Saturday 20th February 2010 I don't know what I did.

I don't know what I did but it now works. In a previous post I sort of bragged about a 5 element Yagi beam that I built/designed for 146 MHz. I got the antenna to work. Then the radio died. My trusty Yaesu FT-480R that had served me faithfully for best part of 15 years appeared to have dropped dead and was no destined to live in Yaesu heaven. Now this did happen once before, many moons ago and I got it to work. I don't know how. It just did.
Well in a repeat performance it all happened again and that which appeared dead, isn't. It works well now. What did I do? I have no idea. You see this hobby is 90% luck, 1% knowledge, and 100% bragging. He who brags the most and the loudest, wins.
In another bit of good news, a friend was operating one of the repeaters here in Melbourne and asked me to give him a sound check on his speakers. I was to talk (I am good at that) and he was to listen. I used high power and low power. On low power he was able to tell me that I was making the repeater but not real well. Now if I have been operating on a whip antenna I would have made the repeater with ease. The reason my signal was poor was coz I had my antenna pointing away from the repeater. Good news indeed. Saved me many hours of leg work and waiting for others to tell me what I hoped would happen.
That brings me to another little subject. I do a thing called Triple M's. One of the questions we have to answer is: How did you honour God with your money this week and did you covet something that didn't belong to you. Well, I did covet something, sort of. My little Icom IC-T90A has an antenna problem which I can't fix. The radio is sort of useless anyway and I was going to trash it. Whilst looking on eBay I found another radio I rather liked and (coveted) put in a bid on the rig. I was out bidden and have now repented of that and will look at some Ham Radio swap meets a little later.
Enough for now.

Wednesday 17th February 2010 I like good news

You know there is so much bad news in this world that it is refreshing to read good news. South Side Mission is a good news story. Here is an excellent account of what our Great Lord and Saviour is doing. I found this Mission through an internet group I was involved with for some time. I always enjoy reading the blog updates when they happen. Reading through back issues is well worth doing.
Don't tell me bad news. Tell me good news. What is the good news of the day? Christ died for sinner, of which I am one. Because of the death He died, I can live the life I do.

Tuesday 16th February 2010 One antenna

Some time ago I built a 70 Cm Moxon to operate on 432 MHz. The antenna was/is a screaming success. Better than I expected. I am impressed , both with the antenna and its performance. My on air tests with that antenna echoed the designers claims. Flush with the success of that antenna, the first I had built for almost 15 years I decided it was time to have a go and build a 2 metre/144 MHz beam. A good friend of mine gave me an old TV antenna that he was to put out for recycling. I recycled it into my latest project.
This is the radio it was to work on:It is a Yaesu 480r, vintage unknown. It puts out about 10 watts. Old but simple and, I thought reliable.

This is the parts for the gamma match:The coax is around a metre long, as is the aluminium tube that it slides into. For those not in the know, the antenna is tuned by sliding the aluminium tube over the coax. Simple, but effective. I used the same gamma match, that's what it is called, many years ago in a previous life when I designed and built a 14 element Yagi and later still a 7 element Yagi.

Here is the antenna, minus the gamma match:
Now here is the same antenna up in the sky:
On the top of the pole is a 5 band Comet vertical. Nice antenna but a bit deaf. The wire antenna that is connected to nothing is my 40 metre dipole. I sort of switch between the vertical and the dipole.
So, that is my success story. Now for my sob story. That radio in the top picture is dead. It died just after I got the antenna on air. It works every now and then when I give it a bit of a tap in the right place.
My next project is to build or design and build a dual band 2/70 Yagi. But, I can't find any plans for this antenna anywhere. So if you happen to read this post and happen to know of any, please to tell.
I got the plans for this antenna from here. but I changed things a bit. Mainly in the spacing area because the boom length I had was only 1.5 metres.