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Post by homerbb on Nov 29, 2012 20:46:26 GMT -5
I had some of the parts of one of these Umbrella Clothes Dryers left from a previous aluminum scavenge for another project so I decided to convert it into a 1/4ƛ GP antenna. A little time and pulling together odds and ends and I have this.    Currently it is just above the ridge line of my roof, about 23' above the ground. I did QSO with 2WR11_Robb and 2WR270_Joe on the West Coast with it this afternoon.
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Post by Night Ranger on Nov 29, 2012 22:43:38 GMT -5
That's funny, but I have no doubt it will work.  Night Ranger |
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Post by Night Ranger on Nov 29, 2012 22:46:01 GMT -5
I remember a kid back in 1976 who stuck the metal frame from an umbrella up in a tree in his front yard, and then ran a wire from it to the telescopic antenna on his 1 watt walkie talkie. He had no concept of wavelength or SWR, but he talked on it.
-Night Ranger
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Sandbagger
Administrator/The Boss 
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Post by Sandbagger on Nov 30, 2012 8:23:48 GMT -5
I remember a kid back in 1976 who stuck the metal frame from an umbrella up in a tree in his front yard, and then ran a wire from it to the telescopic antenna on his 1 watt walkie talkie. He had no concept of wavelength or SWR, but he talked on it. -Night Ranger Sounds like something I might have done back then. If it was metal, outside, and long, it had to work good. ;D |
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Post by Night Ranger on Nov 30, 2012 8:50:14 GMT -5
I remember a kid back in 1976 who stuck the metal frame from an umbrella up in a tree in his front yard, and then ran a wire from it to the telescopic antenna on his 1 watt walkie talkie. He had no concept of wavelength or SWR, but he talked on it. -Night Ranger Sounds like something I might have done back then. If it was metal, outside, and long, it had to work good. ;D When I was 12 I used a wire metal display rack that the local convenience store threw out as an antenna for my walkie talkie. It was the kind or rack you would display cheetos, corn chips, and donuts in. I stood it up outside my window and ran some insulated Radio Shack wire to it, and then I wrapped the other end of the wire around my walkie talkie antenna. The walkie talkie did receive more signals with that laughable antenna. I remember it was bitter cold outside, and I was hurrying to get it hooked up before the daylight ran out. -Night Ranger |
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Post by cbrown on Nov 30, 2012 9:59:04 GMT -5
Sounds like something I might have done back then. If it was metal, outside, and long, it had to work good. ;D Exactly! I know people that tried TV antennas, but they never worked for 11M. But experimentation is the fun part of the hobby. Love that design, Homer! Looks sweet and an easy design to copy. |
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Post by cbrown on Nov 30, 2012 10:00:06 GMT -5
When I was 12 I used a wire metal display rack that the local convenience store threw out as an antenna for my walkie talkie. It was the kind or rack you would display cheetos, corn chips, and donuts in. I stood it up outside my window and ran some insulated Radio Shack wire to it, and then I wrapped the other end of the wire around my walkie talkie antenna. The walkie talkie did receive more signals with that laughable antenna. I remember it was bitter cold outside, and I was hurrying to get it hooked up before the daylight ran out. -Night Ranger Did you try transmitting on it? |
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Post by Night Ranger on Nov 30, 2012 10:41:06 GMT -5
When I was 12 I used a wire metal display rack that the local convenience store threw out as an antenna for my walkie talkie. It was the kind or rack you would display cheetos, corn chips, and donuts in. I stood it up outside my window and ran some insulated Radio Shack wire to it, and then I wrapped the other end of the wire around my walkie talkie antenna. The walkie talkie did receive more signals with that laughable antenna. I remember it was bitter cold outside, and I was hurrying to get it hooked up before the daylight ran out. -Night Ranger Did you try transmitting on it? Yes I did. At the time my only walkie talkie was an Archer Space Patrol from Radio Shack that transmitted on channel 14, but received everything in the general vicinity of the CB band. The stronger signals from base CB's on other channels stepped on the signals from my neighborhood friend's kiddie walkie talkies, so even if they heard me I could not hear them. Well actually I may have been able to hear them during the day when the adults were off at work, but at night it was so busy I could not hear my friends on their kiddie walkie talkies. I particularly remember "The Devil" wiping out my friends walkie talkie signals with his Varmint XL-600, PDL-2 beam, and Midland 13-880b CB. He lived about a mile away. When he keyed down my friends walkie talkie signals disappeared. Radio Shack Archer Space Patrol walkie talkie from the mid 1970s. www.shadowstorm.com/cb/rigs/Archer-Space-Patrol-with-manual.jpgNight Ranger |
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Post by homerbb on Nov 30, 2012 18:56:06 GMT -5
There is the difference between me and a lot of radio hobbyists.
