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Have the flu …. this issue out with a minimal of my logs .... typos and
mistakes are my own. rlcw
-
Musings --
Greetings from the Connecticut Shoreline!
Our move from Florida was arduous and chaotic. For about 6 months there
was little I could do to get on the air. Either we were guests at the
in-laws or
there was over 2 feet of snow on the ground at the new house.
Now that we have 2.1 acres of property in the hills above Madison, I think I
can safely devote at least half of it to wire antennas of various types.
There is
even an 8.5 acre land trust lot directly to the south onto which I might
be able to
sneak a wire...a 1,375' long wire....hi!
Can't see the forest for the....antenna wires.
I've been looking at the trees here as the likely place to mount wires.
(As have hams and
DXers who lived near trees since the dawn of radio.) The tree canopy
averages
between 50 and 65 feet depending on the type of tree. The dominant
variety is beech with a
healthy percentage of white oak. I've seen seed and leaves from tulip
poplar but haven't
spotted any on my property yet. I have a wild cherry outlier near the
road but mostly I'm
dealing with the beech stands and the convoluted mess that is their root
and limb networks.
A more miserable wire snagging tree probably does not exist outside of
the osage orange.
Beech is pretty hard and trimming is a chore. I had to purchase new
capability to take it on
and have built a couple of "measuring tunnels"* in the mess that is the
stand to the south of
the property. They do offer a fair amount of limbs onto which to mount
antennas. The oaks
have very few limbs which run perpendicular to the trunk and that holds
true to the
canopy ceiling. I have one or two to the west that I can exploit but it
looks like it's beech
mounting or nothing for the most part. Climbing is not an option for
getting ropes and
pulleys up onto a limb. There are few lower limbs in the taller trees
and the ones that exist
are rarely less than 20-25' high. I have been looking at extension
ladders but the taller ones are
expensive and difficult to transport.
My current strategy for mounting is to throw an old Master Lock tied to
a small diameter nylon
twine over a limb and attach 1/4" poly rope to one end and pull it up
and over.
I put a small swivelling pulley on one end of the rope and set another
rope into the pulley and
haul it and one end of the antenna up. In this fashion I've been able to
get my end fed Zepp style
experimental antenna up to nearly 40'. It takes around 200' of rope to
mount one antenna end or
center at 40'-50', you can do if with less if you don't care about
bringing that part of the antenna
down for maintenance. I'm not sure if I have the arm to get up much
higher using
this method. I figure that anything above 30 feet is a good thing. I
hardly built anything up higher
than ~15' in the trees in my Florida backyard, so I'll take 35-40' any
time. From what I could gather
from looking over OCF dipole designs, I see where the Buckmaster people
don't want you to put the
apex over 35'.The G5RV designs just want enough height to allow the twin
lead portion to play out
fully without touching the ground or being bent so a full size version
should be happy with ~32'.
* Measuring Tunnels?
In Florida I had barely 0.2 acres to work with so manual tape
measurements were fairly easy.
Even when I experimented with on-the-ground two-wire Beverage antennas
at remote sites I used a Keson
"Road Runner" to measure distances. The "Road Runner" rolled along the
ground surface and
had a geared mechanism used to read out distances. That method is good
for smooth surfaces that lack
obstructions but here I have a small forest for a sizeable portion of my
backyard. That means large
granite boulders strewn about and lots of fallen trees limbs and trunks.
I have invested in
a Bosch GLR825 Laser Rangefinder to help solve the issue of figuring out
where and how to put
up wires. In addition to just measuring distances in a straight line
over rough terrain, it has a feature
that allows you to measure the height of an object. This is mostly
useful for fixed and regular
structures but can be used to give a rough estimate of the height of a
tree or its upper limbs.
The GLR825 can measure distances up to 825 feet and is accurate to
within .016 inches. I did an
experiment where I cleared the brush and tree limbs for around 350' in
one direction (and was
still on my own property....life is good!) and measured down this
"tunnel" in the forest to a distant
tree with the GLR825.
I also used my Garmin GPS unit and took down the coordinates between the
same two points. This is the
interesting part: The Garmin, strapped to the built-in inaccuracy in the
GPS system, calculated the
distance between the two waypoints to be nearly 15' further than the
laser rangefinder. When I put the
recorded coordinates into a geocache calculator I found on the internet
the distance difference came out to be
less than 5 inches. It is an older GPS unit so maybe things are better
with the newer ones.
