Replaced the wire on my inverted L.
It is attached to a very flexible fishing pole at the back, and a thin willow tree in the front, touching the roof
I expected to see a lot of wear where it moves across the roof, but here was no signs of wear. Good stuff the military field telephone wire.
With a combination of copper and steel strands, it has a breaking strain of around 200kg, and a double insulation jacket. Being thin, it is almost invisible too 🙂
Now back on the wooden base.
I am going to leave it as it is, just replace the adjustment screw at the back. It was a slot head screw the same size as the head of the tension adjustment, so it I machine down a standard screw it will be close.
Can’t make up my mind whether to nickel plate it all again.
The brass looked so good, put it back together to see how it looks.
It has not been polished, although the centre block and main arm took a lot of work to get rid of most of the marks.
I almost like it as it is.
I’m told it dates from ww1, so maybe perfect and nickel; plated is not the best!
Yesterday untwisted 100′ of army field telephone wire to replace my inverted L.
I touches on the roof of the house, so must have suffered some wear over the three years it has been up.
Fantastic wire for antennas, only about 1/16″ diameter so almost invisible, and so strong you can put your weight on it without it breaking.
Going to make it very slightly shorter as I want to try the antenna on PD7MAA’s blog
Yesterday I decided I would make a proper PCB for the rig.linear controller.
Had to change the software just to adapt for the band switches were now connected to different ports (to allow tidy track routing)
Finished making my controller for the 7300 and the FL-7000.
Works as intended
previous steps were
1 touch screen to get band selection showing
2 select band
3 Press multi knob
4 touch power
5 adjust power
6 push…
7 …up
8 or…
9 …down on linear band changes (could be 1-8 pushes)
Now
1 Press one button
That sets the band, sets the power needed on that band for the linear, sets the band on the linear and the choice of four antennas.
Made up a lightweight (110g) long wire and 9:1 unun for portable use with the FT-817. Works well with the IC-703.
The conduit (oval) is filled with hot melt glue, the knots in the cables make it stronger to prevent the wires pulling out.
The outer layer of adhesive lined heat shrink tubing is heated enough to soften the conduit and push some of the hot melt glue to the ends, so it is “waterproof”
Both the coax and the antenna wire have a short piece of heat shrink tube for strain relief.
Made an antenna switch for the FL7000 linear this morning.
Dead bug method, it will eventually be made redundant by another project, so looks was not a top priority.
It is a copy of the Yaesu FAS-1-4R
Works perfectly.
Had chance to try my new signal generator today, covers from about 150kHz to 470 MHz, and the attenuator is very accurate.
Ideal for alignment and calibrating S meters.
Very pleased with it, great value at under £100.
Yesterday I put the insides of a bhi NES10-2 into a new box, now all the controls are easily accessible from the front panel.
The sound is much better with the slightly larger box, after taking all the NES-10s out of use, this has now replaced the bigger BHI unit!
In the last couple of weeks, in the run up to the summer holiday, have moved the IC-7400 and an FDM-Duo out, and added another IC-7300 to the shack.
Put up a temporary 2m/70cm vertical beam on a TV type rotator.
The 17m dipole isn’t good, firstly the coils had to be rebuilt, rusty self tappers holding the copper wire into brass, ans when fixed, not very efficient anyway.
Seems the inverted L is not too bad on 17m after all, maybe conditions have just been down 🙂
Recently put up a vertical for 15/12 and 10m works very well, consistently better than the cobweb.
The inverted L works better than the cobweb on 20m, which leaves 17m where performance is a bit down compared to the cobweb.
Taken the cobweb down, and trying a shortened dipole for 17m.
Replaced the wire on my inverted L.
It is attached to a very flexible fishing pole at the back, and a thin willow tree in the front, touching the roof
I expected to see a lot of wear where it moves across the roof, but here was no signs of wear. Good stuff the military field telephone wire.
With a combination of copper and steel strands, it has a breaking strain of around 200kg, and a double insulation jacket. Being thin, it is almost invisible too 🙂
Now back on the wooden base.
