I had an opportunity to play radio a little bit tonight. It's was "Night School" at future operator 1's (FO1) school, but since future operator 2 (FO2) is still a baby, we couldn't really do the sitter thing so the the YL and I could both participate. This meant that we all loaded up in the car and went, and the YL went in, while I waited in the car with FO1 and FO2. Luckily FO2 fell asleep, and FO1 was kept busy with my Samsung Tablet.
     All this meant that I got to play HF from the car while waiting. I made a couple contacts, but I also heard a noise that was new to me. You can check out the video and sound clip on my N3VEM Facebook page. It was following a pattern, but not a traditional noise pattern, and it was only on 1 frequency, and had a bandwidth of I'd estimate 3-5khz.  Maybe its just some digital mode I'm not aware of?  Listen yourself at the link above and let me know!
     After the fun in the parking lot, we headed home, where I had time to check in to my clubs net.  The club is hoping to get a special event station on the air to celebrate something unique to our County / Counties History, and is also starting early plans to possibly do Winter Field Day as a group.  I'll certainly keep all of my readers in the loop about when they can expect to hear my Club W3RRR on the air if we can get some arrangements nailed down!

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     Over the past couple of nights I'm sure I caused a bit of "what is that guy doing now?" conversation in my neighborhood.  Luckily, my immediate neighbors know I'm a ham, so when they see me messing with masts, wire, and other related tid-bits, they know what I'm up to.  The other people driving by however, probably just think I'm weird. 

      So what "weirdness" was I up to this time?  Oh you know...just the basics - rigging up a wire dipole (oppa, inverted v style - womp womp womp womp).  ​

I was doing this (putting up wire, not doing the Gangnam Style Dance) in my front yard, because I was really playing around with something that I hope becomes an addition to my portable kit, and since my radio is in my car, it is easier to rig up an antenna out front, and run the coax to the trunk to test it out.

     Basically, this all started because on 40 meters the Buddipole is pretty narrow-banded.  I wanted the option for a full size 40 meter dipole when doing my portable stuff, and figured since I already had a feedline, a center insulator (in the form of the Buddipole Versa-T) and a bunch of other nic-nacs, I could just rig up a wire dipole to take along, so that I have the option available to me.

     So, first things first - acquire some wire (heh...that rhymed...) You can get wire just about anywhere, but for this project I just used standard 14 Gauge Stranded THHN wire.  If you're lucky, you might even have some laying around!

     Next I grabbed a couple of these L style Mechanical Connectors.

     Once I had these, I actually drilled out the hole so that a 3/8"-24 stud would pass through.  I also got a couple spacers with a 3/8" inside diameter from the local big-box hardware store (to be honest I don't remember if I picked these up at the blue store or the orange store, but they probably both have them.)  This combination of hardware gave me a way to attach the wire to the Versa-T (the Buddipole center-insulator/feedpoint), by using one of the Buddipole knobs.

     I've seen people advocate using ring terminals under the connection for the banana plug, but that's risky - it's plastic on plastic, so you're really relying on the inside edge of the ring terminal to happen to be touching the post that runs down the center - there is no firm metal on metal contact if you do that.  My method here firmly clamps all the metal bits together making a good connection, probably cable of handling more power than the wire being connected to it.

     One quick note on "guying" my Buddipole.  I use a method to simply anchor directly under the tripod instead of setting up bunch of guy wires.  My method uses a ground screw, intended for tying dogs out in the yard, and a bungee cord.

     Both of these fit in the bag with my Buddipole.  These ground screws are great - I'd recommend adding several to your go-kit because they are an easy way to guy lightweight stuff, without needing to also carry a hammer to pound traditional stakes into the ground.  Just make sure you know that you aren't screwing into something important!

     At the other end of the wire, I used a small Pulley/Hook assembly that also came from the hardware isle of one of the big box home centers.  This made it easy to tie a rope too, which allowed me to tie the rope off to a stake, and also pull the wire through the pulley.  Since this is for portable operations, I didn't do any permanent clamping - just twisted the wire back around on itself when I had it tuned to the length I needed.  This method also makes tuning easy because I can just wrap more or less of the wire back on itself to adjust the length.

     Also, even though it was probably not necessary, I decided I wanted the legs of the dipole to end just a little higher than where they ended up being, so I grabbed a couple driveway markers that I had in the garage, and stuck them in the ground and looped the rope around to bring the wire height at the ends up just a little bit.

     Along these lines, these fiberglass driveway markers are probably a good thing to have, to take along to events like field day so that you can mark off where coax is, run caution tape from post to post to block off area's around antenna's, support twin-lead off the ground, etc. etc.

    Tuning the wire took a little longer than normal, because aside from the normal up and down activity to adjust the lengths of the dipole legs, I was also being "helped" by future operator 1, while carrying future operator 2 (who had gotten tired of being in the stroller).  This means that most of the tuning was done one-handed while I said things like "don't put that there!" and "stop throwing sticks around!"
     It was all rewarded in the end though with:
​ 1)  A decent SWR across the band:  

2)  A rather picturesque "wire at a cloudy sunset" shot

3)  A contact with an Elementary School Radio club from a couple states away, that was on the air for the school-club-roundup.

