Well I just don’t understand it. I are a new Ham, extra class (who needs to
learn code when u got W5YI and $200?) I couldn’t find an Elmer, but Zeke, the
pig farmer down the road, who happens to be a world-class CB contester, and
also has considerable experience talking to the pirate truckers on ten meters
suggested I sell Ma’s Hover Round, and Dad’s oxygen concentrator, and get the
biggest baddest butter churner I could. I called Icom about their 7800, but
they didn’t have the free jacket in my size, so that was out. I decided to get
as a first rig something I totally couldn’t understand, and that would be
obsolete in three hours with the introduction of version 2, so I bought an
Orion. I also got me one of those Ameritron 1500’s cause I like the idea of
having an amp that has no parasitic suppression, and finals that cost $975 to
replace.
I live in an antenna restricted community. I looked at a lot of antennas that I
could put in the attic, and decided that the old Heathkit Cantenna seemed
ideal. I mean how can you go wrong with an antenna the size of a paint can with
a SWR of 1:1 over 3-30 MHZ. Amazing! It’s a real shame Heathkit went out of
business, but fortunately I was able to con the widow of a SK out of one for a
tube of denture paste. I decided to feed it with 600 ohm open wire to minimize
losses over the twelve feet from the rig to the attic. I cut a one foot square
hole in the sheetrock of the ceiling so as not to unbalance the open line, and
also so I could change the oil in the Cantenna after every 3000 miles of
contacts.
Now here’s the problem. I can’t hear no one, and no one can hear me. The only
station I get is the BCB station on 740 KHZ located 1000 feet down the road.
Interestingly I get him on lots of frequencies. He’s running 50 KW. I fired up
the amp to 2500W out (if the FCC ever comes to bother me, I’ll just tell them
that it’s a BPL station, and I’m sure they’ll go away happy), and called CQ for
an hour. The only thing that happened was that my garage door kept going up and
down, and the paint blistered off the Cantenna. By the way my cat Charcoal
found out it’s not a good idea to climb open wire.
Any suggestions? Would paralleling two 1500’s out help?
On a more serious note. If the BPL clowns can inject RF into the power lines,
would it be possible for people in antenna restricted communities to inject RF
(with the proper precautions of course) as a TX antenna? I realize it would
require a fairly sophisticated coupler/tuner, as the impedance is constantly
changing with load. I imagine it would be useless for receive, but it is far
easier to get a fair RX antenna virtually anywhere.
On a final note. I just ordered my Orion. I have been pre-reading the manual.
Are people using and happy with the Panoramic Stereo feature for zero beating
the cw signal when the apparent volume is equal in both ears? The reason I ask
is that I have a significant difference in hearing loss between both ears.
Would it be worthwile for TT to make some sort ob balance/ equalization control
in a future firmware upgrade. Does anyone have any experience with this
problem? I know MFJ makes a device that can do this externally and has had very
good reviews, including in QST in the past.
TNX Paul N8NOV
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