Antenna shopping list

I think for the first antenna at the house I’m going to go with the G0FAH/ZS6BKW variant of the G5RV multi-band dipole antenna.

It’s a simple antenna, a bit shorter than the G5RV with a slightly longer ladder feed line and from what I’ve read online about it, has pretty decent SWR in most of the ham bands I want to operate in.

Shopping list:

I can either make one myself, which doesn’t look all that difficult, or get an already made one. Total cost ends up being about the same either way.

Still need to figure out how to put it up. There are some trees hanging over the ditch next to the house that have some sturdy looking branches that look like promising antenna supports.

There are a few constraints I have for getting the antenna up high: anything I use has to fit in the car and there’s a limit to the height I can reach easily. The power lines running behind the house also limits where I can put the antenna and supports. Maybe I can get some of the club members to come out and help me figure something out.

blog.AB4UG.net

In preparation for archiving this blog to start fresh, I started up a new blog over at http://blog.ab4ug.net/ where I think I’ll post most of my electronics and amateur radio adventures.

It’s a vanilla MovableType 5.2 set up right now. Nothing fancy, but functional. The archives here at Imablog will stay and I’ll probably start over with a new MT5.2 install and database. Still mulling something Drupal-y though. Haven’t quite decided yet.

I’ll probably cross-post material at the AB4UG blog here also so that nobody feels left out.

Looking for an antenna

Slowly gathering the parts to put the ham shack together. The space is going to be an office/ham shack where I’ll have my computer/workspace in one corner, the radio, power supply and maybe a laptop for logging in another corner, and a bookshelf or two. Still need to move my computer and desk into the room.

Need to find an antenna now and think of a good way and place to put it up. Then I’ll need to get the feedline into the house.

I think to start, I’ll just go with a simple multi-band wire dipole, like a G5RV or something. I’d like to start building my own antennas, but the workshop doesn’t quite have all the necessary supplies yet. Slowly getting there but it’ll take a bit of time.

Looking forward to getting things set up and getting back on the air.

Update: Got a lot of good antenna ideas from @W2MDW, @KQ2RP and @WB0LCW. All dipole variants and look pretty easy to build. Now I just need to work out how to put it up.

New radio-ish blog

Since I’ve been thinking about restarting my other blog, I thought I’d start up a separate one for my radio/electronics adventures. ab4ug.net was available so I picked it up a little while ago and was trying to decide what to do with it. I’ll probably end up posting/cross-posting the radio/electronics stuff in both places anyway. Here it will be a little more consolidated. Thought about bringing over the previous entries from my main blog, but it turned out to be too much work so I’ll just start fresh here.

Let’s see what kind of fun I can have while avoiding electrocuting or burning myself.

Learning from an Elmer

Over the Thanksgiving week, I had the opportunity to learn a few more radio things from Connie’s dad, WA4BXC. He’s been doing amateur radio for 40 years now, and knows a lot about radio. It’s pretty cool to be able to learn from someone like that.

He showed me the schematics for an old CB radio he’s planning on converting into a beacon for 10m. Apparently it just needs one crystal to be replaced. He pointed out the different areas on the schematic and told me what was responsible for generating and mixing the frequencies and the receive and transmit parts of the radio.

We also spent time looking over an older Kenwood “project” radio (a TS-820) that he picked up from a hamfest a few months ago. Parts of it were singed and scorched a bit, but he’s been able to get the receive part of the radio up and running. Found a modification the/a previous owner had done to try to make the radio receive CB frequencies which may or may not have been successful. I haven’t exactly been much help with it, aside from looking at the components and spotting things that he’s already seen, but it’s been educational having him show me around the innards of the radio. Once you start learning the components of the radio, seeing all the bits and pieces becomes a little less daunting.

I asked him about antennas and he explained to me about putting antenna tuners outside at the antenna rather than inside at the radio (where it’s convenient) so that you don’t have to worry about feedline losses.

It’s got me excited to learn more electronics and ham radio from him, from others and discovering things for myself.