     So, after all that, I now have a couple lengths of wire with some attached hardware that I can use in conjunction with my Buddipole.  In places where stakes aren't an option I often weigh down the bottom of the Buddipole with the spare tire from the car, or some other heavy object, and the ends of the dipole legs can be weighted with water jugs, logs, rocks, or whatever other medium-heavy object nature presents me with.  Because of the height of the center of this dipole, the antenna in this configuration is definitely more of an NVIS setup - at least until I lay hands on that taller mast I've been eyeballing....

     Once again, thanks for stopping by!  Please feel free to stay awhile and click around the categories at the right, and the links at the left for more Ham Radio fun and musings!

     So, I had a couple random thoughts bouncing around in my head that drove me to grab my copy of part 97 (Since my station is my mobile, I keep a binder in the car with manuals, FCC part 97, etc.  we really should all have a copy in our stations)  Maybe this is just the ignorance of a newbie, but there are a couple "lawbreakers" I noticed, that made me question things.  And no, I'm not talking about the flagrant misbehavior of those couple odd-balls who hang around the frequencies we all spin past without stopping - I'm talking about some "minor" offenders - so without further ado here we go with Case Number 1 (Case 2 will be a follow up post sometime in the near future):

     I was driving down the highway on the way home from a recent work trip.  So that I don't accidentally incriminate anyone, I won't tell you where I was, other than to say I was actually on an Island.  A Long one.  So anyway, I happened to be monitoring the national FM calling frequency (146.52 MHz for the couple non-ham readers that I have.)  Now, usually I can drive for some pretty good distance without hearing anyone calling on FM Simplex, but on this day I heard, clear as bell "Is anybody around on five-two?"  At first I grabbed my Mic, but I ended up not answering the call because I thought it was odd that I didn't hear a call sign.  Isn't that illegal?

     I looked in my copy of part 97 just to be certain, and like many other things in Ham Radio, I realized the answer is "it depends."  Our practice of identifying ourselves when we call CQ, or call out on a repeater or (like in this case) FM simplex is actually not required.  The real requirement is to identify at the end of each communication, and every 10 minutes during it.  Now, at the end of each communication obviously doesn't mean every time you stop transmitting, otherwise we would all be identifying every single time, right before we let go of the PTT switch. 
     This means that technically, as long that station identified within the next 10 minutes, or at least followed up at some point with something like "Nothing heard, clearing frequency, X0XXX" he would have been legal.  I must admit I didn't time how long it was before I ended up tuning away, but it felt like 10 minutes, and I didn't hear anything else.  Either way, please ID yourself when you call, it's a common courtesy.  After all, I wouldn't come knock on your front door wearing a mask so that you don't know who I am, so why would you knock on my airwaves while wearing yours?

Thanks for reading!  Check out the Categories menu to the right to read some of my other posts, and also please check out the menu to the left for more info about me, some pictures, related links, to subscribe to my blog etc.

     Did you ever feel like the forces of fate collaborated against you?  Okay, so maybe that's a little extreme in my case, but I did have a couple things line up against me, that if nothing else, could be considered bad luck.
     This week started with a drive to Long Island for work (the Hauppauge area.)  With the on-going NPOTA event, my work trips usually include a stop at a park, so I was looking forward to maybe activating one or two of the parks up here while on the trip.
     Day one of the trip involved traveling, getting to the office, having the "day 1" meeting to review the upcoming activities for the week's visit, getting dinner, and getting back to the hotel.  I managed a quick peek at Google maps and the NPOTA site to decide where I might head later in the week, I did some reading (for the sociology class I'm currently taking), I had my daily chat with the family, and then I went to bed (not all in that exact order, but there-abouts).
      Waking up on day two I had a quick peek at the propagation forecast, and thought - wow!  This should make for some great contacts after work today!:

     And then luck looked back and me and said - Nope!  
     As I climbed in my car (yes...the less than 1 year old Fusion that you've seen in my other posts) and turned the key, I was greeted with the check engine light, and extremely rough idling.  Uh-oh!!  My regular readers might recall that when I activated Acadia during a family vacation I had a similar experience with this very same car.  Grrrrr.
     Last time the car wouldn't even drive when this happened - pushing the gas pedal down caused nothing to happen.  This time, the car moved, so I decided to brave it, because it was only 3 miles to the first stop for the day.  The car kept doing the same thing, and even at speed, the whole car shook like a rat at the Jellicle Ball.  So...I called a tow truck, sent the car off to a garage, and hitched a ride for the rest of the day with my co-workers.  This also means that at the end of the day I was dropped off at my motel, with no means of transportation to get myself to any parks.  It also means that I'm stuck hitching rides in Long Island until my car is fixed.  If I'm lucky, my car will be fixed quickly, and I might still be able to activate a park.  If I'm not lucky, I might be getting a rental to drive home and leaving my car behind while it gets fixed (again.....come on Ford - did I get a lemon?! [Ed.  The car is fixed - apparently this time a rodent chewed through an ignition coil wire, sorry Ford for getting mad at you!])  Oh well....at least there's the HT I have in my backpack, and Echolink so I can check out the local repeaters and check in to my clubs net on Wednesday (Node 380019 at 9pm EST if you want to join us!)  Hopefully that will give me enough of a shot in the arm that I won't go through complete radio withdrawal while I'm stranded at the hotel.