This was the first set of real DX that I was able to make out above the noise. DK3EE was calling CQ on 80m and this is how it all went down.
Cool stuff I tell ya!
I think I’m going to need a better receive antenna. A vertical, while good for low-angle transmit, it a noise magnet from what I hear. I’m thinking of getting something like a PixelSat antenna and mount that up on the roof or something. I’m hoping that I can dramatically cut down on the noise I’m getting… we shall see. 
It’s never the right time to do anything. Well, it almost never is.
I had the antenna sitting in my garage waiting to be be installed since around February. Of course it wasn’t doing any good in the garage.
Why was it in the garage?
Because I might move and I would have to take it down.
I put it up not because I don’t expect to move — but because I got to the point where I just don’t care if I do. I can sit around waiting for something to happen — or not happen — and eventually I’ll die waiting for the perfect conditions.
Just get out there and do it.
If you want to get into a different career, just go and do the jump. Don’t wait for the perfect job. Don’t wait because it doesn’t exist. You’re probably not qualified for it. If you want to do something just get out there and start doing it.
If I move to the Bay Area — or anywhere else for that matter — I’ll take the antenna down and I’ll be better at putting it up the next time. Or if I don’t… well then I have a perfectly good antenna up that I can use right as the sunspot cycle is picking up again for cycle 24.
So I have my antenna up and I took the time to run through the SWR charts for all of the bands. I can say it lives up to expectations — it resonates everywhere it was claimed to. I do have a bit of tuning I need to do on 40m and 15m, but both should be easy changes. One is to adjust the counterpoise to be a tad longer to lower the 40m resonance, the other is to slightly lengthen one of the tung rods by clipping on a wire extension.
I did this with about 100′ of LMR-400 equivalent between my meter and the antenna. On 6m it should have less than 1dB loss. Even on the 2m test it’s only at 1.5dB. The readings were similar to what I was seeing when I was out next to the antenna so I’m going to present these numbers since I had the opportunity to take far more readings.
Something to note: three of the bands I’m reporting on are not speced to be any good from GAP. 160m is a dud, but that’s completely expected. 6m and 2m likewise aren’t speced for the antenna but I’m less than 2.0 SWR for half of the 6m band and all of the 2m band for what it’s worth.
