Radios – NDØTS

Time For An Update

About a month ago, I finally put up the antenna for my HF radio. When I bought the FT-991A, I also purchased a Buckmaster 7-band off-center fed dipole (covers 80, 40, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, & 6). I know that’s 8 bands, but even though it’s not supposed to work on 15 meters, the FT-991A tunes it. Since I bought it all in the middle of winter, I needed to wait for the snow to clear off the roof, before I could get up there. For some reason, my wife and kids didn’t want me to be up there when it was a little slick, or something.

The antenna seems to work great. I get pretty good reports from most of the people I talk to. I’ve only had about 80 contacts in the past month, but they have been from coast to coast in the US. Up until last night, I didn’t have any contacts into Canada, and I was a little confused about that. The antenna was working from MA to WA, and all over to the south, very well. Last night, however, I was able to get a couple different contacts into AB and BC… finally.

The OCFD is oriented east-west, with the short end toward the east. It doesn’t seem to be directional, at all, except for the minimal contacts to the north. I’m pretty sure that has more to do with my actual location and the way it’s set up, though.

The reason for the slow updates, here, have a lot to do with me actually being on the radio, rather than on the computer. That, along with my current work schedule, has kept me from having the urge to write anything on here.

Our local ARC is getting ready for Field Day 2018. We still have some details to hammer out, but no matter what, it should be a great couple days. Last year, we were a 1A station, and this year we’re actually planning to be a 2A. That’s actually a pretty big achievement for an area with such a limited amount of amateurs. It looks like we’ll also have a Cub Scout troop visiting us on Saturday, June 23rd.

Another Hamfest

I went to West Fargo, to the RRRA Hamfest on Saturday. I went with my son and a friend. Had a great time, and picked up some pretty good deals while we were there.

I bought lots of coax and five receivers. I haven’t figured out exactly what I’ll be doing with all of these new radios, but I’m sure it won’t take too long to figure it out. I spent less than $50 for about 150′ of coax and the five analog scanners (along with a few other things). We also saw some great radios for sale, but they didn’t fit into the budget, even though they were priced right.

Can’t wait for the next hamfest, now.

Small Update

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated, so I thought I should let you all know what’s been happening.

Back on April 29th, we attended the Optimist Club Respect for Law and Emergency Services Day which was held at the Buffalo Mall in Jamestown, ND. The attendance was not too bad, considering that the mall, itself, is becoming a lost cause. The local police, fire department, and other emergency services were all there, and all of the kids that came we treated to a movie and given a bicycle helmet.

We set up a trailer in the parking lot, as well as a “booth” inside the mall, and provided information about amateur radio.

KCØGCJ (Jason) and I had built a 10 meter inverted V antenna that was put up next to the trailer in the parking lot. No actual contacts were made, but not for the lack of trying. KCØLAC (Michelle) manned the inside booth for most of the event, and quite a few people showed interest in the hobby, and picked up flyers when they stopped by.

After the event, we had talked about planning for the upcoming Field Day. More on that, next!

Back On The Air

Back on October 13th, I bought a new vehicle (more info here). Since I bought it, I have been working on some electrical “quirks”. Well, today I got enough of them worked out and fixed that I was also able to get the quad-band (10m/6m/2m/70cm) radio and the SSB 11m (CB), radio installed. I’m pretty happy with the installation of both. There’s just a few extras that I’ll need to add.

I mounted the quad-band radio near the mid section of the van and ran the antenna out to the back. Right now, I’m using a Tram dual band (1/4 wave 2m) mag mount, and it does pretty well. The control head of the radio is mounted above the windshield, directly in front of, and slightly to the right, as I sit in the driver’s seat. The display is easy to see and control as I drive. The microphone hooks to it’s mount on the ceiling, just to the right of the driver’s seat.

I mounted the CB radio just below the drink holder that protrudes from the top of the dog house. I used some custom mounts, so that the radio tilts up a little more than it would have with the stock mount that it came with. I wanted to mount it so that the face of the radio would “aim” at me while I sat in the driver’s seat, but instead decided that it looked better “flat”… or facing directly at the back of the van. The display is big enough and easy enough to read, and all of the controls are easy to use, so mounting it that way made more sense.

The one thing that I know that I’ll need to add, at this point, is an external speaker for the ham radio. Since the radio sits about 3 feet behind me, near the floor, the speaker is a little hard to hear, unless I really turn up the volume. If I do that, and there’s passengers in the back, they might get really disturbed. Even the passenger gets the audio from the speaker louder than I do, now. An external speaker should mount just to the left of my head, and slightly behind, without getting in the way, at all.

The next thing (which may be down the road, a bit) is a couple NMO mount antennas. Right now, they are both magnet mount antennas, but they do the job. The NMO mount antennas will look much cleaner on the outside, and should perform better than either of the ones I have, now. At that time, I’ll feel much better about getting a 5/8 wave 2 meter antenna.

There’s still a lot of other things that I want to change/add on the van. I’m also learning a lot about how the whole van is wired for power. I’m starting to feel a lot better about removing and/or changing circuits to do different things than they do, now. I might want to wait until I get the second battery and the isolator installed, though, before I change too much.