In preparation for my KFF (the US division of WWFF) activation in Darien Lakes State Park I wanted a better way to support my Mast-From-Junk while I extended it and staked the guys. I had a basic idea of something many of us have seen before in my head, but rather then shell out my hard-earned cash I decided to "shop" in the scrap bins in my garage and basement.

​In photo-journal style, here's what I came up with:

So there you have it - probably less then 2 hours of work, and about $10 spent. Your cost may vary depending on what junk you have available. If you're a metal worker you could probably make something longer-lasting with your scraps, but with the thick clear-coat on the wood, I should get a lot of mileage out of this!

Did you ever have a project with that one little detail you just didn't get around to? In ham radio, sometimes I think that it is required that you always have at least one unfinished project at any given time!

For me, one of those projects is my Mast-From-Junk (if you want to read about this project from start to current, go back to part 1.) When I made this, I put an end on it that had painters-pole thread, so that I could easily attach things at the top.

While this was a great idea, it went until now before I got anything that could actually be used on this! My intention all along was to make this work with my Buddipole parts, so I finally ordered the adapter they sell to attach their components to this type of thread.

Strange how time can slip away during the busyness of life, and make it take 5 months to get around to ordering a $6 part! Now that I finally have it, my mast feels much more complete, and I have a whole additional range of antenna tricks available to me on my portable operations!

     Ah yes, 90's nostalgia.  I miss the sound of my 14.4k modem dialing out over my land-line, and that melodic voice announcing my messages when I finish logging on....

     Anyway, I didn't even intend to write about that kind of mail, I'm writing about snail-mail, because mine was awesome yesterday!

Here's what I got, for those of you that can't see the picture:

     Getting mail is exciting whenever it isn't bills or junk, but it's even more exciting when it's all radio stuff!

Post Contains Affiliate Link

     No, I don't mean manage your guys as in coach your baseball team. I mean manage your guys as in keep your antenna mast supports organized.

     A few months ago I wrote about my "Mast From Junk" which I made primarily from an extending pole that was bound for the trash.  I have used the mast several times now - on Winter Field Day 2017 (You can check out myshort YouTube video to see some shots of it in action) and on a couple of other portable operations.  The last time I used it I had to pack up in a hurry because I started to get rained on.  I tried to be organized about it, but I admit to not being as careful as I should.

     Since I am planning on using this mast during my WWFF Activation of Darien Lakes State Park next week, I pulled it out of the corner of the garage.  After an hour of working, my guy ropes still looked like this:

     Why am I sharing my horrible mess that I brought on myself?  Because this is how we learn!  Sometimes in ham radio we feel like we should know everything just because we passed a test.  The truth is, whether you learned something by reading, or by other people telling you, sometimes it just doesn't sink in until you experience it yourself.  This is the case even if it is something simple like organization, or something more challenging, like graphing complex impedance.  I've read about methods for neatly wrapping rope and cable, I've seen the little plastic kite winders that some people use, I've even seen ways to support masts without guy ropes at all, but I just didn't get around to any of these!  Now I'm paying for it, but I learned a valuable lesson first hand - take the time to neatly pack your gear!

     So, pardon me while I dust off my pride, and go back to my mess of rope in the garage.  For now I'm going to re-wrap this with the "over-under" method that someone in one of the ham radio Face Book groups recommended (Google it, you should be able to find a tutorial.)  While I do that, I'll be brainstorming some type of device to wrap my rope around - simply buying something isn't my style, so I'll let everyone know what I come up with using the scraps of stuff I have in my garage...

Bye for now!

P.S.  Those things on the end of my guy ropes are actually clothesline tensioners.  They work great for quick adjustments and keeping guys tight in portable setups! 

Affiliate Link

I haven't been out to do any portable operations for some time, primarily because I haven't had to do any work trips for a while. For me, the two things usually coincide.  I just had another work trip to do that took me to our New York City office, which meant I also had the opportunity to do another activation!  I'll warn you now - this post gets a touch sentimental at the end, but ham radio does that to me...

​I used my normal bag of tricks when deciding which park to activate on this trip.  I've written in the past about my methodology for choosing a park to activate, so if you're into that kind of thing you can read about it here.  For some of my recent activations I have stayed inside of state parks, but for this trip I was staying at one of the standard chain hotels and driving in and out of the park in the evenings.

Since I wasn't going to be able to do one of my preferred portable setups, I did a little fiddling with my antennas.  I wanted to use something a little more than just the hamsticks that I use while mobile, but I was going to be limited with what I could do because of time and space constraints associated with driving in and out of the park.  The solution I ended up going with was to use parts of my Buddipole as a vertical antenna, in the ball mount on my car.  I've touched on this before when I wrote about how I love the standards (specifically, the fact that most of our antenna bits use 3/8-24 connectors!)  This time, I kept notes when I was fiddling around, in case someone wants to replicate it:

20 Meters:  2 antenna arms, 1 coil, tapped 13 windings down, and 1 of the standard telescoping whip sections (extended just short of 5 full sections)
40 Meters (voice portion of band): 2 antenna arms, 1 coil (not tapped), 1 of the standard telescoping whip sections (extended 4 sections), and 1 additional detail - verticals on cars at this frequency often need some assistance making a match.  In my case I have an MFJ-907 unun installed the car (I talked about that here.) I also needed use that on it's "J" setting to match the antenna to the feed-line.

So how did the activation go?  Awesome! The first evening I made 50 or so contacts, with a couple DX highlights: Portugal, and a Mobile in England.  

Let's pause for a minute to reflect on this.  As a contrast, I was walking the streets of NYC earlier the same day, which is one of the most diverse places in the US.  Even in that diversity however, there isn't much goodwill happening.  People are in a hurry, they push, they shove, we crammed onto subway cars, and the friendliest thing I heard anyone say was "Get out of my way!"  With all the opportunity for interaction face to face, we often miss that chance.  But here, on ham radio, someone I don't know, from another culture, who probably speaks a language I don't know much of (Ich spreche ein bischen deutsch, aber es ist nicht so gut...) treated me with patience, kindness and encouragement.  Via ham radio, we are participating in international goodwill in a way that exceeds domestic goodwill.  I love that I participate in a hobby where this is an every day occurrence!  I can't say any more than that, so for now 73!