SWR is obvious: it’s the standing wave ratio. Rs is the pure resistive resistance and Xs is the reactive resistance. The meter doesn’t specify whether it’s an inductive or capacitive reactance.
| Band | Frequency | SWR | Rs | Xs |
| 160 | 1.8 | 20.1 | 125 | 351 |
| 1.85 | 20.4 | 416 | 488 | |
| 1.9 | 21 | 254 | 416 | |
| 1.95 | 22 | 76 | 258 | |
| 2 | 20.7 | 34 | 173 | |
| 80 | 3.5 | 5.5 | 44 | 115 |
| 3.55 | 5.2 | 77 | 132 | |
| 3.6 | 4.8 | 142 | 128 | |
| 3.65 | 4.6 | 164 | 92 | |
| 3.7 | 3.6 | 116 | 84 | |
| 3.75 | 3 | 84 | 68 | |
| 3.8 | 2.4 | 67 | 49 | |
| 3.825 | 2 | 63 | 40 | |
| 3.85 | 1.8 | 61 | 31 | |
| 3.9 | 1.4 | 65 | 12 | |
| 3.95 | 1.7 | 79 | 19 | |
| 3.976 | 2 | 92 | 30 | |
| 4 | 2.5 | 8 | 46 | |
| 40 | 7 | 3.2 | 88 | 82 |
| 7.05 | 2.7 | 124 | 37 | |
| 7.1 | 2.2 | 90 | 37 | |
| 7.116 | 2 | 79 | 37 | |
| 7.15 | 1.8 | 58 | 33 | |
| 7.2 | 1.6 | 41 | 20 | |
| 7.25 | 1.5 | 34 | 7 | |
| 7.3 | 1.6 | 31 | 8 | |
| 7.35 | 1.9 | 31 | 18 | |
| 7.385 | 2 | 32 | 25 | |
| 20 | 14 | 1.3 | 40 | 10 |
| 14.05 | 1.3 | 39 | 8 | |
| 14.1 | 1.3 | 39 | 7 | |
| 14.15 | 1.3 | 39 | 6 | |
| 14.2 | 1.2 | 39 | 5 | |
| 14.25 | 1.2 | 40 | 3 | |
| 14.3 | 1.2 | 40 | 2 | |
| 14.35 | 1.2 | 41 | 1 | |
| 17 | 18.068 | 1.5 | 32 | 0 |
| 18.118 | 1.4 | 34 | 0 | |
| 18.168 | 1.3 | 37 | 0 | |
| 15 | 21 | 2.9 | 72 | 69 |
| 21.05 | 2.6 | 95 | 57 | |
| 21.1 | 2.3 | 108 | 31 | |
| 21.15 | 2 | 102 | 13 | |
| 21.2 | 1.8 | 90 | 17 | |
| 21.25 | 1.6 | 77 | 19 | |
| 21.3 | 1.5 | 68 | 14 | |
| 21.35 | 1.3 | 64 | 11 | |
| 21.4 | 1.3 | 68 | 5 | |
| 21.45 | 1.3 | 64 | 6 | |
| 12 | 24.890 | 2 | 103 | 4 |
| 24.940 | 1.8 | 87 | 18 | |
| 24.990 | 1.9 | 71 | 21 | |
| 10 | 28 | 1.7 | 32 | 14 |
| 28.05 | 1.7 | 36 | 17 | |
| 28.1 | 1.6 | 40 | 19 | |
| 28.15 | 1.4 | 43 | 23 | |
| 28.2 | 1.6 | 49 | 24 | |
| 28.25 | 1.5 | 55 | 23 | |
| 28.3 | 1.5 | 31 | 21 | |
| 28.35 | 1.5 | 65 | 18 | |
| 28.4 | 1.5 | 68 | 14 | |
| 28.45 | 1.4 | 71 | 9 | |
| 28.5 | 1.4 | 72 | 2 | |
| 28.55 | 1.4 | 72 | 0 | |
| 28.6 | 1.4 | 69 | 7 | |
| 28.65 | 1.4 | 64 | 13 | |
| 28.7 | 1.3 | 60 | 15 | |
| 28.75 | 1.3 | 55 | 15 | |
| 28.8 | 1.3 | 52 | 15 | |
| 28.85 | 1.3 | 49 | 14 | |
| 28.9 | 1.3 | 46 | 13 | |
| 28.95 | 1.3 | 44 | 11 | |
| 29 | 1.2 | 41 | 8 | |
| 29.05 | 1.2 | 39 | 4 | |
| 29.1 | 1.2 | 38 | 0 | |
| 29.15 | 1.2 | 38 | 0 | |
| 29.2 | 1.2 | 39 | 0 | |
| 29.25 | 1.2 | 40 | 2 | |
| 29.3 | 1.2 | 42 | 6 | |
| 29.35 | 1.2 | 45 | 8 | |
| 29.4 | 1.2 | 48 | 10 | |
| 29.45 | 1.2 | 51 | 11 | |
| 29.5 | 1.2 | 55 | 11 | |