- Russel Scotka
720 NICARAGUA Radio Catolica, Managua, 1030, ID and then into a program
about a saint April 28 (XM)
720 Unidentified, 1007, somebody playing XE-type mx, no signs of WLS,
does not fit format for KSAH Universal City, TX, went into rather quick
fade May 4 (XM)
810 Puerto Rico WKVM San Juan, 0955-105, carrying EWTN SP relig pgming
in // w/ 830 WACC Hialeah, these have been in before but not for over a
year, usually WACC is stronger, but this morning WKVM was April 30 (XM)
960 GEORGIA WJYZ Albany, 1032, call-letter iD in the midst of heavy QRM
April 26 (XM)
960 Alabama, WERC Birmingham, 1030, TC and ID, May 6 (XM)
970 Cuba, 1028, My unidentified Cuban of May 3 was definitely identified
as R Guama, Los Palacios, running // w/ 990 R Guama, Pinar del Rio May 4
(XM)
980 Georgia, WPGA Perry, 1021, ad for Macon auto dealer May 5 (XM)
980 Tennessee, WYFN Nashville, 1020-1030, Gospel mx and pgm from the
Bible Broadcasting Network, ID, first time April 27 (XM)
1050 FLORIDA WROS Jacksonville, 1025-1030, David Jeremiah relig pgm
followed by full ID, fair May 8 (XM)
1290 FLORIDA WJNO West Palm Beach, 1200, ID and Faux Nx, was surprised
to find this at near local level this late April 28 (XM)
1290 North Carolina, WHKY Hickory, 1000, very strong "WHKY Hickory" ID
and then rapid fade out into the QRM, first time April 27 (XM)
2485 Australia, VL8K Katherine NT 1025 om in English, 1028 music 1030 om
& yl… threshold with some audio 7 May (Wilkner)
3289.9 Guyana, GBC Voice of Guyana 2350 om in English then yl 2351 on 28
April ; 0945 to 1000 Christian minister “ For God said….” 30 April ;
2350 to 0000 very poor signal only copied in ssb. 7 May (Wilkner)
3310 Bolivia Radio Mosoj Chaski, Cochabamba 2345 to 2357 music with a
good signal alas no announcements heard 7 May (Wilkner)
4699.9 Bolivia, Radio San Miguel, Riberalta 2340 to 2355 in Spanish with
om chat, weak signal with fades 28 April (Wilkner)
4716.65 Bolivia Radio Yatun Ayllu Yura, Yura irregular operation or
silent? - rlcw
4765 Cuba, Radio Progresso 0320 rock “Fly Like An Eagle” by Steve Miller
Band; 0330 3 May (Wilkner)
Parallel
900 KHz Radio Progreso Cacocun, Holguin -
750 Radio Progresso Palmira, Ciefuegos -
730 Radio Progresso La Fe, Isla de la Juventud - or- Camaguey , Camaguey ,
920 Radio Progresso Pilon, Granma - 3 May (Wilkner)
4774.9 Perú Radio Tarma. Tarma 1000 sign on rustic OS music, Buenas Dias
by om, “kiloHertz onda media …onda corta “1010 beautiful flauta andina 7
May (Wilkner)
4785 Brasil Radio Caiari, 1050, threshold, surprised to find this coming
in when nothing else seemed to be April 27 (XM)
4810 Perú Radio Logos, Chazuta, Tarapoto 1015 om yl mentioning KiloHertz
followed by time check. UTE inferences seems absent as has 6kh wide
filter with the R8 locked in AM 7 April (Wilkner)
4870 Indonesia RRI Wamena, 1048, again stronger than usual w/ M in
cmntry, 4750 Makassar only a very weak carrier April 25 (XM)
4875.05 Brasil, Radio Roraima, 0950, PT pgm, poor, not much better than
threshold April 30 (XM)
4885 Brasil, Radio Clube do Para, 0810, PT talk, poor, used to be much
better signal April 29 (XM)
4885 Brazil Radio Clube do Para, Belem 0140-0205 Soccer w/"Radio Clube
do Para" ID@0156.
Fair w/QRM. Checked on internet and found their 690AM outlet has a
"Radio Clube online/Escute Aqui!"
button...it's a few seconds off from over the air and not very reliable.