You guys all grew up beyond 12 years old, but I never have!
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Nov 30, 2012 19:03:49 GMT -5
There is the difference between me and a lot of radio hobbyists. You guys all grew up beyond 12 years old, but I never have! I made it just about to 17........ ;D Then one day I woke up and I was over 50  |
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Post by Night Ranger on Dec 1, 2012 11:19:30 GMT -5
There is the difference between me and a lot of radio hobbyists. You guys all grew up beyond 12 years old, but I never have! I made it just about to 17........ ;D Then one day I woke up and I was over 50 I made it to about 19. After that my physical appearance changed and the world changed, but I did not. Night Ranger |
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Post by doctor on Dec 1, 2012 20:39:40 GMT -5
I tried the tv antenna when I was a kid...long...time..ago...It was a kit what one who knows...i built it and it was super regen receiver and the radio ran a flat 3 watts, all chnls came in, but did talk about 6 miles on it, although the other station had to turn their beams toward me, I made up a call..you had to have a license then and I didnt make 18 yet 14 if I remember. Those days were fun thugh.
DOCTOR/795 ;D
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Post by Night Ranger on Dec 2, 2012 1:59:07 GMT -5
I tried the tv antenna when I was a kid...long...time..ago...It was a kit what one who knows...i built it and it was super regen receiver and the radio ran a flat 3 watts, all chnls came in, but did talk about 6 miles on it, although the other station had to turn their beams toward me, I made up a call..you had to have a license then and I didnt make 18 yet 14 if I remember. Those days were fun thugh. DOCTOR/795 ;D When I was 13 I had a Realistic TRC-27 3 channel walkie talkie that put out 100 milliwatts. It could talk about a mile or so to the bases. Legally I did not need a CB license with a 100 milliwatt walkie talkie, but that did not stop me from making one up. I used the model number on the back of the radio and added a few letters in front of it. A year later I got my first 23 channel mobile CB on a power supply. I used my dad's call sign from that point forward. Night Ranger |
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Post by cbrown on Dec 3, 2012 10:05:35 GMT -5
I made it just about to 17........ ;D Then one day I woke up and I was over 50 Same here! ;D When I get my hair cut at the barber I keep thinking, "where is all that gray hair coming from that's landing on my lap?" |
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Post by homerbb on Dec 3, 2012 18:33:16 GMT -5
Another look at the 1/4 wave.
A closer in view of the feed point. I used an aluminum flat bar to bridge between the coax connector and the vertical radiator. This enabled me to raise the connector bracket up some shortening the distance between the SO239 x 3/8-24 connector and the base of the vertical. This brought the SWR down a little to 1.0:1 on ch. 1 and 1.1:1 on ch.40.
I also raised the antenna up to 36 feet at the feed point.
I have to bring the tops of the four radials up closer to the feed point, too. I do not wish for the current distance between the coax connection and the beginning of the radials. I want as of the actual length of the radials to be attributed to the point at which they flair outward. Currently the strap between the SO239 x 3/8-24 bracket and the top of the radials contributes length I do not need/want.