| 29.55 | 2 | 59 | 9 | |
| 29.6 | 1.3 | 64 | 6 | |
| 29.65 | 1.3 | 67 | 1 | |
| 29.7 | 1.3 | 69 | 0 | |
| 6 | 50 | 2.3 | 34 | 33 |
| 50.1 | 2.4 | 27 | 25 | |
| 50.2 | 2.4 | 23 | 16 | |
| 50.3 | 2.3 | 27 | 7 | |
| 50.4 | 2.3 | 20 | 0 | |
| 50.5 | 2.3 | 21 | 4 | |
| 50.6 | 2.2 | 25 | 13 | |
| 50.7 | 2.2 | 30 | 21 | |
| 50.8 | 2.2 | 40 | 32 | |
| 50.9 | 2.2 | 58 | 40 | |
| 51 | 2.2 | 90 | 38 | |
| 51.1 | 2.3 | 110 | 23 | |
| 51.2 | 2.4 | 111 | 24 | |
| 51.3 | 2.5 | 84 | 50 | |
| 51.4 | 2.5 | 59 | 50 | |
| 51.5 | 2.6 | 39 | 39 | |
| 51.6 | 2.6 | 31 | 31 | |
| 51.7 | 2.6 | 24 | 21 | |
| 51.8 | 2.5 | 21 | 11 | |
| 51.9 | 2.5 | 20 | 5 | |
| 52 | 2.4 | 20 | 3 | |
| 52.1 | 2.3 | 23 | 11 | |
| 52.2 | 2.2 | 29 | 20 | |
| 52.3 | 2.1 | 39 | 30 | |
| 52.4 | 2 | 54 | 36 | |
| 52.5 | 2 | 78 | 33 | |
| 52.6 | 1.9 | 97 | 10 | |
| 52.7 | 1.9 | 89 | 21 | |
| 52.8 | 1.8 | 67 | 32 | |
| 52.9 | 1.7 | 50 | 29 | |
| 53 | 1.6 | 42 | 23 | |
| 53.1 | 1.5 | 37 | 15 | |
| 53.2 | 1.4 | 36 | 5 | |
| 53.3 | 1.2 | 37 | 0 | |
| 53.4 | 1.1 | 41 | 0 | |
| 53.5 | 1 | 46 | 0 | |
| 53.6000000000001 | 1 | 50 | 0 | |
| 53.7000000000001 | 1 | 52 | 1 | |
| 53.8000000000001 | 1.1 | 51 | 5 | |
| 53.9000000000001 | 1.2 | 47 | 9 | |
| 54.0000000000001 | 1.2 | 43 | 8 | |
| 2 | 144 | 1.8 | 27 | 6 |
| 144.2 | 1.6 | 30 | 0 | |
| 144.4 | 1.4 | 37 | 11 | |
| 144.6 | 1.3 | 55 | 16 | |
| 144.8 | 1.7 | 73 | 0 | |
| 145 | 1.6 | 70 | 21 | |
| 145.2 | 1.8 | 50 | 33 | |
| 145.4 | 2 | 35 | 27 | |
| 145.6 | 2 | 27 | 18 | |
| 145.8 | 2 | 25 | 8 | |
| 146 | 1.8 | 26 | 0 | |
| 146.2 | 1.6 | 32 | 7 | |
| 146.4 | 1.5 | 42 | 17 | |
| 146.6 | 1.4 | 61 | 15 | |
| 146.8 | 1.4 | 72 | 0 | |
| 147 | 1.5 | 62 | 19 | |
| 147.2 | 1.6 | 46 | 23 | |
| 147.4 | 1.6 | 36 | 19 | |
| 147.6 | 1.7 | 31 | 12 | |
| 147.8 | 1.6 | 30 | 2 | |
| 148 | 1.5 | 32 | 0 |
The GAP Titan has been installed and it’s working!
It took a bit of time to get it done. I think it’s about 8-10 hours that I spent all told over the weekend not counting the time spent getting the feedline fished outside.
Right now I’m listening to someone in France on 80m. 
Why don’t you come over and look how long it is. It’s hard to imagine it fit in that small box!
Can you feel it?
No.
I’ll wiggle it for you.
Can you feel me?
I feel you! I Feel you!
I guess I have to use the three big holes.
The guys don’t have to be that tight… just keep it from whipping around.
Pull it out real slowly.
I’m coming out of the closet.
Oh — that’s a long rod.
I’m just going to pound that rod in.
Let me know when you need another napkin.
