packed up to. I…
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July 10, 2020
I read an article about a QFH antenna in the May 2018 QST magazine (page 38, link for ARRL members) that could be used for receiving NOAA satellite weather imagery using an RTL-SDR dongle and a Raspberry Pi. This is a very common project with RTL-SDR dongles(which are $20 USB radio receivers),…
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February 9, 2020
The club tower was bent badly during a storm that came through on Thursday night which had a tornado. The club weather station clocked the wind at 65mph. https://www.sparc-club.org/sparc-tower-damage-from-pinellas-park-tornado/ It's bent at the first extension so we can't lower it. We're working on…
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January 28, 2020
Once again we had Winter Field Day at the Clearwater Fire Training Facility. It's a great location and they give us the run of the training areas. We setup a beam, a rotating dipole, 2 slopers and an off center fed dipole. We ended up with over 1200 contacts and covered every US section. It was a…
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November 23, 2019
After I ordered the Flex, I wanted a way to move the antenna when I wasn't in the shack. The are some after marker rotor controllers but they are pretty expensive and don't get the best of reviews. I considering building one out of Arduino following some plans from K3NG. It looks like a fun project…
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September 2, 2019
I was in Colorado on vacation so I drove past the WWV) site outside Fort Collins to check out the antennas. Wikipedia has more info about it.) You can't get very close because it's a secure facility but I got some shots from the fence: View from the road
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August 10, 2019
I've been looking for something more portable for taking with me when I travel and settled on the Elecraft KX2. I looked at the KX3 as well but its a little bigger and not much more powerful, and I already have the FT-891 at 100 watts so I went with the smaller one. KX2 is a 10W QRP radio. I tested…
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June 30, 2019
I've seen the sign for this park many times on the way to my parents house. I left a little earlier on this trip to beat the heat and give a little extra time for an activation. This way my first real test of the Wolf River Coil I picked up at Hamvention. Band conditions have been really poor…
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April 30, 2019
I helped as ground crew installing a new tower at Tom NY4I's house today. Dan K1TO on the tower talking with Ed NZ1Q Dan K1TO is a very experienced tower installer, he made it look easy. It was my first time seeing how a gin pole works. We pulled up 3 sections of Rohn 55 tower onto about half a…
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April 13, 2019
There was a lot involved in getting this working so I thought I would write a post about getting the Yaesu FT-891 to work digital modes (FT8 in this case) with a new Mac the only has USB-C ports. There are probably other ways to do it but I think what I am describing will be the lowest cost route.…
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