WX1CT HAM Radio and Weather Blog

Generator

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Apr 2015 18:03:00 +0000

This post is long over due! Our quest for a generator started 18 months ago. I researched a unit that would generally provide full power for all our medical and living needs including a few watts for communications equipment which we know will be put to good use during the big storms. You are probably wondering why 18 months. Well first off I looked into purchasing the unit myself and then hiring a local electrician to do the installation. Most don't want to touch a job like a generator install. I then checked with some of the big box stores. Got an estimate and thought it was a bit high. Finally got in touch with an electrician that has done some work around the house and he gave me a decent quote on the install. Then it was wait for the permit. He kept saying he'd have it "next week". After 3 weeks I gave him an ultimatum, get the permit or I will find help elsewhere. Well I never did hear back and found help elsewhere. Eau Gallie Electric did a great job with our installation including coordinating the install of a 500lb gas tank. Now we are good to go and should have enough fuel to run the house for about 10 days if needed.

220 & Packet Update

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Apr 2015 14:44:00 +0000

Recently our local packet radio node was upgraded from (can you believe) DOS to Linux! The DOS version of FBB had not been supported in over 10 years and it is getting very difficult to find the older computers that can run DOS. I'm happy to report that after some hard work by the team that runs our system here things are much improved and more stable. Fire up your rig and send me a note at WX1CT @ W4MLB.#ECFL.FL.USA.NOAM or if you got rid of your packet gear send me a note at WX1CT@W4MLB.ampr.org from your email account.

This past week I put up a small 220 beam on the tower. This is to hit the one and only 220 repeater in Cocoa which is about 25 miles away. Need to do some fine tuning this week but the beam has really made an improvement!.

Lastly as usual trying to finish up the grounding project. Probably the hardest thing I have ever done in this hobby! Last year we took some type of mysterious electrical disturbance to the house. Lights never blinked but the power went out and I had numerous pieces of equipment that were not connected to antennas or a/c that either failed immediately or over a period of 2-3 weeks. The funny part was the cable box and TV survived but the other TV's including one not connected did not. Common culprit appeared to be HDMI and USB cables.

That's it for now! 73 Phil WX1CT

Field Day Weekend 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 14:33:00 +0000

Another Field Day weekend is upon us! This will mark my 24th Field Day since receiving my Novice ticket in 1991.

All Field Days have had special moments but I will never forget Field Day #1 in Fairfield CT. My elmer Bob WD1M was in charge that year and except for a few hours sleep I was around a good chunk of the 24 hours. Arriving back on site at 5 am to experience operations on 75 meters at sunrise was incredible. Better yet was operating from a tent with the antenna tethered to a balloon.

This will be my 2nd FD day here in Fla. WX1LDB and myself will be operating from the house on Saturday, then going to attempt to visit some of the numerous clubs in the area. Sunday we hope to operate a bit from our PCARS club site as relief for those that were at the mic or paddle all night.

Grounding

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 13:02:00 +0000

Hoping to finish up the tower & antenna grounding project this week.

Just waiting on a few more parts. Wouldn't you know, trying to finish at the peak of lightning season in the lightning Capital of the world!

Also hope to have my lightning detector posting to Palm-Bay-Weather.org later this week so check back often.

220 J-Pole Testing

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 15:24:00 +0000

Finally got my 220 J-pole antenna on the tower for testing. Once testing is completed I plan on getting the antenna above the roof line!

Ramblings

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 19:17:00 +0000

Just some random thoughts. Finally have all the necessary pieces to ground the tower and most of the cables coming into the radio room. Just need the weather and my body to cooperate at the same time!

Leigh & I joined Lisats this month. Its the local group that runs an ATV repeater. We are receiving the repeater which is located about 30 miles to our north. Hoping to improve reception with better feedline. An amplifier is on order which should get my transmitted signal to the repeater.

Lastly the frequently delayed launch of a Falcon 9 with 6 Orbcomm satellites is scheduled for late Friday. However the meteorologists at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are only giving a 30% chance of weather cooperating.

June VHF Contest

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:31:00 +0000

Had a lot of fun this weekend with the VHF contest. Saturday was a bust but Sunday 6 meters opened nicely. Worked stations from TX up to Ontario. The TA-53 seems to do jut fine for my operating style on 6 meters.