Ok pull it… slow down!
Let me see if I could shift it over a bit.
- = -
And not one of these is what you think. 
Earlier in the year I wired up a Comet GP15 antenna in my attic. Yesterday I finally had a chance to test it!
It’s nice being able to peer inside what seems like such a closed system: an antenna and a feedline.
In my tests I had around 60 feet of feedline between me and the antenna, but in the few spot tests I’ve done the feedline doesn’t seem to affect things very much. I’m using very low loss LMR-400 coax to hook things up and it’s some top-shelf stuff.
The box itself is around 4x7x2.5 inches around (not counting the antenna socket and the knobs) It has a very simple interface — you dial in the frequency and it tells you about what it sees.
It give you a lot more than just the standing wave ratio (SWR) of the system, it breaks it down by te resistive load versus the reactive load. It doesn’t go so far as to tell you if it’s a capacitive or a inductive load, but you can figure that out by sweeping the frequency around a bit. It doesn’t have the capabilities of a $20K network analyzer, but it’s a good product for what you’re paying for it.
Overall I found that the antenna is quite good in 2m and 70cm, but it’s just not all that on 6m.
| 6 Meter | |||
| Frequency | SWR | Rs | Xs |
| 50.0 | 4.0 | 56 | 69 |
| 50.2 | 3.6 | 39 | 54 |
| 50.4 | 3.4 | 28 | 42 |
| 50.6 | 3.2 | 22 | 32 |
| 50.8 | 2.9 | 20 | 23 |
| 51.0 | 2.5 | 19 | 16 |
| 51.2 | 2.2 | 21 | 7 |
| 51.4 | 1.9 | 25 | 0 |
| 51.6 | 1.5 | 31 | 4 |
| 51.8 | 1.2 | 41 | 8 |
| 52.0 | 1.0 | 50 | 3 |
| 52.2 | 1.1 | 53 | 5 |
| 52.4 | 1.3 | 49 | 12 |
| 52.6 | 1.4 | 41 | 15 |
| 52.8 | 1.6 | 35 | 14 |
| 53.0 | 1.7 | 30 | 12 |
| 53.2 | 1.9 | 26 | 7 |
| 53.4 | 2.1 | 23 | 1 |
| 53.6 | 2.2 | 22 | 3 |
| 53.8 | 2.4 | 20 | 5 |
| 54.0 | 2.7 | 20 | 9 |
| 2 Meter | |||
| Frequency | SWR | Rs | Xs |
| 144.0 | 1.6 | 46 | 24 |
| 144.2 | 1.6 | 42 | 21 |
| 144.4 | 1.5 | 39 | 17 |
| 144.6 | 1.5 | 37 | 13 |
| 144.8 | 1.4 | 37 | 10 |
| 145.0 | 1.3 | 38 | 7 |
| 145.2 | 1.2 | 39 | 4 |
| 145.4 | 1.2 | 41 | 3 |
| 145.6 | 1.1 | 45 | 3 |
| 145.8 | 1.0 | 48 | 3 |
| 146.0 | 1.0 | 51 | 3 |
| 146.2 | 1.1 | 52 | 5 |
| 146.4 | 1.1 | 52 | 8 |
| 146.6 | 1.2 | 51 | 11 |
| 146.8 | 1.2 | 48 | 14 |
| 147.0 | 1.4 | 44 | 16 |
| 147.2 | 1.5 | 40 | 16 |
| 147.4 | 1.5 | 37 | 15 |
| 147.6 | 1.6 | 34 | 13 |
| 147.8 | 1.6 | 32 | 11 |
| 148.0 | 1.7 | 30 | 7 |
| 440 Mhz | |
| Frequency | SWR |
| 420 | 1.9 |
| 420.5 | 1.7 |
| 421 | 1.5 |
| 421.5 | 1.3 |
| 422 | 1.1 |
| 422.5 | 1.3 |
| 423 | 1.5 |
| 423.5 | 1.9 |
| 424 | 2.1 |
| 424.5 | 2.2 |
| 425 | 2.1 |
| 425.5 | 2 |
| 426 | 1.7 |
| 426.5 | 1.4 |
| 427 | 1.2 |
| 427.5 | 1.3 |
| 428 | 1.6 |
| 428.5 | 1.9 |
| 429 | 2.0 |
| 429.5 | 2.2 |
| 430 | 2.1 |
| 430.5 | 2.0 |
| 431 | 1.7 |
| 431.5 | 1.4 |
| 432 | 1.2 |
| 432.5 | 1.2 |
| 433 | 1.4 |
| 433.5 | 1.7 |
| 434 | 1.8 |
| 434.5 | 1.9 |
| 435 | 1.9 |
| 435.5 | 1.8 |
| 436 | 1.6 |
| 436.5 | 1.4 |
| 437 | 1.2 |
| 437.5 | 1.1 |
