My wife, Caroline passed the technician exam on June 25th. She took the exam so we can practice Emergency communications incase of an disaster in LA. We want to join the local ARES and RACES groups so we can help out. I’ve been checking into the Southwest district DARN net on Wed at 7pm.
I checked out the Field day setup in San Pedro for W6TRW club. Several Yagi’s setup with generators and tents. Caroline was a trooper and hiked up the hill which was quite steep.
I used the Field Day opportunity to try out SSB on 20m and 40m. I was solo at home, so I was Class: 1D ARRL Section: LAX. I used my FT-857D and the S9 18′ antenna at 100watts.
I bought a 31′ Jackite pole off of ebay for $59, and then soon realized that it was the same pole they use for the 31′ S9 Vertical and Eagle One. In the end it is probably cheaper to just buy the S9 vertical. They have them for $95 on cheapham.com.
I found these videos on youtube walking through the steps of assembling a S9 Vertical:
S9v Antenna Kit – Assembly part 1 of 2
S9v Antenna Kit – Assembly part 2 of 2
So I ended up putting it together and attaching it to the chimney at home.
The noise level was close to S6 on all bands so I thought I’d try it at the office. I just used the chimeny mount I got from Fry’s for $20, and bent it so it would work on the exhaust pipe and used 4 20m radials, and 2 40m radials. The noise level was closer to S4 in the Whittier, which was better, but it was still noisier then the G5RV jr, so I took it down.
I reduced it down to a 18′ S9 and attached it to the drain exhaust pipe at home, as changed to the Balun Design 4:1 unun, which does help with tuning on other bands. It also has 4 20M tuned radials.
The noise level is just way to high in Redondo Beach so I have been remoting into my rig at the whittier office, which has significantly less noise. I still try it out from time to time, incase the band opens up. I’ll probably use it as my vertical portable when I go camping, like how the Eagle One is setup. I think this antenna works fairly well, but the city is a very noisy place for verticals. You cant tell from the pictures, but there are about 20 High-Voltage powerline on 2 sides of this location, and 6 transforms within site of the roof, so that’s probably a big part of the issue.
I heard some good reviews on the G5RV, so I got a G5RV jr, which works 40m-10m with a tuner. I started off at the wall height.
Then I raised it another 3 ft above the wall, which helped a bit
I wanted to try more dedicated hardware for HF, so I got a Yaesu FT-950 and have an TV antenna rotator which I plan on using with a Yagi.
I read the reviews about the Mosley Mini-32A being a good compact 2 element Yagi and for a reasonable price. I sold my Atas-120A via ebay for $300, and used the cash to get the Mini-32a. I ended up using a $30 tripod I got off of Amazon.com and the RCA TV antenna rotator. It is multiband at 10m,15m, and 20m. The Gain from front to back is about 1-2 S-units. It is definately my best antenna for 20m. Not much activity on 15m and 10m, so not sure how well it works there. I have it up about 30 ft from the ground, only 10 ft above the roof.
Saw the great reviews on eham.net so I got one off of ebay for $79
It works ok, and does tune up on all the bands 40m-6m.
It uses a dummy load similar to the Diamond BB7V verticals as described in: http://g8jnj.webs.com/cometcha250b.htm
Here it is horizontal:
And vertical with a fiberglass pole:
I took it home a tried using a Mr. Longarm from homedepot so it can be used as a sloper
I wanted to compare the ultimax 100 to a 20m dipole so I did this setup. The 20m dipole was almost 2 S-units above the ultimax 100, which is to be expected.
Just got my extra class license today: AG6DI is my callsign.
I already have a rig setup and have been listening to the airwaves for some time.
Starting off with a FT-857D and a ATAS-120A antenna hooked up to my Custom PC i7 860 with Windows 7, running HRD and DM780 via a USB SignaLink.
