SJ2W Contest Station

WARC beam up and carpentry

Posted by sm2wmv on May 9, 2016 Comments Off

The weekend was a great success! The weather was great plus I got very good help from SA2KNG “Knegge” who spent the weekend at the QTH helping me with various projects. SA2KNG is a very skilled ham who got his license just one year ago but is very interested in pretty much everything mechanical and electrical, so he is a great addition to the team. We managed to get the WARC beam finished, tuned and hoisted plus we also fixed the party tent.

I have purchased some nice Hitachi power tools as an early birthday present, so I felt like building something and it ended up being the door for the coax inlet positioned on the barn. I am extremely pleased with the tools and now it feels really fun to build, having the tools at an arm length not needing to get extension cords etc. Anna painted one side of the house and I also did some painting on the white details of the house.

On Sunday me, SM2XJP and XJP son went to remove some branches and trunks from some trees that SM2XJP had cut down. It was a good exercise considering the rather warm weather (we are not used to these temperatures yet).

One thing that happened when we had hoisted up WARC beamen and I had gotten it attached to the tower, was that I found 2 pieces M4 allen screws in the pocket that should have been on the driven element for 12m. After a few profanities I unscrewed the antenna and we took it down again. As I was feeling exhausted after a long day in the sun I felt we needed to call it a night and SA2KNG was nice enough to stay one day longer so we could finish the work which was highly appreciated.

Unfortunately, it was the aurora when I was going to test and compare with the old antenna but hopefully I will get more chances. What was planned to be a little 4+5el duoband yagi ended up being a long boom (15.2m) with 17m (5EL) on 13.5m boom and 12m (6EL) has 14.2m boom.

I’ve thought about running the CQ-M competition this coming weekend but we will see how the weather will be. Bad weather and I might consider doing it but if the weather is good I might work outside instead because I feel extremely motivated right now which is fun.

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WARC beam finished

Posted by sm2wmv on May 3, 2016 Comments Off

Last week I spent most of the time finishing up the WARC yagi. I made the side supports for the boom, attached the coaxes, made the RF-chokes and also mounted the winch so it can be hoisted. Hopefully weather allows us to put it up during this coming weekend. Left to do is to climb up with the lift rope and get the tram wire mounted. Then we will need to tune the beam and I will first try to get the 17m at the right frequency before I try to mess with 12m.

I will also need to build a switch that toggles between 12 and 17m since I only have one coax up the tower and I don’t really feel like wasting another one for WARC. I will use a switch to use the 15m 1 1/4″ coax going from the tower to the switch room for WARC as well. The plan is that when there is a coax going there for 80m that one will be used instead for WARC + 80m.

Now when thinking about it I should really have another coax running up to the WARC yagi since I would just need one switch and not two, plus I would not need to have it up the tower.

Keep tuned…

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Antenna and house work

Posted by sm2wmv on April 28, 2016 Comments Off

This weekend me and Hicco went down to SJ2W. We got quite a lot done even though the weather was shifting between sun, hail and snow. Later during the week (thankfully I was not there) it came down 15cm of snow (!). I am tired of the winter now and I want summer!

I bought and mounted a roof rack on the car so I was able to go into the village and get some wood for finishing up some details on the house. I also cut the wall panels on the front of the house so its straight and nice. I attached the planks to the house even though its not painted, so it will be needed to take loose (just four screws) to be painted when its warmer outside. The house also needs another coat of paint.

On Sunday I spent some time to assemble the 2el 40m yagi that I built most of the parts for last autumn. It is meant to be put up in the inband towers at 30m and is an own design.

This weekend I am going down again and we will see what projects the weather will allow me to do.

I also played with Hicco. Anna has been training with him a lot and I got quite impressed when I tried this…

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Electronics

Posted by sm2wmv on April 20, 2016 Comments Off

Not that much radio related has been done so far this year. I have spent a few weekends at the QTH but not done much major stuff, just some organizing in the basement etc. Now however sun has appeared again and my motivation is getting better and better. Plans for this spring is to finish up the house and the inband tower. I will also try to get the WARC beam up. There is a lot of minor stuff I also need to spend this summer doing, such as small houses for all rotors to the towers etc. There is also plenty of work to be done getting inband to work with remote access link for antenna switching etc which will be run over XBee. I have been looking at making some HPF for them to make sure I don’t get any interference from the HF bands, I dont know how much I should trust the RF-frontend on those modules.

This weekend me and Hicco will go down and hopefully weather is good enough so I can do some outdoor work.

Stay tuned…