| 438 | 1.2 |
| 438.5 | 1.4 |
| 439 | 1.5 |
| 439.5 | 1.6 |
| 440 | 1.5 |
| 440.5 | 1.5 |
| 441 | 1.4 |
| 441.5 | 1.3 |
| 442 | 1.4 |
| 442.5 | 1.4 |
| 443 | 1.5 |
| 443.5 | 1.5 |
| 444 | 1.4 |
| 444.5 | 1.3 |
| 445 | 1.1 |
| 445.5 | 1.1 |
| 446 | 1.3 |
| 446.5 | 1.5 |
| 447 | 1.7 |
| 447.5 | 1.8 |
| 448 | 1.7 |
| 448.5 | 1.8 |
| 449 | 1.7 |
| 449.5 | 1.5 |
| 450 | 1.2 |
We made it past a major milestone last night: we have a way of getting the antenna feedline out of the house!
This was a harder job than I expected.
Maybe it’s because I never did it.
Let’s take a step back though. My station is located next to my computer in my office on the second floor of my house.
The top right window belongs to the room.
I could have done the simple thing and that’s go up to the attic then down the wall to the basement in an existing wire run I have… but that would add another roughly 20 feet to the cable run. That’s bad for a couple of reasons: 1) more attenuation of the signal 2) longer ground run means more potential for noise.
The solution I crafted was to punch through the footer of the second floor in the bedroom closet, make a hole in the first floor footer from the basement and fish it down the wall.
That was the easy part.
The hole in the basement took a brand new right angle drill to make.
The furthest hole is the right one.
Well, maybe.
Fishing from the top we couldn’t get through. Nor from the bottom. Fishing from both sides we were able to make them clink together, but never could make them come through.
Grrr…
Ok. So yesterday I was hanging out in the new office waiting for a package that never came. I was hanging out with the electrician who was wiring the place up so I asked him what the trick was. Scott told me the trick of cutting a blank outlet out of the wall to get access to it — when you’re done just slap on the blank cover and it’s as if you were never there.
Ok. So after I got back I cut the hole in the living room.
(Ok, so it’s taped up to keep the kitties out)
No joy in getting into the hold I drilled out. Dammit.
Ok. Let’s try out the new flexible drill I picked up. Now I was aiming to go further back than the two wires.
Drill. Hit something hard. Drill. hit something hard.
“En, do you see me coming out in the basement?”
“No. But I smell you.”
Drill. Come out the the other end.
“Do you see anything now?”
“No.”
Ummm… where did I just come out.
I walk around and see this:
(Well, I see the drill, not the string I put in later.)
Sigh… I guess the hard I was hitting was the bricks. I now know how not to use the flex drill. I think I can intuit the rest now. heh. 
I need to get the feedline and ground out anyway. This is even more direct. I guess.
All I need now is the ground rod and I’ll be set! I need one more hole in the side of the house to bond the ground rod with the rest of the house ground. I know where to put that one though — right next to the phone entry — and it’s not awkard to get to in any way.