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Post by Night Ranger on Dec 3, 2012 20:13:28 GMT -5
Another look at the 1/4 wave.
A closer in view of the feed point. I used an aluminum flat bar to bridge between the coax connector and the vertical radiator. This enabled me to raise the connector bracket up some shortening the distance between the SO239 x 3/8-24 connector and the base of the vertical. This brought the SWR down a little to 1.0:1 on ch. 1 and 1.1:1 on ch.40.
I also raised the antenna up to 36 feet at the feed point.
I have to bring the tops of the four radials up closer to the feed point, too. I do not wish for the current distance between the coax connection and the beginning of the radials. I want as of the actual length of the radials to be attributed to the point at which they flair outward. Currently the strap between the SO239 x 3/8-24 bracket and the top of the radials contributes length I do not need/want. I've been giving some thought to building a vertical antenna to talk to the locals. So far I have not heard any conversations that made me want to jump in. The average IQ locally is less than what I hear on Sandbagger's/Spitfire's live feed, or what I hear coming in via skip on the sideband channels. In South Carolina there is alot of over modulated audio, ridiculous low carrier exaggerated audio swings, and ear piercing multi-tone roger beeps. It makes me long for a 40 or 75 meter band SNUBWAP. Night Ranger |
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Post by homerbb on Dec 3, 2012 20:23:34 GMT -5
What a sad state of affairs.
There is a mix of folks in this area, fortunately, but mostly okay ops.
I suppose I'd still play with the antennas even if there weren't.
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Post by Night Ranger on Dec 3, 2012 21:20:16 GMT -5
What a sad state of affairs. There is a mix of folks in this area, fortunately, but mostly okay ops. I suppose I'd still play with the antennas even if there weren't. Well that is one of the main reasons my antenna building has mostly consisted of horizontally polarized antennas for skip talking. The skip is more interesting than the locals. Night Ranger |
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Post by Sandbagger on Dec 4, 2012 7:21:35 GMT -5
I tried the tv antenna when I was a kid...long...time..ago...It was a kit what one who knows...i built it and it was super regen receiver and the radio ran a flat 3 watts, all chnls came in, but did talk about 6 miles on it, although the other station had to turn their beams toward me, I made up a call..you had to have a license then and I didnt make 18 yet 14 if I remember. Those days were fun thugh. DOCTOR/795 ;D Sounds like a Heathkit CB-1 lunchbox. A friend of mine scored one of those back when we were 13. I built a 9' whip antenna out of broken off car radio antennas trash picked at the local car wash, and we hooked that up to the Heathkit and talked all over the place ("all over the place" meaning about a 4-5 mile radius). It was a big boost over what our 100 mW walkie-talkies could do. Of course, it didn't last, as the readio developed a problem, and it ended up in another local's parts bin....... |
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Post by Sandbagger on Dec 4, 2012 7:26:56 GMT -5
What a sad state of affairs. There is a mix of folks in this area, fortunately, but mostly okay ops. I suppose I'd still play with the antennas even if there weren't. Well that is one of the main reasons my antenna building has mostly consisted of horizontally polarized antennas for skip talking. The skip is more interesting than the locals. Night Ranger I think if it weren't for a decent group of locals, I'd have lost interest in radio long ago. I was never a "hit or miss" skip talker. I like having a steady group of people you can get to know on a daily basis. Skip is just too unreliable for that. The downside with having a large diverse group of locals, is that you have to take the good with the bad. The good news up here is that the good finally moved away from the bad and conditions have improved dramatically from just a few years ago. |
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Post by Night Ranger on Dec 4, 2012 8:25:51 GMT -5
