[TowerTalk] 80m 4Square Comtek box

[Jan Erik Holm]

Well, I understand this with time etc etc.
In this case I merely wanted to point out that
Comtek isn´t the only game in town.
Also the Comtec box doesn´t do the phasing 100%
correct on a vertical 4 SQ array.

73 Jim SM2EKM

PS: YO3CTK: NO I don´t build all my equipment.

-------------------------------------------------

Jim Lux wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Yo3ctk" <yo3ctk at alltrom.ro>
> To: "Jan Erik Holm" <sm2ekm at telia.com>
> Cc: "'towertalk'" <towertalk at contesting.com>
> Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2004 5:34 AM
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] 80m 4Square Comtek box
> 
> 
> 
>>Jim,
>>
>>With all due respect, some people <have to> spend money on industrial
>>products because they <don't have> enough time for homebrew, but at the
> 
> same
> 
>>time they want to improve their stations.
>>
>>I assume all your equipment is homebrew, including transceivers, and that
>>you have learned <lots> of technical stuff in the process. Good for you.
>>Alas, some of us are just "ignorant" appliance operators.
>>
>>73 de Mike, YO3CTK
> 
> 
> To combine a couple recent threads:
> 
> But Mike, I've been trying to convince my wife to let me fire up that
> furnace in the back yard so I can smelt my own oxygen free high conductivity
> copper for my "audiophile grade" Marconi antenna.   All you folks with the
> factory assembled multielement antennas (out of aluminum, for gosh sakes)
> should take a step towards returning to the one true method.  I'm also on
> the track of some precision machined iron filings for my coherer, and I'm in
> the process of negotiating a contract for a world class "tapper" who will
> periodically tap it to keep sensitivity high. I'm also waiting for the STA
> to come through for my damped wave transmitter.  That new-fangled Poulsen
> arc is just not worth it.
> 
> But realistically... I'm much like Mike.  Not enough time to build things
> from scratch, and I decry the lack of suitable building blocks for such
> projects.  I'd love to have LDG make a specialized version of their high
> power tuner that isn't a autotuner, but is a computer controlled LC network.
> I'd love someone to manufacture reasonably inexpensive ($100) antenna
> current probes.
> 
> I cringe every time there's some neat construction project idea in QEX or
> QST and it starts out with "so I used this XYZ that I found at a hamfest 20
> years ago".  Scrounging is great, but if you want new people to come into
> the hobby and participate in the technical side, you need to provide a way
> for them to do it without having to build everything themselves or spend
> countless hours in surplus shops and hamfests.  I'll note that many of these
> things are not available commercially at any price.
> 
> At least for microwave stuff, I can conceivably buy connectorized components
> from any variety of vendors and "rack and stack" it.  Not so for high power
> HF.
>