Quite a bit done

Quite a bit has been done lately but I have as lately been bad at updating the website. I will try to improve now during my vacation. SM2UVU was @SJ2W and we cut and drilled some antenna material for a couple of beams for him and also a beam for SM2NOG (he is building a WARC duoband 5+6el 12/17 of my design).

Me and SM2NOG went on a trip up to SM2EKM where we picked up a 30m tower with ~50cm side. Plan is to weld cross braces on it and make it rotatable and use it for inband. The tower will hold a copy of an OB16-3 tribander and also a 2el fullsize for 40m.

I also had some relatives visiting me and quite of a few of them are interested in technical stuff so I believe they had fun at the station. The only bad thing was that when they were about to leave Aragon (my dads dog) tried to take Hiccos (our dog) favorite toy which ended up in a dog fight with blood as an outcome. It went well though but it will be interesting this weekend when they will meet again.

I have also done some work on the new winch. Me and SM2UVU cut new sides for it to make it take more wire and I welded those into place. Also since the winch is quite heavy I have welded wheels on the base for it so I can roll it around. So when I will use it I need to hook it into some solid object so it does not move, since it is not heavy enough on its own.

I also fixed the stackbox that was burned up just prior to WPX CW so now it will be installed again and the switching is fully functional again.

Some trips

The last two weeks have been first a wedding and then last weekend a trip down to SM3 to visit my parents plus pick up a milling machine I got to buy for a good price. It was a brand new Optimum BF20L which is perfect for making some parts for antennas etc. I also got to visit SM3RAB QTH and see his antennas.

This weekend me and SM2UVU have been making some antennas for him and SM2NOG. I will update with pictures from this weekend when the weekend is over since I am planning more work. One of these things are cutting out larger discs to modify the new winch. SM2FQB also gave me a couple of inverters, one one-phase to three phase which will be perfect for the winch and one big that I plan to use on the 60m tower to easy the strain on everything a bit so I can ramp up/down at the starts and stops. So thank you very much Ulf!

WE4S recordings of SJ2W in WPX CW

Check this out, some recordings that Grady (WE4S) did of SJ2W during WPX CW.

http://we4s.us/sj2w-contest-station-2015-cq-wpx-cw/

Check out his blog also!

Lots of tables

Lately I have been down at the station and doing some work cleaning the barn and I have also modified some tables. I’ve also gotten aluminum ordered for lots of antennas and hopefully it will arrive soon so we can start working on that. I think one of the first things to do will be to build new elements for the top 20m Yagi so we can change that as soon as possible.

And I almost forgot about the nice surprise when I arrived at SJ2W. Again the basement was flooded with water from the well containing our poo. It has been raining a lot lately so rain water probably got into the well and then flooded the basement. I might need to fix this permanently next year, even if I am getting a hang of how to deal with these issues. I got the water pumped out of the well and all water out from the basement. SM2LIY burned a lot of wood in the fire place to get better circulation through the basement and while he was working the WPX CW contest I had the big fan that presses air from the top floor down into the basement running on full speed the whole time. On Monday it was pretty dry in the basement.