Post by gd0amd on May 21, 2012 12:15:48 GMT
Although there seems to be quite a few viewers of this part of the forum, we aren't posting much.
Kevin has been good enough to put the Ham radio forum back, so we really ought to use it.
In an attempt to get a bit more activity, I thought it would be good to hear what projects we are "playing with" at the moment.
My current play things are a touch keyer and a cobweb antenna.
I am not a great CW user, but I do use it occasionally, so when my aging Hi mound paddle fell to pieces, I didn't feel that I could warrant purchasing a new one. I have therefore made a touch paddle, this has contacts which are activated by touching them, this then switches the transceiver via op amps. This has got me working on CW at very little cost.
I would normally give it a bit of a run in the CQ WPX contest this weekend, but the TT races start on Saturday, so I probably won't have a lot of time to play radios.
My main ongoing project is a Cobweb antenna, For those that don't know this antenna, it comprises nested dipoles bent into a set of squares, supported on glass fibre poles. It is a horizontally polarized non-directional antenna with a small footprint, which is ideal for my small garden. Presently I have it working on all bands from 20 to 10m.
I have found this antenna to significantly out perform the inverted Vs it replaced, it also tends to be less noisy on receive.
It's only failing is that it isn't directional, so it isn't possible to null out splatter etc. from Europe. But as the entire antenna cost around £25, and doesn't annoy the neighbours, I feel that is an acceptable compromise.
My intention is to add a further element for 6m, but this is giving me some issues at the moment. Has anyone succeeded in doing this?
If anyone is interested in my little projects I would be happy to give further info, and I would also be interested to hear what others are doing at the moment.
Come on lets get some activity going, after all communications is what we do.
best 73s
Andy
GD0AMD
Kevin has been good enough to put the Ham radio forum back, so we really ought to use it.
In an attempt to get a bit more activity, I thought it would be good to hear what projects we are "playing with" at the moment.
My current play things are a touch keyer and a cobweb antenna.
I am not a great CW user, but I do use it occasionally, so when my aging Hi mound paddle fell to pieces, I didn't feel that I could warrant purchasing a new one. I have therefore made a touch paddle, this has contacts which are activated by touching them, this then switches the transceiver via op amps. This has got me working on CW at very little cost.
I would normally give it a bit of a run in the CQ WPX contest this weekend, but the TT races start on Saturday, so I probably won't have a lot of time to play radios.
My main ongoing project is a Cobweb antenna, For those that don't know this antenna, it comprises nested dipoles bent into a set of squares, supported on glass fibre poles. It is a horizontally polarized non-directional antenna with a small footprint, which is ideal for my small garden. Presently I have it working on all bands from 20 to 10m.
I have found this antenna to significantly out perform the inverted Vs it replaced, it also tends to be less noisy on receive.
It's only failing is that it isn't directional, so it isn't possible to null out splatter etc. from Europe. But as the entire antenna cost around £25, and doesn't annoy the neighbours, I feel that is an acceptable compromise.
My intention is to add a further element for 6m, but this is giving me some issues at the moment. Has anyone succeeded in doing this?
If anyone is interested in my little projects I would be happy to give further info, and I would also be interested to hear what others are doing at the moment.
Come on lets get some activity going, after all communications is what we do.
best 73s
Andy
GD0AMD