Topband: Back in the game

[Gary Smith]

Folks,

I've been off the air for awhile but with 
the winter months coming in for us in the 
Northern Hemisphere & my love of Topband, 
it's time to get ready for the chase. Add 
to that, there's a shiny new K4D looking 
at me smiling. Haven't powered it up yet, 
I'm studying the manual first. I might 
fire it up tonight after I've read all the 
manual.

After the couple hurricanes (Henri, the 
eye missed us by 20 miles) & Ida, not to 
mention some hellacious storms over the 
year I expected to find my 160 antenna 
(sloper wire resting on top of trees) down 
but amazingly everything is completely 
intact. I'm making a couple WD-1A 160 
antennas just to be ready for Old Man 
Winter, usually I have to replace the 160 
antenna 2-3 times a season. No choice, 
it's the best I can do here.

Had problems with my Rx antenna. Long 
story made short, it's a circle 8 made by 
Lee at HI-Z and thanks to his patience and 
excellent advice, I found the problem was 
the western element's coax (#7) was pretty 
much chewed in half and chewed thoroughly 
in several other places. Somehow it was 
not the flooded coax the others are. Proof 
Flooded keeps chews to a minimum. 

Now my Circle 8 again has the wonderful 
directionality I'm used to having and it 
is in every way running like new.

I'm looking forward to this new topband 
season, the new rig, some fun contests and 
antennas that work.

Good luck to us all!

73,

Gary
KA1J