Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

Just stumbled across this thread!

KJ6VWH - General class here

Running an FT7800 in the truck with a Larsen 2/70 on the roof. I wish more of my wheeling buddies had them in their rigs!

 

^Welcome. Yesterday while mobile, I had a random 40 mile simplex QSO. Cool.

 

KG7DDR - Technician Class

I have a 2M/70cm Kenwood used as base at this time. I bought it for mobile use while off road, but none of my regular trail guys are hams, so it stays in the home on a 12volt supply and Comet base antenna about 20' off the ground.

 

Put it back in the truck and get more ham 4x4 friends. 4x4ham.com is doing a night run of the gas pipeline trail (Black canyon city south to Table Mesa) This Saturday. I think meet up is at the Chevron on carefree hwy at 7pm. Drive in comms will be Shaw butte.

4x4ham group is good people, try and do a run every month or so, at least in the winter. Mostly Jeep guys, but the Tacomas and FJs are building up numbers.

 

Got the mounting bracket and separation cable for the ICOM IC-207H this week. Got the wiring all done and out of site for the most part. I am mounting the head on the steering column in front of my guages. Running the wire up through the space in the steering column....Hopefully that won't be an issue....Just need to do some cleanup and get the extra wire tie-wrapped up under the dashboard.

As for mounting the radio itself, the radio is sitting on the floor right now under the drivers seat. I like where it's at and the audio is fine. I may just forget about the hardware mount and throw some velcro on it and stick it to the carpet under the seat.

 

does the 207 get hot? The icom bracket does elevate it a little off the deck... I know the 208 did get a little warm...

 

They all get warm just don't sit it on the carpet the bracket should do fine just leave enough space all around the heat sink fins. My 100 watt HF is on the floor but in the upside down bracket.

 

Oh YEA! Finally got my HF antenna up AGAIN. OH YEA! just need time to map the tuner to different bands again :|

 

Anyone have any experience with the Diamond X50 antenna?

Looking to put together a portable antenna mast for the up coming service season in my area.

So far I am thinking the telescoping fiberglass pole from MGS, the MK-4-HD and I will build a tire base for it. Now I need to get a good, maybe great, 2m/70cm antenna for it.

The terrain and distance of some of the events we do around here is rough. I am currently thinking I will make a magnetic mount for an external speaker and my face plate , FT-8800, so I can move it outside of my truck.

I am open to suggestions on any of this, except for those 4' fiberglass military poles... I hate those damn things, used them to put up camouflage way to much. Trying to keep the cost down, but I want quality.

"Quality only hurts once." -unknow

 

Chip, Sounds like a fun project. No experience with that antenna, but I've read great things about it. I almost got one for my base station.

I think it's hard to beat the MGS mast systems, I see now they sell the guy rings too. I'd get one. Why not the MK-6-HD model? It would get you extra height if you needed it, only $40 more and 24" extra in length.

What are you going to use for feed line? I like and recommend the LMR-240 Ultra flex or equivalent. Light, flexible, small and affordable. Here is a nice chart for attenuation, and this one for seeing the O.D. of cable. No affiliation with the site...

 

I have the MGS MK-8-HD love it, if i were to put up another Dual 2/70 antenna would be the Force 12 Ruby 270s. Me and fiberglass antennas dont mix.

 

Thanks for the links, tons of info. I hadn't decided on the feed line yet. but looking at that chart, the LMR-240 looks like the ticket. The MK-6 is over 7' sleeved, I am looking for something that can fit in the bed with the tg closed. The 4' extra would be nice, but I think the 5' antenna will make up for that. I might do the MK-4-HD-Extended. That would set my antenna at about 30'.

Yes, I plan to get the guy wire kit. I wont need it for every event, but the rougher ones I will use it for sure.

I worked one major events this last year, The Mogiom Monster, it is a 106 miles ultra race up and down the rim. The runners cover 106 miles with a 36 hour time limit, covering 23k+ feet of elevation change. Even with a couple of repeaters linked, including a mobile repeater, there are several areas that a mobile station at 50w can't get out. Last year the guy I was with had a cool home build mast and antenna and just moving the antenna 20' in the air made all the difference. We had the HTs set to the repeater in the North to listen to the Net and then the masted antenna was set to the mobile repeater to the South of us.

I worked several other events that I am limited in where they can post me by not having a portable antenna. So I wanted to build something that is more than I need, but still keeping budget and space in mind.

 

Thats looks great, smaller, built like a tank in the USA... but double the price. The wify might nix my project at that point.

 

I know about the quikfist mounts. But I have to be careful not to snowball the project at this time. My bed just has a crossbar for antenna and hi-lift (need to add a rear light to it soon too), no bed rack yet. I could always pack it in a manner to allow for it to go over the tg, but I have set the limits on this project and I need to stay within them (or the wify will kill). 28.5' of the mk-4-hd-extended will fit in the bed and so will the diamond x50 (otherwise I would get the x300). Also, keeping the size down does reduce the amoutn of guying that I have to do.

 

Diamond antennas are a good choice they are pricey gain is gain so if you are looking to save money Comet and others will work just as well. I'm sorry you don't like the fiberglass poles they are cheap,strong, and light. The base mount can be folded together and driven over to form a decent base and can be guyed with nylon string. We have welded pipe to 2"X2" stock and mounted them in trailer hitches to support the poles I have a hinged mount on my camper I put every thing together walk it up and drop the pin in. I'm on the air on 17 meters in 15 minutes. There are any number of push up poles if you can't deal with the 4' ones.

 

I don't think I would get too obsessed with loss figures as I would how easy it is to handle for portable use. If your run is 50' or less simple RG8X loss figures are only about 3/10 of a db difference in 50' some thing that would never be noticed.

 

Painters pole. Extendable aluminum. Durable, in expensive (not cheap! Cheap is to quality, in expensive is to price), groundable, your local hardware store has them, plethora of sizes to choose from.

 

Very true. At half the cost the RG8X makes a lot of sense. After looking again I remember why I liked the 240UF, it was because I was and still operating QRP with only 4 watts.

I would not use an aluminum pole. It's conductive. The operator would have to take some action to decouple the antenna from the mast or it will spoil the pattern for a ground plane radial antenna.

 

Thanks for the comments guys, I appreciate it. I am looking for some specific feedback in regards to the Diamond X50. Is anyone running one? Or is someone running something very similar for this type of setup and has a model number to suggest for me to look at (Trying to stay =< $100).

The 4' fiberglass military pole are very strong and are easy to put together. I know, I worked with them for years. No thank you! not for me, but to each their own.

I am doing the tire base for the antenna, I do not want to block the tailgate. Although I may add a tailgate mount to my bag of tricks at a later date, the current requirement is to not block it.

I looked at painter poles, not a bad route, but some 30' painter poles are more then the MGS poles. I have a 12' one in my garage and I think I will rig it to fit the antenna for the shorter events that might need a little boost but don't require the full mast.

Thank you again, and keep the ideas and suggestions coming.

On a side note, my wife has agreed to get her ticket before the Mogion Monster event in September (We plan to ditch the kids at grandma's and make a 3 day camping trip out of it).

 

I would not use them more so because they are conductive and so might be the operator around power lines! Don't think it would have much effect on the antenna after all we do mount antennas on steel towers. Here is my field setup in minutes I can go from 80 meters to UHF the pictures are all HF rotatable dipoles from 10 to 17 meters