6 Meters

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 26 May 2014 00:33:00 +0000

Had a feeling that 6 meters might open this evening. Sure enough a few stations started popping through. Made a contact with a station outside of Chicago. Strange thing and I knew this when the beam went on the tower last week, My HF beam is working quite nicely at 50Mhz. Be interesting what happens the next few months on 6! Shortly after making this post I worked Mich & Ohio with 59 signal reports. Don't know why the TA-53 is working on 6 bands instead of 5 but I'll take it. Feel a bit better without 2 big beams on the tower!

Antennas & Tower Up

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 18 May 2014 15:32:00 +0000

The tower and antennas are finally in place. Its been a slow process but better to be slow and get it right! On the tower is a Mosley TA-53 5 band beam. Above that is an 18 element 432mhz beam and at the very top is a Diamond X-500 dual band vertical. Not seen is the Inverted Vee hanging off the tower for 40 & 75 meters. Also not seen is the Zero-Five vertical which basically covers 40-10 meters at this point. Now on to the next project.....organizing the radio room.

Still Waiting

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 19:06:00 +0000

As of this writing in late April, still waiting for help getting the antennas on the tower. The TA-53 is basically ready to go up. Just need to attach the elements to the boom. 6 Meter beam the same. Only change I'm contemplating is maybe adding a 3rd section of Rohn tower if possible. No room for guy wires, so that would be the absolute max height if possible. Only other change is I managed to get my Inverted Vee up on the low bands. It's currently hanging off a fiberglass mast that is duct taped to the tower....so at least I'm getting some use out of the tower for the time being!

Tower Installed

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 22:00:00 +0000

The tower has finally been installed this past week. Nothing fancy, just two sections of Rohn 25/20 to get above the roof line. Next step will be to try and re-assemble the Mosley TA-53M. Once that is completed, get some helpers and mount the beam on the tower along with the Tri-Band vertical and the 6 meter and ATV antenna. Hoping to get that all finished with-in the next few weeks as summer has a habit of coming early here in Fla!

Oscar Satellite Station,...Finished

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 17:34:00 +0000

After 4 months finally have the Oscar satellite station back on the air. Ran into a few problems in getting the short piece of tower installed. I then had to scrape away 1-2 inches of sod for antenna ground clearance of the 2 meter antenna. Of course then ran into the usual cable issues as some of the cable from CT was well over 10 years old. I did manage to work a few stations on FO-29 including Cuba, a portable in parking lot in Washington D.C. and Texas. Still working out a few minor issues but those will be solved in time.

Another year....

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 20:31:00 +0000

Hard to believe in a few short days 2013 will be history. Its been a tough year here for many reasons but optimistic for 2014! Had a lull in the fun activities here the past 6 weeks as personal matters were my prime focus. However the Oscar antennas will be installed in the next week or so then time for testing before running cables back to the shack. Hope to have some pictures soon and try to update the blog more frequently in 2014!

TVRO Dish Farm finished

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 16:10:00 +0000

After 4+ months at the new qth finally got the last of the TVRO antennas installed. Awesome line of site here compared to CT and dealing with lots of trees. I'm hopeful I won't need to run any more cables back to house as the layout of the yard caused the longest cable runs possible!

Oscar Satellite Station

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 16:06:00 +0000

Installed a short piece of Rohn tower this past week which will be used for the Oscar antennas. Next step is to line up some help to install the satellite antennas. Once that is done another short piece of Rohn tower and the TA-53 and 6 meter beams go up and then I'm done....at least for now!

On the Air...Again!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 18:46:00 +0000

Finally got the Zero-Five vertical operating. I have about 20 or so ground radials down and its getting out nicely. The HF mobile setup is working well, was talking with a group on a regular net and the guys didn't realize I was mobile!

In other news two rigs are out for repair. The Icom 756 II was only putting out about 10 watts or so, hopefully that will be fixable. The D710 went deaf on the VFO B side which I have read is common problem!

Next up is the Oscar station, so look for more to come soon!