Well that is one of the main reasons my antenna building has mostly consisted of horizontally polarized antennas for skip talking. The skip is more interesting than the locals. Night Ranger I think if it weren't for a decent group of locals, I'd have lost interest in radio long ago. I was never a "hit or miss" skip talker. I like having a steady group of people you can get to know on a daily basis. Skip is just too unreliable for that. The downside with having a large diverse group of locals, is that you have to take the good with the bad. The good news up here is that the good finally moved away from the bad and conditions have improved dramatically from just a few years ago. On sideband I can talk to the regulars out in DX land several times a week. There are some people I have been hearing and talking to for several years now on 38 LSB skip. Of course once the skip falls out so do they. The F layer skip provides almost daily access to the regulars out west for me, but the sporadic E contacts are mostly Spring and Summer contacts with the occasional random sporadic E thrown in the rest of the year. I had a nice group of people I talked to when I still lived in Rock Hill, South Carolina, but then my job moved me away. Unfortunately even that group appears to have drifted off the air. When I visit my parents house all I hear is dead air in Rock Hill now. Most of the local CB'ers where I live now are friendly, but they are not on the same level. They are strictly AM CB'ers. Getting on frequency, using a class AB amp, and getting clear audio on sideband without garble RF in their audio is something they just can't seem to manage. Even on AM their mic gain is set so you can hear a flea scratch behind it's ear, and they all think dead keying 1 watt and swinging to 30 is a good thing no matter how distorted it makes their audio. Throw in the shrill multi-tone roger beeps, and I lose all interest in listening. I even went over to one man's house and set everything up for him, so he could talk on sideband without being chastised by some of the sideband elite/snob types. When I left he was on frequency with clear audio. A week later his audio was all garbled again, and he was way off frequency. When he tries to talk sideband skip he wonders why no one comes back to him. Nice guy, but not the brightest star on the intellectual horizon. Night Ranger |
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Post by homerbb on Dec 4, 2012 18:27:08 GMT -5
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Sandbagger
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Post by Sandbagger on Dec 4, 2012 18:57:39 GMT -5
I think if it weren't for a decent group of locals, I'd have lost interest in radio long ago. I was never a "hit or miss" skip talker. I like having a steady group of people you can get to know on a daily basis. Skip is just too unreliable for that. The downside with having a large diverse group of locals, is that you have to take the good with the bad. The good news up here is that the good finally moved away from the bad and conditions have improved dramatically from just a few years ago. On sideband I can talk to the regulars out in DX land several times a week. There are some people I have been hearing and talking to for several years now on 38 LSB skip. Of course once the skip falls out so do they. The F layer skip provides almost daily access to the regulars out west for me, but the sporadic E contacts are mostly Spring and Summer contacts with the occasional random sporadic E thrown in the rest of the year. I had a nice group of people I talked to when I still lived in Rock Hill, South Carolina, but then my job moved me away. Unfortunately even that group appears to have drifted off the air. When I visit my parents house all I hear is dead air in Rock Hill now. Most of the local CB'ers where I live now are friendly, but they are not on the same level. They are strictly AM CB'ers. Getting on frequency, using a class AB amp, and getting clear audio on sideband without garble RF in their audio is something they just can't seem to manage. Even on AM their mic gain is set so you can hear a flea scratch behind it's ear, and they all think dead keying 1 watt and swinging to 30 is a good thing no matter how distorted it makes their audio. Throw in the shrill multi-tone roger beeps, and I lose all interest in listening. I even went over to one man's house and set everything up for him, so he could talk on sideband without being chastised by some of the sideband elite/snob types. When I left he was on frequency with clear audio. A week later his audio was all garbled again, and he was way off frequency. When he tries to talk sideband skip he wonders why no one comes back to him. Nice guy, but not the brightest star on the intellectual horizon. Night Ranger It's funny........ When I got my first radio, I couldn't wait to move up to a SSB rig. You always want what you can't have, and SSB was great for getting over and around occasional jammers. That being said, I could never "hang" out on SSB for all that long. I guess I always liked the fuller fidelity of properly setup AM audio (Better yet FM audio, but not too many people run it these days). That and there were always those people who could not net on freq with everyone else, and always managed to sound Donald Ducky. So for me, AM was far more enjoyable to operate on when talking to the locals. SSB yields far better results on DX, but I'm not much into that. |
