SOLID COPY  The Monthly Newsletter of the  Monongalia Wireless Association

Field Day 1997 was a great success. We had a good turnout of operators and were able to work quite a few stations. The picnic dinner on Saturday evening was the highlight of the day (we don't get overly excited about operating).

 The most important thing about Field Day is that everyone had a good time. Some tech operators got a chance to work some low band stations and talk around the country. I'd like to thank everyone who helped with all the details of organizing the event. We couldn't do it without the team effort.

 Here are the scores by band and mode. Thanks for your participation.

73, Norton WD8AJF
Field Day Chair
 

Band           Contacts       QSO Points


80 CW               100            200

80 Phone            100            100

40 CW               349            698

40 Phone            23             23

20 CW               250            500

20 Phone            71             71

15 CW               8              16

15 Phone            93             93

10 Phone            18             18

6 Phone             170            170

2 Phone             44             44


TOTALS              1226           1933

http://www.greenepa.net/~ditzian/mwa2.html

Easy instructions to make a 2 meter J-pole antenna from 450 ohm LADDER LINE.

 My son, KC8FSP, planned to take his HT along to the National Boy Scout Jamboree. In the past, his signal from the campsite suffered low signal strength when he used only a stubby duck antenna on his HT. One day, Randy, N8OZY, and I got to talking and decided that a J-pole antenna would be ideal for 2 meter operation from a wooded campsite (no ground plane is needed). Randy found one or two articles on J-pole antennas, but they were either plumbers delight pipe construction or used the old 300 ohm ribbon line. The 450 ohm LADDER LINE is more common these days and I wanted to use what I had available, so I developed this design. I wanted to describe how to build a J-pole so someone with little construction experience could build one of these. Here's my recipe. Have fun. de K3JT.

Cut a piece of 450 ohm LADDER LINE 56 inches long. The top should start at the edge of a plastic spacer block. You will want to make a hole in the spacer block at the top to pass a string through that can be used to hold the antenna up in a tree.

 Strip off insulation, exposing inch of each conductor on the bottom. Bend these two inch bare conductors towards each other and solder them together (this is the shorted end).

 Starting about 1 inch from the shorted end, use a dull knife to strip the insulation from both conductors about 3/4 inch long. Do not cut the wire - just remove the insulation (and save the pieces of insulation for the next step). This is where you will attach the coax feed line.

 Measure 17 inches from the shorted end towards the top. At this 17 inch point, cut ONE of the conductors with wire cutters. Trim both ends a little (1/8 inch) to leave a gap between the cut ends. Use a 1/4 inch piece of insulation from step 3 and force it in the gap as a space retainer, then wrap with electrical tape to give this section some mechanical strength.

 Strip about 3/4 inch insulation from the coax feed line and separate the braid. I used a piece of RG-58 about 20 feet long. Connect the center conductor of the coax to the long continuous (56 inch) conductor and the braid of the coax to the short (17 inch) conductor. You may want to firmly wrap the coax conductors and check the SWR. You can adjust for minimum SWR by moving the attachment point up or down starting at about 1 1/4 inches from the shorted end.

 After finding the optimum feed point SWR, solder the feed line to the antenna.

 Put a coax connector of your choice on the far end of the feed line.

 My MFJ SWR analyzer shows that the 1.5:1 bandwidth is about 5 MHZ, so there should be no tuning required. However, my first prototype J-pole resonated about 150 MHZ. Lengthening the antenna about 3/8 inch (at the top of the side WITHOUT the notch) will lower the resonant frequency by about 1 MHZ and shortening the antenna 3/8 inch will raise the resonant frequency 1 MHZ.

 Throw a rock with a long piece of string attached to it over a tree limb. Feed the string through the hole in the spacer block that you made at the top of the J-pole. Pull the thing up into the tree, attach the feed line to your rig and talk to somebody on 2 meters.
 

Ameritron 811 HF Amp. 160 thru 10 M, 600 w PEP, 500 w CW. Purchased new last year. Price $495.

 Vectronics 300 w antenna tuner. Price $75.

 M Square 9-element 2 M Yagi. Optimized for weak-signal DX (i.e. 144.200). Price $50.

 Call Rich, W8PT 291-8918 or E-mail [email protected]
 

It's almost September and time to revitalize the ARES/RACES Training Net. If you would like to be net control please contact Norene, N8TJM.

August 23, 1997 State Radio Council Convention and Hamfest -- Jackson's Mill
 

Articles for the September 1997 issue of SOLID COPY are due to me by Tuesday, September 2, 1997.

If you have articles for SOLID COPY please contact me via any of the following methods:

by mail at
Rt 3, Box 421
Morgantown, WV 26505

via telephone (304) 296-8823.

 via E-Mail: [email protected]
 

 For additional information on membership please contact a club member or write to:

Monongalia Wireless Association
PO Box 4263
Morgantown, WV 26504

The August meeting of MWA will be Tuesday, August 19, 1997 at 7:30 PM in the Engineering Sciences Building. The topic will be MARS
 

Copyright 1997 by the Monongalia Wireless Association. Material published herein is the opinion of the indicated authors and not necessarily the Monongalia Wireless Association. Permission is granted to reproduce materials herein in whole or in part provided credit is given to both author and to SOLID COPY.