Delta IV Launch

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 16:44:00 +0000

Here is a link to the video of the Delta IV launch on August 7th shot by by wife WX1LDB. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xyYve3LqAw

HF & VHF Antennas are Up!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 16:39:00 +0000


The Comet CX-333 Tri-Band Vertical

Unexpectedly had a visitor this week who helped me get the HF vertical and VHF/UHF antennas installed. Still working on the cabling. Hoping to get on the air by Labor Day! I'll post some pictures in the near future.


The Zero-Five 43 FT HF vertical in the background with the Noaaport Antenna to the left.

Atlas V Launch

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 22:28:00 +0000

Atlas V Launch July 19 2013 CCAFS

A few weeks back my wife and I got a chance to see an Atlas V launch at Cape Canaveral. Lot of clouds in the area but it was impressive. Hoping to see a Delta IV launch just after sunset later this week. Hope to have some pictures of that launch as well. Targeting Sept 1st to get the HF antenna installed and get back on the air for now ops are limited to the mobile.

Amateur Satellite Antenna Maintenance

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 18 May 2013 20:31:00 +0000

Been a while since my last post. Hoping to have the Az/El rotor installed in the next few weeks. Its only been 18 months since it was purchased! Looking forward to getting back on the birds shortly. Not much time to operate lately, though I did get a few minutes to add some new frequencies in the mobile.

Antenna Tweaking

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 01:04:00 +0000

I haven't had much to write about lately. However today was a relatively mild day with plenty of sunshine and that gave me a brief opportunity to head out to the Dish farm. I have been having a slight problem with one of my Ku antennas where I wasn't able to pull a good signal on the horizontal polarity. Well I went out today with my handheld satellite meter and of course saw a very low signal. Touched the arm that holds the LNB and the signal increased. Turned out to be a very easy fix in that the bolts holding the LNB to the arm were ever so slightly lose but enough to swing the LNB out of the main lobe on the satellite. I like easy fixes like that!

Hamcation 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 23:57:00 +0000

Had a nice time at Hamcation 2013 last weekend in Orlando, Fl. Plenty of goodies to look at it, most the major vendors were on site, along with plenty of folks outside. Weather was terrific with temperatures into the 80s. Talk about good timing, as I write this a week later, temperatures are already into the 40's and its not even 7PM! I really didn't look too hard for the gear I want to get for the Florida hamshack, but did come back with a goodie I have wanted for a few years...a TH-D72a HT. I will try and find some time the next few days to really play around with the new radio and report back in a future post on how I like it.

Hamcation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 02:29:00 +0000

Getting out of Dodge....

Most folks would classify me as a "Weather Geek". This has been a tough winter, not so much with precipitation but the cold for me. I have had plans for the last two months to head down to the "Southern Ranch" and visit some old friends and new friends at Hamcation in Orlando this weekend. Well wouldn't you know it, just like the last trip another storm put a fly in the ointment so to speak. After looking at the model runs on Tuesday, I decided that getting out a day early was prudent to make Hamcation and a "interesting vist to Kennedy Space Center on Sunday, along with getting some chores done around the house. So I'm off to warm up for a few days. For those of you that get a few inches, sit back and enjoy, those that get 1-2 feet of the white stuff be careful. This is going to be a heavy wet snow and we don't need anyone getting hurt.

Noaaport & Winds

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:51:00 +0000

With the wind gusting to 60 mph last night and early this morning, the 12 foot Noaaport dish did a complete 180 through the bushes and was pointed NE instead of SW this morning. Managed to get it unsnagged and locked up on the Noaaport signal fairly quickly. Needs a bit of tweaking as signal is running about 2-3db low as of tonight. Hoping to tackle that project before work on Friday or Saturday. Strangely enough the 10 ft TVRO dish in the backyard didn't move at all. Still getting fine signals across the arc! Good news is I'm writing this in the waning hours of January so hopefully maybe with a bit more sunshine in February we'll start to see a gradual warm-up!

Light Snow & Cold WX

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 02:32:00 +0000

A bit of light snow falling across the metro area, temperature is still cold with lows in the teens tonight. On the bright side our low tonight will be about 10 degrees warmer than it was Friday a.m. Looking for a warmup into the 40's by mid-week which will be greatly welcomed by this writer! Nothing new on the radio front, continuing to research antennas for the Southern Ranch.