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Post by Night Ranger on Dec 4, 2012 21:15:23 GMT -5
On sideband I can talk to the regulars out in DX land several times a week. There are some people I have been hearing and talking to for several years now on 38 LSB skip. Of course once the skip falls out so do they. The F layer skip provides almost daily access to the regulars out west for me, but the sporadic E contacts are mostly Spring and Summer contacts with the occasional random sporadic E thrown in the rest of the year. I had a nice group of people I talked to when I still lived in Rock Hill, South Carolina, but then my job moved me away. Unfortunately even that group appears to have drifted off the air. When I visit my parents house all I hear is dead air in Rock Hill now. Most of the local CB'ers where I live now are friendly, but they are not on the same level. They are strictly AM CB'ers. Getting on frequency, using a class AB amp, and getting clear audio on sideband without garble RF in their audio is something they just can't seem to manage. Even on AM their mic gain is set so you can hear a flea scratch behind it's ear, and they all think dead keying 1 watt and swinging to 30 is a good thing no matter how distorted it makes their audio. Throw in the shrill multi-tone roger beeps, and I lose all interest in listening. I even went over to one man's house and set everything up for him, so he could talk on sideband without being chastised by some of the sideband elite/snob types. When I left he was on frequency with clear audio. A week later his audio was all garbled again, and he was way off frequency. When he tries to talk sideband skip he wonders why no one comes back to him. Nice guy, but not the brightest star on the intellectual horizon. Night Ranger It's funny........ When I got my first radio, I couldn't wait to move up to a SSB rig. You always want what you can't have, and SSB was great for getting over and around occasional jammers. That being said, I could never "hang" out on SSB for all that long. I guess I always liked the fuller fidelity of properly setup AM audio (Better yet FM audio, but not too many people run it these days). That and there were always those people who could not net on freq with everyone else, and always managed to sound Donald Ducky. So for me, AM was far more enjoyable to operate on when talking to the locals. SSB yields far better results on DX, but I'm not much into that. Sometime around 1984 or 1985 I switched to sideband for the following reasons. These reasons may only apply to my hometown situation at the time.1) There was alot of dead keying and fighting going on on AM in Rock Hill, South Carolina at that time. Most of that crowd did not have sideband radios, so switching to sideband meant leaving them behind. They could not understand us, so they left us alone. 2) Butterfly was part of our regular group. She lived a few miles outside the city, and the AM skip made it harder to hear her. Switching to sideband and dropping 5 kHz cured that problem. 3) Butterfly had a young sexy voice that attracted a never ending stream of horny male CB'ers trying to put the move on her. Going to sideband stopped that since most of those fly by night CB'ers had cheaper AM only radios. 4) Friday and Saturday nights were notorious for the bored young males out in dad's car with dad's CB who wanted to cuss out everyone he heard on the radio while mommy and daddy were not around. Those guys never had sideband radios or even knew what it was. 5) The average IQ was higher on sideband in South/North Carolina than it was on AM. 6) The people on sideband were much a more polite group than the AM crowd. Most of them eventually went ham. 7) I like to talk skip, and sideband is the way to go. 8) I could talk further on sideband for both skywave and groundwave than I could on AM. 9) I liked the sideband crowd alot more than I liked the AM crowd. The sideband crowd shunned roger beeps and echo boxes. They still do. Even today about the only time I come to AM is when I hear skip coming in from Pennsylvania, and then I drop to channel 13 to call for Sandbagger or Spitfire. If there are good people to talk to I have no problem with AM itself. Night Ranger |
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Post by Sandbagger on Dec 5, 2012 7:42:24 GMT -5
