The KEOVH
By Jack Roland, CBRE, AMD and CBNT
KLove /Air 1 EMF Colorado Engineering.
Well here we are, in December, as of this writing Christmas is almost upon us, and the beginning of the New Year. AND new projects with EMF/KLove/Air1. And we got to break out the Argo Avenger 750 snow vehicle for its first use this season. My assistant Nick, KK6GSJ, and Harry, N0SFP (the DOE for Clear channel Colorado Springs that owns the site) went down so Harry could show me the building for a possible location for a KLove transmitter. This site has a GREAT link to the 146.97 repeater located on the top of Pikes Peak, and my friend Rich, W9BNO and I were able to communicate over a path of about a hundred miles or so via the repeater. This is really a great way to stay in touch along the front range of Colorado too for safety’s sake and just plain fun. Greg, WB7AHO and I were talking to each other via this repeater from his home in Thornton to me way down near Walsenburg on I-25. Well, with a 14 thousand foot stick for a repeater antenna, what would you expect right? J
Harry, NØSFP, and KEØVH talking to Denver from more than 100 miles away.
Last month I wrote about the problems I was having with my Icom 706 Mk2G HF/VHF/UHF rig. Turns out I didn’t find the problem. So with time at a premium this month I turned to my ole’ buddy Greg, WB7AHO. If Greg can’t find it, it ain’t there! Sure enough, he found an almost microscopic crack in a trace line from the driver board to the main PA switching relay to supply current to the PA transistors. Greg is one of the most thorough engineers I know, preferring to even take a magnifying glass to looking at boards and components to, as he puts it “sneak up” on the problem. So now, the radio is back to full speed and ready to operate all bands from “Truckzilla” during my trips. AND, as I am going to need to go to Durango and SW Colorado here before too long, so HF will be a necessity. Because of the roughness of the roads I have to travel, I am trying another mounting scheme with some foam packing on the transmission hump of the truck. Here you can see me working Greg, WB7AHO on 7.180 in Breckenridge CO. WB7AHO had a great Q5 S9 signal on the radio using a 40m hamstick antenna.
706 “mount”
Talking to WB7AHO on 40m
706 on the dash of the Ford F-250 work truck.
I have been wanting to get on 160 meters. For Years! Finally I figured out that with the length and width of my backyard, I can do this with what I am going to call a “wraparound dipole” that will be only about 10 – 15 feet high, so it will be a cloudwarmer but will get me on the TOP BAND ! Here is the general layout and plan. I will be assembling this over the next couple of weeks I hope with the weather being nicer in the Denver area after a couple of weeks of very frigid temperatures. Well, that is my excuse anyway.
KEØVH yard and antenna layout plan
Also, I am planning a modification to my 5 BTV vertical to make it a “7BTV”. It is very easy to add 12 and 17 meters to the antenna with some wire and standoffs. You can read about how to do that here: http://www.powerlinenoise.com/n0rq/6btv-mod/ .
I will report on these antenna projects here as soon as they are done. I plan on using the Field Fox and MFJ antenna analyzer to tune these and get them working!
As always don’t forget the SBE IRLP (and Echolink) Hamnet, the first Saturday of the month. AND the EMF Hamnet now is the same manner on every Monday evening at 7pm Mountain time for radio discussions, both broadcast engineering and Amateur radio. Details on how to join are at http://www.qsl.net/ke0vh/sbehamnet. I hope you will be able to join us and share your engineering and ham exploits!
73’, God be with you, & see you next time! KEØVH