Amateur (Ham) Radio BS and Callsign Thread!

Facinated by the last bit of that. I feel like that must be a great story.

Ive read many recommendations of the Bencher BY-2 in a lot of reviews.

 

BY-1 is where it's at.

I have a vibroplex square racer that's nice too.

If you do enough Field days in FL you'll get hit by lightning. Customs people always ask questions about CW keys when digging through your bags.

 

Highly recommend the pen slot if it will fit.

 

If you or a loved one have been diagnosed with Mesothelioma, you may be entitled to financial compensation. Contact the Sokolove Law offices today!

 

I'm more interested in a full write up on the breakfast burrito.

 

Maverik Gas Stations here in UT have killer breakfast burritos! Sausage is good, country sausage with the gravy is even better. But right now, "Sunrise Chor-cheezo" is takin the cake with the mexican kick in my book! Makes a great breakfast to go on the way to the ski slopes, 4x4 trails, etc. That and a large cup of coffee for <$5 makes me happy!

 

Let's open this can of worms. I've got the arrl book on grounding coming in tomorrow.

So, 2nd story grounding of a ham station. And go. Haha.

 

I’ve got this on my third floor. www.k1sib.com

Inside my station is a component rack on a copper plane mounted on my bench, with everything bonded to it.

At point of entry all lightning arrestors are on the same external plate that is also bonded to the bench top plane. These are grounded to 10’ poles at shortest point externally.

The interior plane is bonded to nearest copper plumbing and to a dedicated AC circuit ground which also bonded to the same earth ground as the lightning arrestors.

The components in the rack are star methodologically bonded to the plane.

The station AC is cut to length to avoid 60 cycle impedance interference.

By having my station on the third floor many of my feed lines are short, optimizing conditions, except for the dipoles which are further away to allow for the ladder to be at optimal lengths.

All grounds are mechanically connected to maximize their resilience to overload.

 

Thank you!

My biggest thing is on the rf side. I've got an 80 ocf dipole, and Im going to do my best to eliminate as much common mode as possible. But if I have any residule I'm concerned about turning my copper pipes into a giant antenna

 

As long as you have a low impedance ground where the feedline enters the house, you'll be fine. The amount of stories up from ground level is irrelevant.

 

My thing is i'll have to build or buy a meter to measure actual common mode which the 80m OCF is known for to know if its an issue or not with my current set up, which if I'm reading this right could transfer as an issue to the grounding as a secondary antenna. super tired. hope thats coherent. always appreciate your input @k8md

 

Also make certain to bond ALL grounds together to one system.

I wouldn't worry about a meter. Make certain you follow good guidelines and also use your head. Don't make anything that's a multiple of a 1/4 wavelength.

 

Exactly. A Google search of "single point ground" will help. "Grounding" to a Cu pipe alone is NG.

One of the biggest problems areas is CATV. They never ground those correctly and never tie them to SPG. And if you use wired LAN, more issues.... Second floor is no different than ground floor.

 

Thanks dude for the motivation

I made my own 2m/70cm ground plane antenna using 3/32" welding rod and a SO239 chassis connector.

I found an old tube of welding rod that's been sitting in a corner since the beginning of time. Too rusty to be used for welding so I made good use of them.

A drill and a 3m scotch pad took care of the rust, good enough to use as radials. I'll probably need a tetanus shot because I didn't wear a mask, I breathed in more rust dust than I should've.


Used a 1/4" extension as my dowel to create the coils. The length of the coil is about 1-1/4" with even spacing in between each wrap. I made a few and picked out the best of the bunch. The 2m side is 9-1/2" long, and the 70cm side is 6-3/4" long.



Soldered the short 70cm side to ring connectors:


Vertical radial soldered in place to the SO-239 connector:


And the mostly finished antenna. I just need to figure out how to weatherproof it:

 

Mine didn't turn out too hot. Receive is fine but I can't get into the 70cm repeaters with it. Works fine on 2m though. Think it's probably just a bad combo of using third harmonic for 70cm and the crappy 100 ft of RG-8x coax I'm using. Not t mention it's on a 10 ft mast. Going to work on it tomorrow some more and if no joy probably go with a Comet base antenna to be sure I'm in on everything around me.

but good news is I finally got the new rig out of the box and hooked up and running. Going to work on a 6m dipole next for it.

 

you need to create coils. the coils act as an RF choke separating the two bands.

 

Your's was the first one I've seen with coils made like that. Might need to try that then instead. Thanks!

 

You'll achieve what your looking for. You essentially made a 2m ground plane antenna.

 

Try making an Ed Fong DBJ-1. IMHO, it's one of the best homebrew antennas out there. I've made several, and they work great.

https://www.work-sat.com/Antennas_files/FONG-DBJ1.pdf

I need to figure out the correct lengths when using rg-58. I have tons of scrap pieces of rg-58 at work.

 

@Cudgel if you're ever around on Sunday mornings you should join in with the Dork Den net our buddy Dave puts on 80m. Small short net. A good time. Even when @foy1der can't show because he tried tuning up a pine tree....

One of these days I'll catch you in there @foy1der