I am going to leave it as it is, just replace the adjustment screw at the back. It was a slot head screw the same size as the head of the tension adjustment, so it I machine down a standard screw it will be close.
Can’t make up my mind whether to nickel plate it all again.
The brass looked so good, put it back together to see how it looks.
It has not been polished, although the centre block and main arm took a lot of work to get rid of most of the marks.
I almost like it as it is.
I’m told it dates from ww1, so maybe perfect and nickel; plated is not the best!
Yesterday I dug out my father’s old morse key, decided to try and make it look better and try it.
Yesterday untwisted 100′ of army field telephone wire to replace my inverted L.
I touches on the roof of the house, so must have suffered some wear over the three years it has been up.
Fantastic wire for antennas, only about 1/16″ diameter so almost invisible, and so strong you can put your weight on it without it breaking.
Going to make it very slightly shorter as I want to try the antenna on PD7MAA’s blog
Started making a keypad for the 7300 to use the four memories cor CW/SSB/RTTY.
Included up and down buttons and a PTT button.
Don’t know why I didn’t do it before, very cheap and simple.
Nearly three weeks of rain with very few breaks!
Waiting to work on antennas.
This must be the wettest period we have had for years.
Yesterday I decided I would make a proper PCB for the rig.linear controller.
Had to change the software just to adapt for the band switches were now connected to different ports (to allow tidy track routing)
In a small box now, next to the blue pencil.
Also added commands to select the correct side band on each band (forgot 🙂 )
Really nice to use, should have made it a long time ago!
Finished making my controller for the 7300 and the FL-7000.
Works as intended
previous steps were
1 touch screen to get band selection showing
2 select band
3 Press multi knob
4 touch power
5 adjust power
6 push…
7 …up
8 or…
9 …down on linear band changes (could be 1-8 pushes)
Now
1 Press one button
That sets the band, sets the power needed on that band for the linear, sets the band on the linear and the choice of four antennas.
Made up a lightweight (110g) long wire and 9:1 unun for portable use with the FT-817. Works well with the IC-703.
The conduit (oval) is filled with hot melt glue, the knots in the cables make it stronger to prevent the wires pulling out.
The outer layer of adhesive lined heat shrink tubing is heated enough to soften the conduit and push some of the hot melt glue to the ends, so it is “waterproof”
Both the coax and the antenna wire have a short piece of heat shrink tube for strain relief.
Made an antenna switch for the FL7000 linear this morning.
Dead bug method, it will eventually be made redundant by another project, so looks was not a top priority.
It is a copy of the Yaesu FAS-1-4R
Works perfectly.
Had chance to try my new signal generator today, covers from about 150kHz to 470 MHz, and the attenuator is very accurate.
Ideal for alignment and calibrating S meters.
Very pleased with it, great value at under £100.
Yesterday I put the insides of a bhi NES10-2 into a new box, now all the controls are easily accessible from the front panel.
The sound is much better with the slightly larger box, after taking all the NES-10s out of use, this has now replaced the bigger BHI unit!
In the last couple of weeks, in the run up to the summer holiday, have moved the IC-7400 and an FDM-Duo out, and added another IC-7300 to the shack.
Put up a temporary 2m/70cm vertical beam on a TV type rotator.
First lightning of the summer at 03:10 am, disconnected antennas, won’t help much if there was a direct strike, but will prevent static damage.
The 17m dipole isn’t good, firstly the coils had to be rebuilt, rusty self tappers holding the copper wire into brass, ans when fixed, not very efficient anyway.
Seems the inverted L is not too bad on 17m after all, maybe conditions have just been down 🙂
Moved the power supplies in the shack today, put them with the PC, and a sound absorbing screen in front of them, quietens all the fan noises nicely.
Recently put up a vertical for 15/12 and 10m works very well, consistently better than the cobweb.
The inverted L works better than the cobweb on 20m, which leaves 17m where performance is a bit down compared to the cobweb.
Taken the cobweb down, and trying a shortened dipole for 17m.