Some time over the weekend I can finish up:
Yesterday I passed my second piece of traffic for the national traffic system. Here’s something I came up with to help out: an Evernote template manage all that.
It started with the PDF template that was linked to from the Tri-County Traffic Net. This works well if you intend on printing everything out. The problem with the way the PDF is set up is that you can’t save the filled out form. How dumb is that?
When I’m receiving a message I want to make sure things are in the order they are read off on the air. Beyond that I don’t want to play around with tabbing for every frickin’ word. It alost defeats the purpose.
Top top it off when I’m calling up the recipient I don’t want to have a printout.
Combine that all with the fact that I should keep the messages for a year…
Suddenly Evernote is the perfect system to keep track of all this. All I have to do is make a copy of the template (linked below) and fill out the table. It’s arranged in order things are read off in so it makes my life easy.
Sure, it’s not the official form. But that’s OK. I can make one off this if I need to.
Yes, I know if there was an actual emergency that the internet would likely be down. I’m not as worried about that for now. This is a good crutch for me to get better at the passing traffic part.
I have a few printouts of the forms too as backup in case general infrastructure (line the internet) goes down.
Just to be clear these aren’t in the normal sequence so if you’re following this (yeah, other than you Scrapple… ) you’ll see these again in a few months.
Why am I posting these?
One reason: Current contacts.
Wayne, NØUN, left a comment on the blog a week or so ago. John, AB8Z, was on the Tri-County Traffic Net.
Both were interesting. I would say strange, but strange in a super-cool kind of way.
Wayne started to recount all sorts of stories I’ve heard from En over the years. Up out of thin air. If nothing else you live on in peoples’ memories. Something made him look up W8DFL for some reason I guess.
John on the other hand was more real-time. En checked into the net last Tuesday with a “W8DFL, Jennifer in Solon, no traffic.”
The call must’ve sparked a long dormant neuron on John’s head. In the comment round he said something along the lines of “Did I just hear W8DFL? I remember Vic from when I was growing up.” I’m sure he said a whole lot more that I’m not remembering. After the net was over En asked if AB8Zed was still on frequency and they had a few minute QSO.
Other than talking to me between the HT and the big rig W8DFL had been off the air. It was the first time that it was really sent far and wide on the repeater. The first time it was spoken on the air for all to hear, someone who was around remembered the old call.
To think that the memories of Vic are still around. It’s testament to what he did back then. Both John and Wayne were Elemered by Vic way back when.
Enough of the back story.
I scanned all the QSL cards around two months ago and I’ve been going through them 20 a week. I decided on a whim to see if I could find either N0UN’s or AB8Z’s QSL cards in the stack.
First, being clever I and suspecting that both were vanity calls I checked the FCC database but didn’t get any previous calls. I got full names though, so that was a good start.
As luck would have it (well, part luck since Bill somewhat sorted them first), the THIRD card I looked at (all just numbered PDFs) was WB8JSC: John C. Thomas. AKA AB8Z.
Just a dozen or so down was WN8QFB: NØUN.
Pay-dirt!
Cheers to you Wayne and John! I hope these bring back some good memories of the past and of Vic!
Funny how both of them used the Little Print Shop in Austin, TX for the printing.
I started to post the QSL card that Vic W8DFL from Parma. En’s uncle Bill gave us the stack of QSL cards that Vic collected over the years.
I just got a response from NØUN. Wayne grew up across the street from Vic. He’s now in Parker, CO — a suburb to the southeast of Denver. For some reason I’m guessing he did a search for Vic’s old call. Both En and her mom got excited at hearing from someone in a past life.
Vic was Wayne’s Elmer.
Amateur radio seems to bring people together. It’s one of the reasons it exists. It’s one of the reasons that so much radio spectrum is devoted to it. He seems to be active on 20m lately. When I get my big antenna hooked up to the rig I think I’ll be looking for him on the air.
From looking at the arial view…
DAMN that’s a big yagi!
73.
