I have it on good authority (from WA1T), that there will be tropo in New
England on Tuesday evening. If the good condx do not materialize, don't
blame me, but direct your bad vibes toward Al, WA1T!! heh heh. Al and
I swapped out some long runs of 1 5/8" heliax for 222, on Monday
morning. I rigged up the tower with a winch & pulleys and we dropped a
semi sick piece of 1 5/8 inch stuff that had a plenum jacket and was
deteriorating in the sunlight, with a new run of fresh cable with the
proper outdoor jacket. This is my new feedline for 222 MHz. The hardest
part was pulling the old stuff out of the building. We ended up hack
sawing the connector off so it would go through the wall. I tested the
cable after the old stuff was on the ground and it was 28 dB return loss
at 220-230 MHz, but I did not check over a wider bandwidth. It might be
worse. I do know that there was significant "ripple" on the antenna
response curves. I hope the new cable improves all that.
I now have a new run of big coax going up the 100 ft tower, but still
need to "apply" a big connector on the end that extends into the shack.
Hopefully when I get that all done I will be ready for another Tuesday
evening activity time on 222 MHz.
So don't forget about activity night. Tell all your friends. Make some
noise! take up some space on one of our best VHF bands for an evening!
Try a long haul ske or maybe two skeds. Activity starts at about 2300
UT and can go on until after 0130 UT or so. CW, SSB, digi modes, even
RTTY or hellschreiber is allowed if you have it. CU there!!
Dave K1WHS
(The new and improved K1WHS with a new run of coax!)
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