Recent content by Dusty1USA

Made me a base station. Sort of. Saw this grain pattern on a piece of oak plywood at Lowe's and thought it might make a good front for a radio/speaker/power supply cabinet. Came out pretty good I think. The components are suspended on metal brackets inside the case so they get airflow all around...

Always worried about a storm coming along and taking my antennas down. Had been wanting to figure out a simple way to get something back up pretty quick in case that does happen. This is what I came up with. Works real well for a temp. or portable tilt up base. Cranks up the 20' mast with an...

Made a wire inverted V dipole last year that worked well out of 12ga. stranded, insulated wire with a 1:1 balun between the two legs. Bought the 500 watt rated balun from Amazon. It makes the dipole connection to the coax really simple. This year I thought I'd try making one with two 102" steel...

Thanks for the replies. Guess I need to get a dummy load. That would mean I have two dummies.........it and me.

I have two antennas, a 2016 Sirio ground plane and a Sirio 3 element yagi. When I am using the gp my power meter out of a 500 watt linear shows a pep on ssb of 300 with an initial swing up to 400 watts then dropping back to around 300 as I continue talking. Then on the 3 element yagi it shows...

Congrats to the winner.

I understand the rules and wish to enter the contest https://www.worldwidedx.com/threads/what-is-your-favorite-ham-or-cb-radio-of-all-time.269961/post-858781

I have a few radios now but the one I like the best is a Radioddity QT40 that I have in my vehicle. I like the old school type knobs instead of having to push a button several times to change bands or modes.

All advice is greatly appreciated. Especially since I know almost nothing about what I am doing. Wish I had an analyzer. Barely scraped up the coins to buy the beam. This is one expensive hobby. But when my wife complained about how much I was spending I just told her it's cheaper than a bass...

Update. Ok, I got er up on a 16' pole. Came in and checked the swr readings. Now I have 1.02:1 on ch. 20 and 40 and a 1.18:1 on ch. 1. I haven't tried to tune the gamma match at all and I don't think I will. Leave well enough alone right? Like I said, sometimes we just get lucky. This is the 3...

I just have a meter. I have not attempted any tuning yet, the readings I got were from the initial construction and sitting 4' off the ground on sawhorses. Will be putting it up on a 16' pole this morning and will see what that does to the swr readings. Will post an update at that time.

I just got mine in the mail yesterday. Put it together today. I used an online 3 element yagi calculator for the dimensions of each element at a center freq. of 27.235, Ch. 24 then I adjusted the elements to match the dimensions the calculator gave me. I did not cut any of the elements. I locked...

Had some 65 mph winds for a couple of days last week with no problems. It's stouter than it looks.

I don't know about a push-up. I made a tilt-over 40' long to put a 2 element moxon on. Welded two 20' pieces of 1" sq. steel tubing together and mounted it in a swivel base I made. Then I rigged a small $60.00 120v elec. winch from Amazon that I use to raise and lower it.

I put one in my vehicle and it's a good radio with my only gripe being the Rx audio quality. Totally monotone with no voice inflections or variations as you listen to some one talking. Didn't take me long to replace it with a Radioddity QT40. Much better Rx audio quality. Just my 2 cents.