Today when me and SM2XJP were talking in the radio room it knocked on the door and SM6BGG was standing there for a visit. We spent some time, drinking coffee and having a good time. Apparently he comes from this neighborhood and was visiting his brother, who lives just a few km from the SJ2W QTH.

Today I will try to build the fold-over base for the WIBE 18m tower (WARC tower). But its raining from time to time and I have no area to do welding etc inside, so during the raining periods I’ll spend my day inside making some RG-213 jumper cables in the switch room, so we can hook up the 4th radio.

SM6BGG visited

It looks like we will have very varying weather this weekend, so I might spend time indoors trying to get the 4th operating position up and running. It will be using SM2LIYs IC-7400 and will also be used as one of two remote operated radios which I might also try to configure and test a bit. Another job might be to finish up the isolated room me and SM2XJP built out in the barn. I need to add boards to the inside walls and get some lighting up in the roof, because now its pretty dark in there. Also there is the RDA contest which me and SM2LIY might do some semi-serious M/S in.

If weather does co-operate I’ve done some new isolators and center bar for the 10m driven element on the beam that will be placed at around 45m height. When I had finished this work I by accident found the ones I did before which I thought I lost somewhere at SJ2W. But they were hidden under a bag in my office, how typical. Why didn’t I find them 1 hour earlier? I will need to add some 3/8″ superflex cable (donated by SG3P) and make a RF-choke out of this and also pull up the 45m piece of 1/2″ coax up the tower (donated by SM0W). There is also work to be done on the 40m yagi, such as mount the boom strut, the element-boom plates and add the elements and guy them. This beam just uses 50mm tubing on the center elements so that is why I add element guys. On the 2el ones I build later which will be SJ2W mechanical design I plan to use 60mm tubing in the center instead which should not need any guy support.

SM2LIY will also show up, so he will help me with getting branches etc away from the WARC-tower site and maybe next weekend I can try to get the excavator to dig the holes so we can pour the concrete.

We’ve also gotten a house cat @SJ2W. Me and SM2LIY noticed a cat hanging around about 1.5 month ago and she was very cuddly and lately I’ve seen her a lot. So one day when my girlfriend was walking out to the barn she stopped and said “Micke, there are two cats!”. And then I went to check and she had a kitten which is I would guess around 6 weeks old. They are currently living in my barn and after about two days of trying, the kitten finally had enough courage to approach me so I could touch him. Now I need to check that they are OK and put a neck-less with a note on the mother. So if she belongs to somebody I hope they will give me a call so I can explain it all. But if this does not happen me and my girlfriend has decided to take care of them.

The SJ2W kitten

One thing that has been on the agenda since the 60m tower was put up, was to build a roof over the rotator and base of the tower. This has been pushed forward by saying “I just need to have it done before the winter”. Now when it was quite bad weather I decided it was time to do it. I spent a few hours on it and it was finished. I would have liked a leaning roof a bit more, so that the snow would fall of by itself, but it is hard to get it “tight” around the tower base by doing that. So I just ended up with a flat roof. I guess one will need to wipe it off from time to time, but that is no problem since the tower is not very far away.

I also measured where the WARC tower should be placed. This tower might also be holding some 20m beam in the beginning, if we don’t manage to get the 40m tower up before the winter. I need to cut down some trees to make room for the guy wires and its positioned > 20m away from the guy wires of the 60m tower, so that if something happens there is no risk of it falling over the guy wires of that tower. It’s not very far from the house, so it will be very fine to use for 6m and maybe also 2m since the runs of cable will not be long.

My girlfriend is doing the work so that we have plenty of firewood before the winter. I think we probably have a couple of years worth as it is today and more waiting to be cut.

Tomorrow I intend to continue cutting down some trees and prepare so I can call the excavator to dig some holes for me.

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We had some visitors coming by this week. First we had a very pleasant visit from Aloys (PA3DAT) with wife Femma (PA3DWK) who did visit us last year as well. This is starting to be a tradition and I hope it continues since its always a lot of fun. SM0W with his girlfriend also showed up so we had a very nice barbecue the whole bunch which also included SM2LIY and SM2XJP. At 2100 PA3DAT had a sked with some PA friends and asked if he could use the station. He seemed to enjoy using rather large antennas compared to what he is used to, and he ended up working radio with help from SM2LIY until 02:30 when he felt he needed to go to bed. Maybe the longest DX stint at SJ2W except during a contest? I would guess so, at least on SSB.

SM0W and his girlfriend stayed until Friday. Teemu has now become our official sauna maintainer, since during his first visit during CQ 160m cleaned out the sauna and made it usable. This time he got some door hinges and mounted those to the door so that we don’t have what I used to call a “Norwegian sauna”, which means a door without any hinges needing to be lifted into place. So I have updated the “People” part of the webpage with Teemu as an addition with the title “Sauna responsible”. He also dropped of some openASC boxes which I will help him finish, so that they get the system installed at SK0UX.

SM2LIY assembled the 6m yagi which I bought from SM2O that SA2AWO transported to us. We put it temporarily on the chimney fixed south and the first qsos worked on it was DL2SWN via a sporadic E opening followed by 12 other stations. This had to be done since the SM2LIY QUAD™ made by branches broke last year and is now mounted on SM5EPO:s car roof. We’ve been told that its a solid performer!

So big thanks to PA3DAT/PA3DWK and to SM0W and Elisabeth for the very pleasant visit.

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