HF Antenna Maintenance

12 April 2020 - 18 April 2020

I had a long hiatus from posting my hobby blogs. My XYL's mother passed away last year and there didn't seem to be any excess time available to both do a hobby and post a blog. Just as things started to pick back up for us and we even bought a new dog the pandemic hit with social distancing, self quarantine and lockdown.

This year Winter's snow load was light, but we still had a several blustery days that took their toll on my 40 meter dipole wire antenna support ropes.  I had two separate failures one was the paracord supporting the feed point and the other was one of the mason lines used to tie down the "legs" of the dipole.  

This was my second (third?) Winter using these cheap support lines. So these failures were not unexpected.  The support trees were Eastern White Pine (State Tree of Maine) The deep corrugated bark abrades the support lines with each wind gust,  I decided to buy support rope that was designed for long term outdoor exposure and stop the false ecommunity of continuing using subpar lines.

Brought 500 feet of 1/4 inch Dacron rope. I hope this is about twice the length of what I need to support the antenna as a messenger line. I used my Joplin ARC antenna launcher (air cannon) to get one end of the line up and over the closest pine tree to the eastern side of the house.

I walked the rope end over and threw it up onto the back shed roof. I then used the antenna launcher to bring a haul line over an old snag in the old dog pen.

I then had to go onto the shed roof and haul rope to thread the eastern end insulator, the feed point assembly and the western end insulator. Pulling enough rope to make it up and over the snag limb with an additional 35-40 feet for raising and lowering the antenna to the roof.

I would like to say that things went smoothly but as often the case. If you're on the roof there is a problem on the ground and if you're on the ground at one end the problem is on the other end or back up on the roof.  This would have been easier with an additional helper or two. Not happening with social distancing. I did have my XYL act as a spotter with 911 on speed dial. I ended up doing this over the next few days when the temperature warmed up and the wind gusts calm down enough.

I then had to haul up one side of the rope then the other with the XYL checking to see if the dipole and rope would clear the radials on my VHF antenna mounted on the west gable end of the house.

With the dipole raised and the rope ends tied off, I could finally go into the shack and check out the performance. I had lengthen each dipole leg to the length recommended for mid-phone frequency. The best SWR tested was in the lower CW frequencies but it will do for now. I'm tempted to move the eastern leg of the antenna to a tree farther from the house, if I do I'll go for a better tune for SSB.
Until then I can finally get some more use out of my BitX-40.
73 de AB1OP_Ralph

2018 ARRL Field Day

A Ham Radio contester I'm not.  Now another ARRL FD has passed and I was only able to participate as a 1D ME with my BITX40 with a HB 40 meter dipole antenna.  Only five contacts in two half hour segments on Sunday. Even with the favorable 40M band conditions.

I usually tune to a strong CQ. I let someone else answer first so I can get the callsign, class and section of the CQ station entered into the log. When I finally answer the CQ all I have to do is press a button to log UTC and verbally respond with my callsign, class and section. repeat their info, confirm my info, give thanks and wish them good luck.  This laissez-faire method of operation requires a lot of set-up time so even with the brief 30 second FD contacts I use about 5-7 minutes to get ready for the next QSO. Not a winning contest strategy for sure.

Thanks for your FD QSO's! I did log your callsigns in my QRZ logbook.

As seen by the log, all my contacts were to the SW at 200-400 miles of my QTH in Maine. I assume single hop daytime propagation. While I heard NH, VT, CT, RI, PA and MI  I just could not make myself heard.  Well maybe next field day I'll be able to put in some real time and effort.  My tentative plans include a HB 40M loop, 45-50W Linear Amp, Rasp-Pi3 running xlog and an Emergency Power Generator. Maybe actually getting the Coleman tent up in the back yard!
We'll see if my ambition, patience and allowance will stretch that far.

PS: Shout out to Bill Meara & Pete Juliano for their mention of me on "Soldersmoke Podcast" #205 posted Saturday.  Both pleased and embarrassed!  I have to renew my efforts to get some productive bench time and actually finish a couple of projects I've started.

May 7th, 2018

Converting to 4-pin Microphone Connectors

 Photo above: Diagrams of the connections for each part. (solder lugs side)

On the Bench: 
Decided to standardize my microphone connection for my two Bitx transceivers.  The four 4 pin Foster connector was chosen for ease in converting cheap Baofeng Speaker-Mics or old CB microphones to the task.

Photo above:
Here is my second Bitx Xcvr being prepped for a microphone connector transplant.  The original connector I installed a year ago was an eight pin Foster, (must have been the cheapest on the search!)

Photo above:
My two Bitx Xcvr's sporting the 4 pin microphone sockets. The top one has no internal speaker. It was encased in an old PC-ATX power supply chassis and was an early microphone connector transplant recipient!  Originally I had installed two stereo jacks (2.5mm & 3.5mm) so I could use an unmodified Baofeng Speaker-Mic 2 prong plug.  A problem arose when after leaving the mic plugged in for a long time the jack contacts would weaken enough for the plug to shift out and short the PTT contact through the speaker coil to ground, (No DC blocking cap on speaker+ line in the mic, must have cost too much in production.) This caused the powered on Bitx to transmit uncontrollably. Installing the new 4-pin mic socket and plug took care of the problem and was more secure.

In Summary:
Having the same  microphone connector for both Bitx Xcvrs' is convenient and well worth the time for conversion.