Drooping feedline

There’s a saying in the ham radio world about antennas:  If it stayed up last winter, it wasn’t big enough.  Well, my 80-meter dipole / 160-meter vertical lasted from February to September.  I guess it was big enough.  The remnants of Hurricane Ike passed through Illinois today, dropping four inches of rain in about five hours.  It was the wind, not the rain, that did the antenna in.  Sarah and I were laying on the floor in our living room looking up into the big tree in front of the house, watching the branches swirl.  For good measure, I craned my neck to see where the dipole crossed into the spruce in the other corner of the yard.  Indeed, it was still there.

Not five minutes later, I heard a thump on the roof.  I craned my neck again and the antenna was gone.  It was hard work getting that antenna up!  Actually, I think the hard part through the oak in the back yard is still intact.  The easy part was getting a line over the spruce.  The weather is supposed to be decent later in the week.  The antenna was made of #14 solid THHN, which was probably most of the problem.  I haven’t done a full forensic analysis of the failure, but I’d guess it was near the center insulator.  I used continuous pieces of wire to form the dipole legs and the open-wire feeder, like W7FG does.  But, the solid wire was probably undoing…

» Read more: If it stayed up…it wasn't big enough: A visit from Ike

From 3830: 

Call: K8GU
Operator(s): K8GU
Station: K8GU
Class: Single Op LP
QTH: IL
Operating Time (hrs): 4
Radios: SO2R

Summary:
Band  QSOs  Op Time
---------------------
 80:   83
 40:   88
 20:   45
---------------------
Total:  216    Mults = 45  Total Score = 9,720

Club: Society of Midwest Contesters

Team: SMC #1

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This did not get posted to 3830:

I didn’t bring my A-game to this one. The first and fourth hours were decent. But, the second and third hours just plain stunk.

As readers of the blog know, I’ve been trying to get my station almost completely automated. It’s getting there. W9RE told me that his relay box didn’t have good isolation. He’s right. I can hear the broadband noise from my 930’s when I hit the PTT. At this point, I have two options: I can build the KK1L board (not attractive at the moment) or I can add six relays to the W9RE box to add another layer of isolation (this is what I’m leaning toward). SO2R only works if you can actually hear stations on one radio while transmitting on the other. I did manage to run almost the entire contest without the sidetone this time. Progress is progress.

The news isn’t all bad about this Sprint. From a statistical standpoint, my QSO total is basically equivalent to my February 2008 total. But, I did nail a lot more multipliers, including my first KL7 in the Sprint. SO2R was very valuable for about four of my multipliers this time. The NCCC Sprints have really helped me get used to operating SO2R. Although, as K6VVA (I think) said, it’s hard to resist the temptation to dupe. Usually, I do an almost impeccable job duping the Sprint in my head. But, for whatever reason, this time I was surprised how many stations the computer told me weren’t dupes. Glad I had it! That’s probably an indicator that I really sucked in the copying department. Will the Golden Logs continue?

» Read more: Sprint Recap

Key and Radio

The CW Sprint is this weekend.  I need to verify that the band-decoders are RF-proof on all combinations of Sprint bands and get the station ready.  I’m looking forward to it!

» Read more: Sprint

Last night, I replaced a 2N3906 in the decoder/logic box that I apparently destroyed while testing the relays.  I’m pretty proud of my troubleshooting on that one…narrowed it down to the transistor in about two minutes.  Since W9RE had been driving the relays with another set of relays, he didn’t bother to put back-EMF diodes across the coils.  I think that should help protect my precious (by that I mean pain-in-the-butt-to-replace) transistors.  Both PIEXX boards are talking to the decoder correctly.  I just need to build some coax jumpers, install the diodes, and tidy-up the shack.
» Read more: Station Automation, Part 1.75