As the "real" contest season approaches and the WX slacks off a little,
attention is back on the antenna farm. During the summer one of the 1000MPs
was replaced by an FTdx5000, and the shack was finally put in order. For
those who have seen it, the mirrors are finally down and the plaques are up.
The operating table top is expanded. That only took 7 years.
Out back I have had a new design PAR Electronics omni-angle under beta test;
it's for six meters. It looks FB - a two stack will be going up shortly.
That may help a little in VHF contests. The K9AY loop still works okay but
is now detuned by vertical coax runs for 10, 15 and 6. I'm trying to figure
out where to move it and add a second element for EU. More radials for 160
are on the drawing board, and a mast will probably go up (TNX N4NX) with
either the PAR antennas or a rotator and 3el yagi I picked up for six from
AD4J. All the open relays out back were placed into NEMA boxes this summer.
BTW the NEMA boxes at Lowes are less expensive and better than the ones at
Home Depot.
I picked up several large NEMA boxes at Dayton - those will house some L
networks in the future. The six meter KW amp needs to be buttoned up. It's
been working for a year as a breadboard. A "technical correspondence" QST
article is in the queue at ARRL, along with an NCJ op-ed piece. I am
looking forward to a serious FT effort in SS CW.
There have been lots of smaller contests nearly every weekend all summer,
although the NAQPs and WAE are really not small. It's nice to hear SECC
members in those. 160 is now open at grey line. VK3ZL is in nearly every
morning 579. He peaks at SR, but best copy is at SR+12 to SR+18.
73,
Hal N4GG
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