Monthly Archives: May 2010

Last towers at old QTH down

Posted by sm2wmv on May 30, 2010 Comments Off

This weekend me and SM2XJP took his car with a big trailer down to SM3. We arrived on Friday at around 16:30 and we rather quickly went up to the hilltop where we did remove the 4el monobander for 20m, which was still in the tower at 18m. It all went very smoothly and after a while we had the antenna on the ground and went down to eat. After dinner we left to SM3WMU where we picked up some 7/8″ cable, connectors and a 5el monobander for 20m plus some other junk he has collected for me.

On Saturday morning we went up the hill again and SM3JLA joined us as well. We hoisted down the last tower with the gin-pole I built last year to erect the 160m vertical and after a few hours the tower was down, it all went very smoothly. However since the antennas are located on a hilltop, about 40m drop down to the road we had to carry everything through the woods, which was a painful job. The tower sections were the easiest to get down though, since SM2XJP came up with the idea of just dragging them which worked well. The tower bottom plate, the iron pipes and antennas were worse to carry but after a whole days of work everything was down beside the road.

SM3WMU showed up and helped us load the stuff up on the trailer and after that we had some birthday cake (2 days too late for me) and coffee. Me and SM2XJP, the designated driver for the weekend went up again to SJ2W and on the way up we saw a one year old moose, that SM2XJP managed to trick out of the bushes by making moose sounds, so we got a nice look at it before it felt our sent and ran into the woods again.

Big thanks to SM2XJP, SM3JLA and SM3WMU for helping to take everything down.

There is some info about that old QTH at http://www.sm3wmv.com/sm3w/index.php

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Outside work at SJ2W

Posted by sm2wmv on May 23, 2010 Comments Off

This weekend I went down to SJ2W pretty early on Friday. SM2XLL who was going out to his mobile home gave me a ride out to the QTH. On Saturday SA2AWO, SA2YLM, SA2AXJ showed up as well and together with SM2XJP and SM2XLL we erected the broken 80m vertical again. It all went very smoothly and I did work in the Baltic contest with a decent result. I also hooked it up to the openASC system so now I can switch the directions with that box and it worked very well.

On Saturday evening I spent time sorting out some guy wires I had lying around and also prepared the 7/8″ coaxes to be put up in the 60m tower. On Saturday evening I got a mail from SE2T who asked if I needed any help on Sunday and I said yes so he came up and helped us to pull the 7/8″ cables up inside the tower. So now the tower is equipped with 2 pcs of 7/8″ cables up to about 37m in the tower, where a box containing the phasing hardware for the stacks will sit.

Next weekend if weather permits, I and SM2XJP will head down to the old SM3 QTH to take down a 18m high tower I have there and also some yagis and tower sections I got lying around.

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General I/O built and plans for the weekend

Posted by sm2wmv on May 20, 2010 Comments Off

I had SM3SGP up here from Thursday to Monday. We built openASC devices for his station since he is going to implement that at his big contest station http://www.sk3w.se. We had a lot of fun even though it was stressful at the end. I estimate that between 4000-5000 components were placed. There are some pictures on his website.

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General I/O

This weekend I hope that we have enough people to put up the broken 80m vertical again. I need to drill a bigger hole in the aluminum bottom but otherwise it is pretty much ready to be put up. Other plans are to finish up the 2nd 6el Yagi for 20m and try to find a problem with the current 6el yagi, there is some bad connection somewhere, hopefully in some connector. I will try to post some pictures during the weekend.

Beverage antenna work

Posted by sm2wmv on May 10, 2010 Comments Off

Last weekend, which wasn’t a planned visit to Da Traesk we took down some of the broken beverages, so that nobody would get hurt. SM2XLL and SM2XJP come by to help and after a few hours in the forrest we had walked most of the beverages and gathered some km of cable. Molly, my girlfriends dog who is almost blind followed us in the forest and I must say that I am impressed how well she can navigate even though she doesn’t see anything.

This week SM3SGP, owner of SK3W will come up to my northern SM2 QTH (Where I work) and build some openASC boxes for his big station (http://www.sk3w.se).