Recent content by TMI

Any news? Haven't heard much about this, curious, hopeful... Tom N7ROK

I pretty much just use the extended battery. The exception is if I'm going out to dinner and want to be able to stuff the radio in a pocket -- then I'll use the standard battery. Tom N7ROK

Thank you for the replies Thanks very much for the replies. I've rolled up the results at Why join an amateur radio club, part two Mason County Amateur Radio Club and tried to group them into logical categories. I'm sure our club membership committee will find the information extremely useful...

Interesting responses so far. Any other reasons to join a ham radio club?

On a recent 2-meter net, we got to talking about the benefits of joining a ham radio club. The brief results are posted on our Mason County Amateur Radio Club website at Why you should join an amateur radio club. Any other thoughts will be most welcome, either here or on our club website linked...

Junkyard antenna I picked up a 102" whip from the local junkyard and am using it on our local 10-meter SSB net. It presents about a 1.5 SWR at 28.450 MHz. Is it the best choice? No, but it works. ...Tom

Packing along your VX-8R I assume?

Yup, I don't mind a hybrid rig. I've heard the owner on my general coverage receiver, and his sound quality is very good through that rig.

A ham in our club has a Kenwood TS-520S plus microphone plus antenna tuner, all in like new condition. No operating problems whatsoever. He's offered it to me for $275. This would be my entry rig for HF, and I'm thinking this seems like a very fair price. Do you agree? Thanks in advance...

They are both nice antennas. Both work. They just have different sets of strengths and weaknesses. Now my problem is choosing which one to use when I head to the backyard for a satellite pass. Yeah, life is tough ;)

I have the Arrow II dual band antenna with duplexer, but have been unhappy with the UHF reception ability. I ordered an Elk 2M/440 dual band antenna and tried it on high and low-angle passes of satellite AO-51. Following are my impressions after using both antennas. Arrow II dual band Yagi...

Negative. The passes I've been working lately have picked up So. Cal to Alaska. I need to work some lower angle passes to pick up more mid-west and east coast contacts. Farthest to date from western Washington has been Ohio for me. I'd also like to get up on a hilltop and work a low pass to...

I worked AO-51 tonight, too. Preamp kit is in the mail. Did you pick up your project box and 9V battery clips locally, or do you have a secret source :wink: ...Tom

Yup, a plate of some kind would help. For the immediate future, I'm thinking a couple of small clamps would take the pressure off that one bolt, which acts as a pivot point. I'm also trying to visualize some U-channel aluminum, into which the boom would nest, as a way to reinforce that...

Let's see how this works. I haven't posted photos here. Two pictures below of the Arrow II satellite antenna mounted directly to a camera tripod. In this first photo, note the little bit of deformation where the antenna boom is screwed to the camera mounting plate. In this second photo...