Recent content by TimmyTheTorch

It's been a bit since I've posted here and I thought I'd do a followup. The contraptions I built and others I purchased have been working great! It's so nice to be able to lower and raise the setup myself with nothing more than a 5/8 inch socket and cordless drill. Well, at least after undoing...

The antenna setup just passed its first test yesterday when hit with 45-50 mph winds and torrential rain. A situation I had not thought of is the birds congregating on the beam elements. It seems to mainly be morning doves that do this. They grow to a healthy size around here and I can see the...

Well, I finished up running the new coax and rotator wire from outside to my humble radio shack in my basement office. All the grounding is finished and there are only a few fussy little jobs to complete like making a small water resistant cover for the two lightning/surge protectors in the...

I ended up with 7 guy wires, 3 up top at 120 degree angles and 4 at mid-height at 90 degrees-ish. If a strong wind/storm ends up taking it down, that's life. But it sure does seem secure to me and I am happy about that. The grounding is all done too. I ended up relocating two of the lower...

I was able to raise the antenna this morning by myself just using a 5/8" socket and cordless drill. The only issue I had/have is that as I suspected, the lowest pipe joint is still a bit weak despite having an inner pipe support/sleeve as well as an external support. The weight of the antenna...

Inching closer to trying to hoist this contraption. Both antennae are mounted to the mast, all the guy wire mounts and wires are done. Next up is wiring up the coax and rotor Should go quickly. I'm not sure if I should loop the two coax cables at the bottom near the rotor or at the top near the...

The V58 mounted above the M104C seems to be working well. I had to do a bit of minor adjusting and ended up with the following. I hope it's good enough when I get it up on the mast.

I ended up sending it to a repair facility that has a lot of experience with this type of radio. It turns out that the one new mosfet I installed was out of spec or otherwise not working as it should. They replaced it, checked/tweaked the bias and it was good as new. I really learned the...

I bought a few new PL-259 connectors and fixed the end of the coax section. SWR still seems good post-repair. I now have the V58 mounted above the M104C, hope to be able to tune it either tonight or tomorrow night. I also finished creating the rest of the eight guy wires I am going to use to...

So, this is either the best way to fit a new PL-259 connector to my RG213 coax or the worst way, depending on which comment you read.

I started out at 4" on the capacitor adjust and 24" on the slider adjust and ended up at 2.75" on the capacitor and 19" on the slider. But now I am curious as to what my reading will be if I try with the capacitor adjust set to 0".

I had a bit of spare time this morning so I started tuning the M104C. It is currently horizontally mounted on a mast and is about 7' off the ground. The best I could get it to was 1.3 on channel 1, 1.1 on channel 20 and 1.4 on channel 40. Next I will stick the V58 above it on the same mast and...

All of the guy wire anchors have now been mounted on the roof. Overall I did a good job hitting the rafter after using the little rafter locating tool I picked up. Hopefully the roof sealant I used will keep us nice and dry inside. So far, so good with that. I also have five of the guy wires...

M104C assembly done. Family stuff the rest of the day so measurement/alignment tweaking and tuning time with the beam and V58 above it tomorrow. It's getting into the upper 80s and humid here today, plus air quality advisory due to the smoke from the Canadian wildfires so my motivation for...

I had Digger's Hotline come and check the place I was planning on putting the 4'x4'x4' concrete base for the tower and found out I have both cable and electrical services running right through the dig zone. I was told I am not allowed to move the service lines myself nor can I just dig around...