AO-51 !

[W5LZ]

Good grief, I 'hit' the @#$ thing! Couldn't understand what they said, but answered every time I called. Where can I find a beam, rotor (azm & ele) and all that crap? @#$$ with it, I'll just make one on a broomstick, set it on the fence, point it by hand! Also think I need to make an appointment at the Mental Health Clinic, this is crazy. Fun though. Not bad for a 'J'-pole and 40 watts either...
- 'Doc

 

[KingCobra_CDX882]

try these
they make good antennas for it

www.gulgalphaantennas.com

 

[Hook948]

Them birds can be fun! I made a 8 el quagi out of welding rod and 3/4" pvc pipe and have used it hand held with a HT! Just stand out in the yard when the bird flies over, Large set of headphones on, HT in one hand, quagi in the other. Swing the quagi back and forth,up and down kinda like a blind man uses a cane until you find the sweet spot. If you live in town, at least one of your neighbors will make a phone call and the guys in the white suits will arrive shortly. They get there even quicker if you put your foil hat on and while un-keyed holler "COME IN PLANET ZELDA!"Well other than the hat and calling zelda, I've done just as described. I found that headphones help the RX but it's still a "acquired hearing" thing sometimes. Especially trying to pick out someone calling back to you along with 1000 other folks talking at the same time. :shock: Seriously, a HT and a hand held beam work great. ENJOY!

 

[Hook948]

Here is a link to the plans I used to build the quagi... http://members.aol.com/n2kbk/quagi.html . I used 3/4" pvc pipe,a 4-way fitting and short pieces of pipe to support the driven then a short pipe back to another 4-Way fitting etc for the reflector then about 24" piece of pipe for the handle. You can make it longer with more gain by adding more elements spaced the same as the other front elements but the pattern gets REALLY TIGHT beyond 8 elements. I made a 5 element slip on extension but have only used it a couple of times. The extension makes it too flimsey and akward. Really needs a larger diameter boom for more than 8 elements.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Doc,the trick to receiving is to tune 5-10 KHz high when the bird is approaching and 5-10 KHz low as it moves away to compensate for the Doppler shift. It makes all the differance in the world when listening on UHF.It is not so bad TX'ing on VHF to the bird and most people just leave the TX freq. centered.I bought a Cushcrap A270-10 which has 5 elements on each band to go bird hunting with. Works great.Have fun.

 

[CDX-007]

The guys were just jawing on 2m ssb about doppler shift being to blame for their apparent inability to tune in to the human voice, and this sounded way too far fetched to me so I ran a few simple calcs and surprised everyone, including myself.

If 3 guys are talking on 432.100 Usb and two(Scott & Jim) are stationary whilst the 3rd(Mark) is mobile, travelling at ~78mph directly toward Jim and directly away from Scott, and if both Scott and Jim tune correctly to Mark in the mobile, when Jim talks he will be 100Hz off from Scott.
WOW, 100Hz! That's definitely significant.
On 2m ssb, they would still be 30Hz off if Mark were to drive 70mph, which everyone knows would never happen because Mark is a lead-foot.

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

100 Hz at 70 mph? Now think about the shift of something traveling a few thousand miles per hour.I have had to tune 10+ KHz off freq to understand the audio sometimes.