It's funny........ When I got my first radio, I couldn't wait to move up to a SSB rig. You always want what you can't have, and SSB was great for getting over and around occasional jammers. That being said, I could never "hang" out on SSB for all that long. I guess I always liked the fuller fidelity of properly setup AM audio (Better yet FM audio, but not too many people run it these days). That and there were always those people who could not net on freq with everyone else, and always managed to sound Donald Ducky. So for me, AM was far more enjoyable to operate on when talking to the locals. SSB yields far better results on DX, but I'm not much into that. Sometime around 1984 or 1985 I switched to sideband for the following reasons. These reasons may only apply to my hometown situation at the time.1) There was alot of dead keying and fighting going on on AM in Rock Hill, South Carolina at that time. Most of that crowd did not have sideband radios, so switching to sideband meant leaving them behind. They could not understand us, so they left us alone. 2) Butterfly was part of our regular group. She lived a few miles outside the city, and the AM skip made it harder to hear her. Switching to sideband and dropping 5 kHz cured that problem. 3) Butterfly had a young sexy voice that attracted a never ending stream of horny male CB'ers trying to put the move on her. Going to sideband stopped that since most of those fly by night CB'ers had cheaper AM only radios. 4) Friday and Saturday nights were notorious for the bored young males out in dad's car with dad's CB who wanted to cuss out everyone he heard on the radio while mommy and daddy were not around. Those guys never had sideband radios or even knew what it was. 5) The average IQ was higher on sideband in South/North Carolina than it was on AM. 6) The people on sideband were much a more polite group than the AM crowd. Most of them eventually went ham. 7) I like to talk skip, and sideband is the way to go. 8) I could talk further on sideband for both skywave and groundwave than I could on AM. 9) I liked the sideband crowd alot more than I liked the AM crowd. The sideband crowd shunned roger beeps and echo boxes. They still do. Even today about the only time I come to AM is when I hear skip coming in from Pennsylvania, and then I drop to channel 13 to call for Sandbagger or Spitfire. If there are good people to talk to I have no problem with AM itself. Night Ranger I totally get your first couple of reasons. We had to deal with a good bit of that nonsense ourselves back in the day. But we dealt with it on a case by case basis, and it was usually not a continual problem for us. I agree that in general, the SSB crowd exhibited a slightly higher IQ and far better radio courtesy. But the problem we ran into back in the day, was that a lot of SSB'ers were also somewhat snobby. If you didn't have their "club" numbers, they wouldn't acknowlege you. If you wanted to get a lecture, all you had to do was say "10-4" once, instead of some locally accepted bastardization of the "Q" code, and a tongue lashing was sure to follow. And there was always at least one guy who nominated himself as the official frequency standard. If you weren't tuned precisely to his signal, you were "off-frequency". This usually touched off all sorts of heated debates, especially when radios stopped being made with movable TX clarifiers. Back in the 70's there was only channel 16 that was recognized as "the" SSB channel, and the serious SSB'ers were fiercely protective of it. They didn't like teenagers and other people who were not as "serious" as they were. So our group was generally not welcomed with open arms, so we ended up just using SSB on our home channel when the need arose or we just felt like using it. Then, in a case of wild irony, we'd get flack from people from other channels coming onto "our" channel to lecture us about using SSB on an "AM channel" (unreal!). As the years wore on and more frequency options became available, some of that earlier "SSB prejudice" faded away, but old habits die hard. Yes, most SSB op's shun roger beeps, echos, and bad radio practices, but so do we. It would seem that it doesn't matter what mode you use, when you have a core group of knowledgable radio ops, the rest will eventually fall in line too, as most are eager to learn. The other unfortunate truth is that today's troublemakers all run export radios with dirty amplifiers, and there is no "escape" from them using SSB. They can all go there too. There is only one local group in my area using SSB, and they're not always regular. Some days they're there, other days not. Most of them are also hams, so they could be talking other places on those off days. Interestingly, some of them drop down on AM to join us on 13 Wednesday nights for CRR. It would seem that the classic radio bug is spreading......  |
