KD3Y

Yesterdays project was a tri-band fan dipole made from 12 gauge THHN copper wire.
The top dipole (black) tuned to 40 meters, which also resonates at 15 meters, and the bottom dipole (Red) tuned to 20 meters.
Three bands for the price of one!

This'll hang in the tree for some nice POTA work.

Tuning Instructions PDF_DualBandFanDipole.pdf

Building instructions PDF_DualBandFanDiple2.pdf

I finally got around to building my fold-up 20 meter portable dipole.   Tuned it up to 14.175 and made my first contact to 20 meters.  Long Island NY.

PER ARRL 08/30/2023:
RE: Hurricane Idalia

The FCC has issued a temporary 60-day waiver to allow amateur radio use of Pactor 4 data speeds for items related to this event. 
All sandbagged up here waiting for Hurricane Idalia here in Coastal North Carolina.  I reckon she'll be arriving sometime overnight.

I'm all ready!  Generator in place, gas bought, solar panel in place with battery charged, and sandbagged the garage and HVAC today.
County says the EOC won't be activated so apparently they are expecting it to be pretty much a non-event.

Anthony, KD3Y

The Harkers Island fire department is now on air!

You get married then learn how to be a spouse.  You have a kid then learn how to be a parent.
All a ham license does is confirm you know enough hopefully not to electrocute yourself and are familiar enough with the regulations not to be a butthole on the radio.
A ham license doesn't make you a ham anymore than getting your first drivers license when you're 16 makes you a driver.
"Here's your ham license.  Now go and learn." ~ KD3Y

Congratulations Lind.  Quite and accomplishment and awesome photo.  Looks like you were pretty close or was it a zoom lens?

I'm sort of published as well.  If you count the wanted posters at your local post office.  🙂

Hi Jim,

No not water resistant.  The panel is sealed and weather proof rated for outdoor use but the controller and box accessories arent.

But I'm already a step ahead of you.  I was thinking of one of those plastic tubs like they sell at WalMart with the snap-on lid to use as a storage box when not in use.  Especially since in the garage where my sanding and sawing and other work generates a lot of dust.  Then in the field I can just flip the plastic tub bottom upside down for an emergency cover.

Yes?  No?  Maybe?  I see no need to reinvent the wheel when a clear plastic tub would be cheaper than anything I could build and just as functional. 

I made my battery box from a type 27 box.  It has the charge controller mounted on top.  The pigtail for the solar panel is on the left, a 6-foot cable for the go box on the right, and three 12 volt cigarette plugs on the left side .  The cigarette plugs are fused and turned on/off with the illuminated rocker switch on top.   With the bluetooth adapter I can control the solar charger and monitor the volts/amps/watts with the app on my phone.

My typo.  20 watt panel not 20 amp.  🙂

Real convenient with my 16 ft mobile mast.

Johnston Amateur Radio Society  "LID of the Month" Award (LOM).  
(Toilet Seat Lid)  🙂

Aw geez, would you look at this here.
I just found these for sale at my local Grocery store...If they can get gift cards now, we're in for some deep doo-doo.
Apparently they already got their own locker room too.

Thanks for the detailed information answer Jim.  Makes it easy for me!
I googled the charge controller you posted.  Looks like there is a marina in Oriental that is a dealer and sells them. 
I might take the ferry across in the next few days.  I like seeing in person and handling things before buying VS dealing with the ordering online and delivery mess.

Anthony, KD3Y

Hi fellas,

Anyone know stuff about solar panels?  I know enough about them to know I don't know much about them.   I have one I bought at a flea market.  I googled it to make sure I was getting a killer deal and it's sold as a 20 amp, 12 V polycrystalline panel.
Now when I got it home and put my meter on it, at night in the garage with two lightbulbs on the ceiling it measured 11 volts which is pretty darned good for just a couple of 60 watt bulbs 20 feet away.  When I checked in in the full sunlight today the meter read 21 volts.

I went online hunting a charge controller for it, and I see similar panels that are 20 amp/24 volts.  I just want to make sure it't actually a 12 volt panel so I don't ruin a battery or fry a 20 amp/12 v charge controller.   I don't understand all the tech stuff but the sticker on it says,

NOMINAL POWER: 20W
POWER OUTPUT TOLERANCE: -0/+3%
LSC: 1.30A
VOC: 21.7 V
IMPP: 1.20A
VMPP: 17.3V
MAXIMUM SYSTEM VOLTAGE: 600V
MAXIMUM SERIES FUSE RATING: 15 A
NORMAL OPERATING CELL TEMP: 45+/- *C

I don't know what any of those acronyms mean, but I see 20 amp charge controllers range in price from fifty bucks to a hundred and fifty bucks.  Am I right in thinking this is a "regular" solar panel similar to my little 8 watt panel that I can connect to a 20 amp charge controller like this one here https://www.renogy.com/new-edition-voyager-20a-pwm-waterproof-solar-charge-controller/ and charge a regular old 12VDC flooded deep cycle battery?  I'd rather ask VS buying a $100 charge controller just to connect it up and "poof" it in a cloud of white smoke.
 

http://www.kd3y.com/qslcards.html

Nine pages and growing.

Ireland!
40 meters was wide open last night.

8 hours ago, W3TDH said:

The best part for me was that in every episode John Banner, as Sargent Schultz, would say "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing" or some variation thereof. In later episodes he would sometimes add "I was not even here!"

Tom Horne W3TDH

That's exactly why it was removed from Armed Forces Network TV in the late 80's when I was in Germany.
AFN was the only English TV station in Germany, intended for American forces stationed in Europe.
The German govt complained that it made Germans look like idiots, so they stopped airing it.

I just watched Hogans Heroes.  I want me one of them radios hidden inside a coffee pot.   🤪

Yaaahh.  Got Cuba last night!

I've never had a direct lightning strike, but Ive had it hit a tree in the yard once.   I was out in the back yard prior to the storm taking my portable mast down when it struck.  I had a 16 foot aluminium mast in my hand with a copper J-pole on top.  The lightning hit a pine tree about 50 feet away, blew the top out of the pine tree and set it on fire.  My hair was standing up.   I called 9-1-1 and the FD came and put the tree fire out.

My buddy who lives a few blocks away had lightning strike his 2-meter antenna that was mounted on a mast beside his house.  It blew fiberglass pieces in the yards of the houses three doors down.

 

any of the above.

I just volunteer to pick up chicks.  :)

(just kidding)

All done.
I think it doesn't look half bad.
The radio knobs and buttons are illuminated by two 12VDC lamps.

and a meerschaum pipe.  Or two.  😁

Thanks for the kind compliment, Jim.   My biggest complaint with fate is that I was born 100 years too late.

In my next life I'm going back to 1880 if I have any say-so about it.

A gold pocket watch, a colt peacemaker, a dip pen and inkwell, a telegraph, un-watered down whiskey, gold eagles in your pocket, and a fast horse.
What else does a man need.

Awesome pics.

I've been working on my radio stand the last few days.   The problem was I do a lot of nets at night and the buttons on my radio aren't backlit so I have to keep a little penlight on my desk.  When I need to make an adjustment I have to use the penlight.   Plus I have a small desk.  The radio will go underneath and the shelf on top will be for storage space, such as for my headphones.

I made it out of oak.  I put louvers on the side for ventilation, not that I think I need it, the radio never gets very hot.  But it doesn't look so plain-jane with the louvers.  I think with 3 or 4 coats of gloss polyurethane it'll look nice.   The channels I routed in the underside are for LED's.  I plan to make a little shade out of brass with LED's to gently illuminate my radio face and they'll go in the channel across the front (white arrow) .  The long channel (yellow arrow) is for the wires for the LED's.  I'll run the wires in the channel then fill it with clear epoxy to make the wiring permanent.

I plan to put some brass finials and brass rail around the top to match the time zone clock/lamp I made awhile back.  
 

TOP AND SIDES

TOP ROUTED

TOP AND SIDES FITTED

ASSEMBLED

IN PLACE CHECKING FIT

FIRST COAT OF POLYEURETHANE

RUBBER ON THE BOTTOM FOR TRACTION AND TO PROTECT DESKTOP

JUST NEED TO FIT THE LED's UNDER THE TOP FRONT EDGE AND PUT THE
BRASS FINIALS AND RAIL ON