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FINALLY got Komiefornia!


KD3Y

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  • Ionosphere


All the way to San Diego ... 59/59 on 100 watts and a homemade dipole.  40 meters was wierd last night.   I've been waiting on that one for six months now! 

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

Edited by KD3Y
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Let's play nice 😇 My best friend is from that really big State which feeds the rest of us. I actually discovered that California provides some ridiculous number of our vegetables and fruit, like over 50% I think. That's nuts (pun intended). In any case, CONGRATS on the contact. As for homemade dipole, is it an untuned doublet or is it a tuned dipole to 40M? Also, how high off the ground?

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  • Ionosphere


It was a fun jab at them boys out there, Jim.  No actually hate intended.  Matter of fact, I got a buddy who is a Special Forces instructor at Bragg.  We met in the wonderful land of Fort Benning in '88 and served together.  One of the best pals I've ever had from Kommiefornia.  His family owned some kind of mine up in the mountains.  I forgot what ot was they mined, but he'd go up there as a teen and camp for weeks at the family mine and they'd dynamite the mine and go in with power hammers and take out whatever it was they were mining (lithium maybe).  THEN the wonderful state of Kommiefornia changed the laws because the property was adjacent to some "protected area" and his family was banned fom using explosives or power hammers to mine.  All they could use to mine was shovels and picks like they did 100 years ago.   He settled in North Carolina after he got out of the military.  Cause, well, you know North Carolina is the best state in the union and is where God would live if he was down here.  🙂

Plus my boy can own his machine guns and suppressors here in NC.  100% legal in NC.

Edited by KD3Y
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It's my 40 m dipole.  I made it from some PVC fittings and 14 gauge copper wire.  Managed to get it up 26 feet into the pine trees.  Connected with RG-213 and no balun.   Everybody told me I needed a Balun but it works fine without one.   I seem to get good coverage on 40-meters from Panama to Canada and west to about Texas.  I want to rotate it so it's NE/SW and see if I get better coverage west.   My Yaesu FT-890 has the auto tuner but I tuned it to 40m center freq.



40Mdipole.png.5e0d8b7b7715e0a4f3b01a42cffb0826.png

787922423_SquirrelProofDipole(2).png.c44db6e778205616a4ba8614c14d896d.png

I ran my coax thru smurf tube becasue I found out squirrels like the taste of coax.  It was cheaper to buy a 50 ft roll of smurf tube tfor $25 than to replace coax every few months.    I since spray painted the smurf tube black so it doesn't stick out so much.

13.jpg.de3ffc7c0699c9fac30b119e711249ec.jpg

 

 

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  • Ionosphere


I made my dipole  so that the the center piece can be interchanged.  If I'm out portable and I want a 10 meter or 20 meter dipole, I can just take off the legs and replace them with another pre-made set of legs cut to the right length.  The legs just hook on to the hooks and the wires attach to the center piece with wingnuts, so changing bands only takes a minute.  Saves the expense of having to build a center piece all over for every band.  I figured no need to build three center pieces when all that changes on the dipole is the length of the wire.   With the traditional "home made" dipole, you have to cut the wire or solder on new wire to change the band.

This way I can just keep a 10-meter, 20-meter, and 40-meter set of pre-made legs rolled up in the storage box and use whatever band I want with my radio if I'm at a park doing POTA or for CERT or whatever.  All I have to do is swap out the leg sections.

 

Dipole_40Meters.jpg

 

Dipole_10Meters2.jpg.3219cf60039e74c0341fc2889656ea17.jpg

Edited by KD3Y
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