k0ua
Epic Contributor
The ARRL is fighting it. We shall see. "back in the day" I had to pay for licenses too in the old days. Not looking forward to a $50 renewal, mine and XYL's is coming up in 2022.
Diving into Ham Radio... uh oh!
- Thread starter dragoneggs
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The ARRL is fighting it. We shall see. "back in the day" I had to pay for licenses too in the old days. Not looking forward to a $50 renewal, mine and XYL's is coming up in 2022.
k0ua
Epic Contributor
Wishing you a happy and successful antenna installation. By the way did you ever find anyone local that could assist you, or are you all on your own? There are a lot of licensee's in your area, but of course that doesn't mean that they are active or interested in helping a newcomer.
OP
dragoneggs
Super Star Member
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- Kubota BX-25D, Kubota Z122RKW-42
Looks like that place in Poulsbo that you sent me the link, will be the ticket. I've decided to focus on set up and some hands on learning before I get serious about taking the exam. I want to learn by doing and understand it, rather than try to study for a test via book. That said, I did order a book on the Technician License.
2?18-2?22 Technician Class: Gordon West, WB6NOA, Eric J. Nichols, KL7AJ, Pete Trotter, KB9SMG, Karin Thompson, K?RTX, Jim Massara, N2EST: 978?945?539?3: Amazon.com: Books
The reviews suggest it is written and formatted in a matter that promotes understanding, not just memorizing test questions. We shall see. Just checked and Amazon website said it delivered yesterday. I haven't seen it, maybe my wife is hiding it? :laughing:
radios1
Elite Member
plus another $50 if you want a printed copy for your wallet and station license!.. we used to get those included, free!..
Hey great antenna I made 2 of them and that is what I use here for my Voice station as well as my SHARES Gateway station. I have both of mine mounted in an inverted L config and they perform very well! No common mode chokes needed here.
OP
dragoneggs
Super Star Member
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Thanks for the endorsement. Not sure about CMC but I am going to error on the clean side. I figure it will be a learning experience by seeing/hearing the difference.
I have several choices of trees to extend to from the house. To the NW, W, and SW directions. No clue as to what makes sense. My property slopes down and is about 1:2 to the NW, and level to the SW. Any clues on what makes sense direction wise. My preference I think is to string to the NW down (actually almost at a level height) and attach about 50 to 60ft up a 75ft fir tree. Going to need some bungee type of restraint as the winds can really cause the trees to sway!
k0ua
Epic Contributor
Here is what I do for wind/restraint. Shoot the line over the tree and pull up antenna, But leave a lot of cordage on the end. Let that come down and tie a few pounds of weight on the end near the ground. As the winds blow the weigh is always pulling down due to the near infinite reliability of gravity,
BUT the wind and ice can pull the weight back up before the wire breaks. If it is ice it can even hit the ground, with the weight up in the tree, but as soon as the ice melts, you are automatically back in business as the weight is pulled back to earth. There are other methods, but that is what I use. Cheap and dirty. Be sure to leave plenty of string coiled on the ground, or you can put it coiled in a dark colored 5 gallon bucket with lots of holes in the bottom for drainage.The CMC choke will do some good on noise pickup of the coax on recieve. Depending on how much "garbage" is in your enviorment, it may or may not be noticable. BUT on transmit it can do a lot of good keeping RF coming back down the outside of the coax from entering your shack, and causing havoc with your PC's. Not that you may not still have problems there, even with 100 watts, but every little bit helps. Ferrites are you friends. Mix 31 for most issues. If you don't know the mix number, you have an unknown and many/most are made with vhf/uhf NOT HF in mind. Here is one place to buy genuine Fair-Rite branded of ferrites. Mouser and Digikey and others have them too. But I like this guy, and he is a ham business with good pricing.
Ferrite Products for RF Chokes, Baluns, and RFI Mitigation
I have one SW and one NW James is correct the choke may help with some noise. I have my balun box which I built 1 using 240-43 3 stack ferrites and the other is using 240-52 3 stack for more power handling. The box is mounted 3ft off the ground and grounded directly bellow and the wire runs 45ft vertical and then the rest runs horizontal across the house. the only band I need to use the tuner on is 60m.
OP
dragoneggs
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Jun 9, 2013
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- Seabeck, Washington
- Tractor
- Kubota BX-25D, Kubota Z122RKW-42
I decided to string the antenna to the NW to the left most fir tree in the pic. This is the view looking NW from our deck. I am guessing the tree is about 70ft tall and maybe about 140ft from the house with the top about eye level. Second pic is zoomed in view of the top of the tree and the target area for the antenna end.
While I was looking for a suitable rock or old baseball to attach some fishing line with the thought of throwing it over a tree branch, my wife came up with the brilliant suggestion. "Why don't you use your drone?". I did just that... I taped the fishing line to the bottom of the drone and flew it just above and just to the right of the top of the tree, circled around the back and flew it 'home'. My SIL let the fishing reel free wheel with a bit of thumb drag to keep it taut. I was pretty nervous as I feared the line might get caught up in a prop! Lots of things could have gone wrong.
Too bad I didn't think to video the event. I feel very lucky it was uneventful and successful on the first try. I was able to navigate the drone and place the line exactly where I wanted! :cloud9:
Now I am just waiting for the antenna to arrive.
While I was looking for a suitable rock or old baseball to attach some fishing line with the thought of throwing it over a tree branch, my wife came up with the brilliant suggestion. "Why don't you use your drone?". I did just that... I taped the fishing line to the bottom of the drone and flew it just above and just to the right of the top of the tree, circled around the back and flew it 'home'. My SIL let the fishing reel free wheel with a bit of thumb drag to keep it taut. I was pretty nervous as I feared the line might get caught up in a prop! Lots of things could have gone wrong.
Too bad I didn't think to video the event. I feel very lucky it was uneventful and successful on the first try. I was able to navigate the drone and place the line exactly where I wanted! :cloud9:
Now I am just waiting for the antenna to arrive.
Nice having trees like that I only have one and it's not far from the house.