5/7 (Russell Scotka)
4915 Brasil, Radio Daqui Goiânia, GO 2350 to 0000 clear ID on the hour
by om announcer 7 May (Wilkner)
4910 Australia, ABC Tennant Creek, 0808, weak signal but EG could
definitely be identified April 29 (XM)
4940 China Voice of the Strait, 1102+, fair to almost good w/ M and W in
cmntry and Chinese mx April 25 (XM)
5952 Bolivia, R Pio XII, 1022, better than usual, cmntry by W, possible
anuncio, gone on 1043 recheck May 4 (XM)
5975 China, CNR, Program 8, 1103, domestic pgm in Korean, cmntry and
Korean mx, fair May 5 (XM)
5985 Florida, WRMI, 1057, nice SP ballad and in the clear until 1100
when very effective Cuban jammer totally wiped it out (May 6) (XM)
6050 Ecuador HCJB La Voz de los Andes, 1032, Quechua pgm, fair May 8 (XM)
6070 Canada CFRX Toronto, 1040, nx, fair, 6160 CKZN St. John's was only
a carrier by this time May 8 (XM)
6055 Japan, R Nikkei, 1st pgm, very strong signal on a morning w/ very
poor reception May 6 (XM)
6134.8 Bolivia, Radio Santa Cruz at 0028 in Spanish with Latin American
pops and a man and woman with definite “Radio Santa Cruz” IDs then a man
and woman with several ads and promos – Fair May 4 (Mark Coady-ON)
6134.82 Bolivia, Radio Santa Cruz 2350 to 2357 clear ID as “Radio Santa
Cruz”, seems silent recently from1000 to 1130? 7 May (Wilkner)
6174 Peru, R Tawantinsuyo, 1020, threshold, struggling to make it to
poor, but never quite getting there, gone on 1043 recheck May 4
7325 CHINA, CRI Jinhua, 1103+, Cmtry and Asian mx in definite JP
language pgm, almost local level, no chance for Wontok Light w/ this on
April 26 (XM)
7730 SOH [non-log] After hearing "SOH" here for a week or so, no sign of
them 8 May 1340+..@ least they show up in Aoki now sked *2045-1700*
(jammed, but yet to hear CNR1 during my listening periods)..a few other
SOH frequencies were no-shows on 8 May, as well: 6280, 9155, 9200, while
11470, 11530, 15970, 16600, 16775 were doing OK. (Dan Sheedy, Moonlight
Beach)
11995 THAILAND BBC World Service Special Program to Nepal, 0128 t/in hd
carrier, 0130 very weak threshold signal, 0145 carrier off April 28 (XM)
13795 INDIA AIR Bengaluru, 0000 s/on, into presumed listed Tamil pg, I
was surprised at the excellent signal strength April 28 (XM)
13800 SOMALIA (PUNTLAND) Radio Puntland, 2356-0000, regional mx, fair
but seemed somewhat distorted and actually better on 13799, off at 0000
April 27 (XM)
147210U Unid, 1725, was looking for Nepal rescue traffic but got only
hams in the Detroit area and North Carolina doing what hams usually do,
talking about their rigs and the wx April 26 (XM)
13800 Radio Puntland One (Garowe) 1327-1358+ 6 May. Thanks to tips from
Dave Valko, Bruce Churchill, Ron Howard & after a few days of listening
to non-stop Qur'an recitations, heard RPO's IT/EG/SO ID + email/phone #
recording @ 1345, 1356 with a fair signal--checks on 7 May produced just
a nasty whiny-grinder noise on 13800 & on 8 May, just an OC (which could
be anyone, i suppose, but i'll risk it & say it's RPO w/ no modulation).
(Dan Sheedy, Moonlight Beach)
15525 AWR (Trincomalee) 1517-27* 3 May. Doing well during their daily
30-min. NP broadcast w/ POB in Kathmandu + email/phone #s for contact
before closing & leaving the frequency open for: (Dan Sheedy, Moonlight
Beach)
15670 AWR (Nauen) 1534-48 3 May. In EG w/ Nepal earthquake reports &
starting "Wavescan" @ :45. (Dan Sheedy, Moonlight Beach)
17765 WHRI (Cypress Creek) 1520-33+ 3 May. Brokered religion, WHRI
p-mail addr., & starting "Heart-to-Heart" @ BOH..thanks to Ivo's info in
DXLD 15-17, this is Sun.-only *15-16* & Sat.-only *19-21* ex-17610. (Dan
Sheedy, Moonlight Beach)
—
Russell Scotka - Conneicut
R390A, