Category Archives: Tower work - Page 5

Finally an update!

Posted by sm2wmv on November 23, 2015 2 comments

I have been lazy updating the website lately, sorry for that. I have been very busy with a lot of different things and not much interesting stuff has happened down at SJ2W. I had planned to work SOAB in CQWW SSB but after messing with the WIFI-link during whole Friday I felt exhausted and ran extremely low on motivation so I spent the weekend doing other stuff instead. We have however gotten the WIFI-link to work UFB now, I have 97/97 MBit at SJ2W and the ping from the work QTH down to SJ2W is 4ms (!).

SM2NOG came by and we put up a rotatable dipole that I got a few years ago from SM2XLL. We figured that antenna would be a lot better at 30m height than the current vertical we have been using for inband. I did listen a bit and could get very close to our CQ frequency and still be able to hear people well on 20-10m. It does not work at all on the lowbands, so I will need to hook up the switch and the other vertical for that.

SM2EKM needed some climbing help at his QTH so I brought with me the climbing gear up north to the work QTH and since I was staying in Luleå a weekend (for the first time since early summer) I went to him and we put up a new 9el for 6m that he built (YU7EF design). It was icy and cold but it went very well and we were finished well before sunset.

WB4RFQ also came to visit. It was very fun because he emailed me and told me since he worked for Facebook he would come and visit Luleå for work. He wanted to get a tour of the station and I made him aware of SJ2W being 180km from Luleå (where I work) but he did not mind. I also asked him if he was allergic to dogs since I would have Hicco down at SJ2W for the weekend since Anna was traveling, but he did not mind. He came and we went for pizza, I gave him the tour and he told me some of the plans they have for a Club station in San Fransisco.

I have also worked some on a few electronic projects and I hope that I will get time during the XMAS break to start building on the QBL amplifier again.

Plans for CQWW CW will be that I will do SOSB 20m unassisted with SO2R inband setup and SM2LIY will do SOSB 15m assisted I believe. So make sure to work SJ2W and SM2M during CQWW CW!

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SAC SSB

Posted by sm2wmv on October 15, 2015 Comments Off

Last weekend we had invited some of the “new guys” who haven’t been doing ham radio for a long time. For some of them this was the first contest and it seems like they had a lot of fun. It was fun to see the excitement of SA2CLC who just lives ~2km from SJ2W after his first run shift in the chair. We did a small M/M with two radios and most of the time was operated by the new guys even though me and SM2LIY did some short shift. The participants were SA2CLC, SA2BLV, SA2TMS, SA2KNG and me + SM2LIY were the “teachers” this time. Hopefully they were excited enough that they want to do more contests even though propagation’s were absolutely awful this SAC SSB, but they didn’t seem to mind.

I had problems last weekend when leaving to go up to the work QTH again, that the sewer had plugged up. So I borrowed some equipment from a friend and got it loose after a few hours of work. I had SM2LIY as help and we managed to get it so that the water coming out of the sewer pipes were clear so most of the crap seemed to have been gone. I really need to fix this permanently some day.

After the SAC SSB contest I climbed the 60m tower and attached some WIFI-bridges that will be used to get a better internet connection to SJ2W and it will also deliver internet to my neighbor + SM2XJP. I attached it with three M8 screws each, it was a new experience to drill and tap holes at 52m height 🙂

I have also done some work on the new antenna switches. I will start selling complete switches this winter and right now I am working on getting them easy to produce and I will also launch a web shop. However I will keep on selling the boards as well, so people can build it themselves if they wish.

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Inband tower is up!

Posted by sm2wmv on September 28, 2015 Comments Off

This weekend was a great weekend. First off I managed to get the inband tower ready to be put up on Friday and Saturday evening by pulling a few more cables through it and carrying out all hardware so it would be fast and easy when the crane arrived. On Saturday SM3DMP, SM3CER, SM3BDZ, SM3PXO and SM3PXO son SA3BXA arrived. They had been talking about visiting for years but now they did so and we had a real blast. It was fun to listen to all stories about how they started out in the hobby etc. SM3PXO, SM3DMP, SA3BXA also helped out with putting up the tower when GTL-Tobbe came by with the crane on Saturday afternoon. It went rather smoothly and the tower was up quickly. It turned out great and hopefully when I get the worm drive attached to the bottom I can try to see it rotates well as well.

SM3PXO, SM3BDZ also gave me a couple of tubes. One that is a spare for an amp and one that will be used in the QBL amplifier and SM3DMP + SM3CER brought me a bunch of lottery tickets but unfortunately I did not get rich this time but it was a great gesture 🙂

SM3BDZ and SM3PXO were the brains and muscles behind a M/M station that was quite active in the late 90s and early 2000, SL3ZV/SK3JR (Also SL3A/SK3A). Unfortunately not enough people were involved in the station and when the rent got too high at the place they had to take down all equipment and leave for another QTH but with plans of a much smaller station, a more normal size club station.

The list of visiting hams this year is becoming very long, very fun!

Now I will try to put down a lot of effort in getting some antennas up in that inband tower too, so we might be able to use it during the contest season. But it is very unsure since winter might strike any time since it is almost October.

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Inband tower ready to be hoisted!

Posted by sm2wmv on September 24, 2015 Comments Off

I arrived at SJ2W on Friday mid day and started with settings up the station for SM2LIY who arrived a bit later, since he was going to run the SAC CW contest. It all went very smoothly, the station is extremely easy to setup for contests now. Only thing that is missing is one or two more amplifiers so I don’t need to borrow for contests. The 5el for 15m has got some issue, I believe its probably the coax since I discovered a damage on one of the pieces of 7/8″. But I figured that SM2LIY could probably manage with the other 42 elements on that band 🙂

I spent most of the weekend preparing the last stuff on the inband tower so it could be lifted next weekend. I fixed the guy wires, added two cables I got from SM2EKM, attached the guy wire ring and the small 1.8m long top section. Now the tower is ready to be lifted and hopefully it will be done on Saturday. I will try to add another coax for an 80m dipole and also a power cable for the 868 MHz link that will be used to control the inband location.