Journey with Confidence RV GPS App RV Trip Planner RV LIFE Campground Reviews RV Maintenance Take a Speed Test Free 7 Day Trial ×
Open Roads Radio forum for Ham, Amateur Radio and RV camping


 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
 
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old 06-10-2009, 10:10 PM   #1
W6ZKH
ex-K6YDW
 
W6ZKH's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Tulare, CA
Posts: 62
Default Playing with new mode.......for me at least.

Howdy all........ well, I should have never saw that Youtube video from K7AGE dealing with Satellite's. I got all curious to see if I could hear them, much less work any of them. I have a transceiver (Kenwood TS-731a dual-bander) that would work, so at least I had that battle taken care of, now just had to come up with some sort of antenna scheme.

After about a ream of paper through the printer, down loading everything I could find dealing with Satellite's, I started my journey into space !!

First, just wanted to juryrig up a simple yagi style antenna using #14 wire and found acouple I wanted to try, at least on the 435mhz receive portion. The first one was a 6 element "cheap yagi" mounted on a venitian blind rod which was made from plastic. Downloaded the data from the internet on afew of the passes, and attempted to give it a whirl. No soap... didnt hear a thing, so gave up on that idea. Then tried antenna #2, which was a design from Italy using only 2 elements, a reflector and a loop. Now, it worked, but was so broad, I could rotate it 360 degs and could still hear the birds. Thought maybe I needed some directivity, so took 3 of those directors from my first antenna, and "hot glued" them to the boom infront of the loop on antenna #2. It worked rather well, as I was amazed to say the least. So now I thought I had my downlink antenna, so now to tackle the up link antenna for 145 mhz. Found some articles and contemplated them, but then I happen to be listening to 20 meters (14.282) on Sunday afternoon, which is the AMSAT net. Larry, W7LB was net control, and at the end of giving all the bulletins and other news, he asked for any check-ins, so I checked in as a visitor. I told him I was just getting my feet wet, and was still trying to come up with a simple antenna situation for me, here at the beginning.

Larry gave me alot of advice and encouragement and told me what I should do is make up a "cheap yagi" crossed elements that is in an article on the net. I happen to have that article, as one I had downloaded. Said, this is the best way to go at the first, not to try and re-invent the wheel, so to speak. So, I started gathering materials for this antenna. I had a piece of 3/4" sch 40 pvc pipe which would work fine, but needed some materials for the elements. Being a set was need for 2m, #12 copper wire wasnt going to be stiff enough, so I proceeded and when to the hardware store and got some 36" bronze welding rods. For each element on 2M, I needed to splice them, and so I just soldered them together, and at that point is where I attached them to the pvc, then cut each one for the correct length. Didnt have to do that for the 435mhz part though. After drilling the holes through the pvc, and running the welding rods though, I secured them using hot glue gun. So, I was done.......I though! Now came the proof of the pudding, so to speak.. first I wanted to check the SWR of the uplink 145 antenna, but didnt have a SWR bridge for VHF, but do have a Leader Power Meter. With no cutting, I had 32 watts forward and 2 watts reflected......good enuff for me!! Didnt check the 435 SWR though, as not using it for uplinking.

When the next pass of one of the birds came across my location, I was holding that thing in my right hand, microphone in the left, and trying to tune the dopple effect with something, hi... Needless to say, I was "thrilled" when I head my own voice come back to me, as running full duplex, and a station came back to my call. I was so nervous I could hardly speak, much less say my callsign and locator ID. My first contact was Glenn, AA5PK in San Angelo, TX. Gave another call before I lost the bird and got another contact, but cant remember who it was or where he was located. After 15 minutes holding and twisting that antenna, needless to say, my arm was tired.

So, with that, I had to come up with a mounting scheme that was simple and cheap. Found one on the internet, but it was made for the Arrow crossed yagi.....so with alittle modification, I adapted it to my antenna situation. I lengthen the rear boom so I could use it to move the antenna around. The boom goes through a pvc "3/4" pvc cross", of which I have bored out each input so (1) the boom will pass through, and (2) so I can piviot the antenna up and down. I can rotate the setup where it attaches to the large pvc pipe riser coming from the tripod. Just a threaded coupler which is loose to give me rotation. I also added a "tilt gauge" (the blue thingy) just as an added feature.

So, after afew tries today, it is working fine and my arm isnt tired anymore. Biggest expense was the tripod from Radio Shack, but I can also use that for the Dish Satellite for the RV while on the road too.

Oh, I still am a "nervous Norvis" when it comes to making contacts, as I clammer and studder like some schoolboy, hi hi... I hope that goes away over time, as it seems foolish at my age, but I get excited that this thing actually worked.

Here at 2 photos attached of the antenna and also of the complete system sitting on the driveway, setup for operation. The piece of paper is info on the pass, as to elevation, time, direction, etc. Makes it handy... note:the bungie cord is to hold it at that elevation, due to it being somewhat weight forward from the pivot. I can rotate the boom also to allow for some polarization changes from vertical to horizontal on some passes.

John W6ZKH



__________________
Head Wrangler John W6ZKH
Chief Cook/housekeeper Connie
Mess makers Bailey & Gretchen (dogs)
2002 Dodge 3500 Diesel-Dually
2011 Forest River Wildcat 313 5th wheel
Icom IC-2800 Dual-bander in truck
Yaesu FT-1900R 2M Xcvr in RV
W6ZKH is offline   Reply With Quote
 

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

» Featured Campgrounds

Reviews provided by

Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.2.3

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 07:55 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
×