No more satisfying a view than aluminum in the sky!                          Some assembly required is half the fun!

 
1200 feet AGL

Greg N4QLD and Mike KB4TOH                                                        Herman NO4Y freezing on the Columbia Tower

There is so much to enjoy in the world of Amateur Radio. 

Each person will find their special interest. 
For me it's working outdoors in the sunshine, erecting towers and antennas.

True confessions: never did get on HF until I passed the Extra and could afford the IC-761.

The moral of the story is....

The Honorable Mentor List

I upgraded from an Icom IC-761 to a Yaesu FT-1000. The 761 was a wonderful rig, and I will miss it very much, but the FT-1000 is a super feature-filled rig. The addition of a phone patch makes for a more capable shack, but not something that gets much use, yet.

The first HF antenna was the Barker and Williamson AC-1.8-30 End Fed Vee. This Broadband End Fed Vee is a commercial grade long wire antenna that fitted just-right in the NC narrow backyard lot. It started out on a 25 foot pipe on a chimney mast mount, then on the 40 foot Rohn 25G tower. The other end was held up by a pine tree at the river's edge. I talked with a very helpful tech at B&W. I had to replace the resistor load due to water entry. He said I was the only person he had heard of that used it in the flat-top config.

The Mosley TA-33 Tribander is used. I bought it from an older ham who was relocating to Florida. It required some maintenance, but for being up for 20 plus years, it is still a champ. It is pointed with the help of a trusty old Ham-M rotator. I bought another package deal through ebay. Another ham was getting rid of Rohn 25G tower, a rotor, and another TA-33 with the WARC band kit. I guess I'll have plenty of Mosley parts to play with for many years to come.

With our move to Maine, we have left the old TA-33 Tribander with Ed, W4RVZ and have erected a TA-33M WARC so now we have 20, 15, 17, 12, and 10 meters on a rotator.

  
The peak of the barn is 30 feet, so now we are up to 50 feet of Rohn 25.

The Barker and Williamson End-Fed Vee was set up as an inverted Vee, with very good results, on the old C-band Satellite Receiver mast supported at 20 feet and grounded at each end using copper ground rods. Now it is back on the tower as it was in North Carolina, but with no pine trees for hundreds of feet, it is finally set up as a sloper.

With the No-code Tech licenses, just about everyone's first rig is an HT with 2 meters. I was fortunate to choose the Icom IC-W32A. This has been a real workhorse; used in the car as a mobile rig, in the house to hit the local repeaters, and even as an HT! It was purchased in 1996 and it is still performing "well" (had to replace the finals due to too much shack use).

My second rig was the Kenwood TM-241. This was purchased used. A very fine rig. Was installed in the car as a mobile, but now does duty in the Ranger pick up. There is Diamond SX-200 dual 2m/70cmup on the center mast and a vertical dipole facing northwest that is for 2m but tunes nice for 70cm too.

In 2000, after scanning ebay, I found a good clean Kenwood TM-733A. I became interested in this model because we have two that were purchased for ARES with the local Emergency Operation Center. I enjoy the many features, especially the Cross-Band Repeat function. This rig is in the Honda Station Wagon.

In Fall 2001, I purchased a Kenwood TM-D700. This is a very fine rig. Very easy to program, well written instructions and a load of dual band and TNC/APRS operations built in. Well worth the cash! It uses a Rand McNally GPS receiver. It was in the Ranger pick up for some time, went into  the wheelchair van, a 1999 Dodge 1500, and is back into the Ranger

A "new" 2003 addition of an Icom IC-207 in the shack. No more burning up the HT. The 207 works very well. I do miss dual watch abilities, so the next big change will be moving the Kenwood 733 back into the shack and putting the 207 in the Honda.

Amateur Television (ATV) is something a few of the North Carolina hams have been working on. Boy is it a chore to get all the signals right.  I purchased an ATV yagi. It was up on the tower between the Diamond and the Tribander. I found an Olson OTM-3000 CATV modulator to serve as an exciter. This feeds a 20 watt power brick from PC Electronics, this in turn feeds a Mirage D1010 with about 10 watts. I was about 28.3 miles from the Columbia, NC KB4TOH ATV Repeater. We  had reception at P5 levels and I've managed to get a consistent P4, some times P5. Elevation above the bushes, directivity, low coax loss and good connectors are essential for ATV operation at 439.25 MHz.

 
  W4PCN's Remote ATV camera at Kitty Hawk Dec 2003          A shot of the repeater cabinet from a remote ATV camera

A note about ATV operation in Maine
You may remember from your Technician test that there is a line that parallels the Canadian border where operation between 420 and 430 MHz is not authorized. We are within that line, so that does limit, but not prevent ATV operation in the 70cm band.

The Kenwood TM-D700 is now back in the Ranger after many Maine moving trips in the wheelchair van.
The GPS receiver sits on the dash to get a good shot of the satellites through the windshield. The GPS has a DB-9 connector with pins 2 and 3 used for data. It also has a PS/2 mouse port connector used to get 5vdc from a laptop, or in my case, a matching plug tapping 12 vdc off of the back of the radio. John Gavin wrote a good article on the inner workings of this inexpensive GPS receiver. (Got another one off of ebay for a possible balloon launch)

During Hurricane Floyd Jeff and I swapped EOC duty. While he had the watch, I was home watching our dock float away up the Pasquotank river due to storm surge.

                   
Before                                           and                                        After

 Amateur Radio's Room at the EOC

Here are some great links to help you get started...

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) represents all US hams and has very good links including study materials and locations of Amateur Radio Tests in your area.

The AA9PW web site is the best on-line Amateur Radio License Test practice site. I used it for all of my upgrades!

 The introductory study book for new hams getting their first license is available from ARRL.

More questions about becoming an amateur radio operator? 

Try this nice site for beginners:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/ham-radio.htm

Try this link at the American Radio Relay League

Or, just email me at n1dp@arrl.net

73, DE Dave N1DP

You are visitor number since 24 November 2000

08/16/2011 Update