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Post by Night Ranger on Dec 5, 2012 8:44:26 GMT -5
.... Interestingly, some of them drop down on AM to join us on 13 Wednesday nights for CRR. It would seem that the classic radio bug is spreading...... You have a good group on channel 13. I'm glad you decided to abandon 21 as those others guys were just detractors. You are right that most of today's troublemakers have export radios, but that was not the case in 1984/1985. I have found one quick way to get rid of most of the less knowledgeable troublemakers, and that is to hit the "A" channels. Most of them still have channelized radios that skip the A channels. Even if they have the capability to come to those channels with a 10kHz drop switch most of them lack the knowledge of the actual frequency layout, so they often still do not find me. Also dropping 5kHz on sideband to say 27.200 Mhz will usually lose them. Horizontal polarization helps minimize the troublemakers as they are almost always on the Antron 99/Max-2000 antennas. I remember on one occasion a friend and I decided to really mess with the dead keyers by transmitting and receiving on two separate channels at the same time. We both had multiple radios and antennas. Even if the jammer wiped us out on on one channel we could still hear each other on the other. An interesting side effect was were transmitting and listening to each other in stereo as two D-104s at different angles picked up slightly different audio patterns. Stereo CB voice broadcast are really an interesting experience when all you have ever heard is mono CB. Night Ranger |
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Post by Night Ranger on Dec 5, 2012 9:14:51 GMT -5
I am almost exclusively a SSB user. There are a hand full here, but I mostlly work the DX. I don't mind having to wait for conditions to talk to some regulars too distant for local work. I moved the radials upward toward the feed point so that both halves of the antenna are close to the coax connector.
No lengths of either the vertical or the radials changed except for the removal of the length that was imposed by the previous distance between the radials and the coax connector.
Unfortunately I took the wrong camera with me to get photos of the work done and they were almost totally useless. I hope what I could salvage helps until I lower the antenna again and get more photos.
 
They are blurry and B/W but the best I can do except for the one distant shot of it.
I checked the SWR with the changes noted and this time the SWR is now 1.0:1 on both ch. 1 and ch. 40Nice job on the antenna. I may hang a dipole or my extended double zepp vertically from a tree limb this weekend just to get something to hear the locals with. Part of me wants to pick up a new Hy-Gain Penetrator just for the 70s nostalgia. Night Ranger |
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Post by cbrown on Dec 5, 2012 9:29:30 GMT -5
I checked the SWR with the changes noted and this time the SWR is now 1.0:1 on both ch. 1 and ch. 40 [/b][/quote] Very nicely done. How well does it transmit? |
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Post by cbrown on Dec 5, 2012 9:42:52 GMT -5
I don't like roger beeps on AM, but sometimes when you are dx'ing on SSB and you can barely pull a distant station out of the ether, if they use a roger beep it sure helps you know when they are done with their transmission. Use the roger beep for what it was designed for, and turn it off when unnecessary. Oh, and no multi tone beeps unless you're on the mother-ship from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  |
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**GRUMPY**
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Post by **GRUMPY** on Dec 5, 2012 10:49:04 GMT -5
If I am talking to someone in the distance on AM and we are about to sign off talking to each other I will use a roger beep if the radio I am using has one. I seldom use SSB, but most of my radios have SSB. Like Sandbagger, I like that AM quality sound compared to SSB. I bought my first export rig in the mid 80's, mainly because a bunch of us locals talked on 26.915AM and I got tired of buying a new radio then have to get channels put in it!
We ran 26.915 to get away from the local trouble makers, most of them only had 23 or 40 channel radios. It was fun back in the 23 channel days when you had 22A put in your radio and only a few had it, you could here guys trying to bleed you... but they had no idea where you were at! ;D
Now I just wished we had locals to talk too! 
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