Friday, July 25, 2014

Staleness, Part II

I haz a stale.  "Not so much writer's block, more like tired of writing about the same damned problems all the time."  Including my stale.  Besides, it has been a busy week and I haven't had much time to ponder what to write about.
Steve Breen at Townhall.  (Background)


8 comments:

  1. I know the feeling all to well.....

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  2. Hey, here's a question: are cities the source of all modern problems? Can we cause them to disappear on their own by eliminating proportional representation? This could be done at the state level, state by state.

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  3. Here is a question for both you and drjim: any suggestions for a combination antenna for the FM part of 10 and 6 meters. Cheap. I found one for over $200 but since I am just playing around with the TS-480 I wanted to do it on the cheap. The available discones aren't rated for transmit on 10. I was thinking just hanging two dipoles with a common feed line in the tree. Antenna restrictions. Been hearing KQ2H/R in New York this week. Pegging the meter.

    Also, SiG, you could post some pictured of the other parts of your new shop. Would like to see the machine and wood working areas since we saw the reloading bench.

    Terry
    Fla.

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  4. Got to feeling like I was part of the choir ...

    Q

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  5. Terry, I would think you could cut half wave dipoles for each band, and just tie them together at the feedpoint. The ARRL books used to (probably still do) have an antenna that was made of dipoles for 40, 20 and 10 all tied at the center. The wires were paralleled along their length and could be cut out of ribbon cable, or just wires space on thin wood or plastic spacers.

    They don't interact with each other because when you feed 40, say, the 20 antenna is an eighth wave on each side, and way too mismatched to accept energy. The 10 antenna is a even shorter and won't accept energy. When on 20, 40 is 1/2 wave on each side (crazy high Z) and the 10 antenna is too short. When you're on 10, all the others are way too long. The antenna worked on 15m as the third harmonic of 40. I put up one of those once. Very effective antenna.

    So if you put up a 6 and 10 antenna, you're close to that second harmonic relationship, too. On 10m, the 6m antenna will be too short and won't accept energy; on 6m, the 10 antenna will be too long.

    Haven't thrown it into EZNEC, but it would be an interesting experiment.

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  6. Someone - who is a blogging "someone" nearly all in my sphere know - asked me once why I did not have a blog. My muddled response was based, in large part, to my grave doubts that I could not do justice to my potential readers.

    Some days it simply isn't there, and that's no sin. If days extend into weeks and months, then perhaps it's time to reconsider.

    SiG, don't worry about the days.

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  7. Thanks for the antenna info. I was using the 15 meter dipole on 6 before I hid the 18AVQ vert. in the backyard. I will try the two dipoles tied at the feedpoint and let you know how it works. I have the 480 set up where I can scan the 10 & 6 meter FM simplex and a couple of repeated frequencies. That is what got me started.
    Terry

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  8. If you're interested in doing local FM on 6 and 10, make a couple of 1/4 wave ground planes. Simple, cheap, and the vertical polarization will be 20~25dB better than the horizontal dipoles, as 99% of FM operation is vertically polarized.

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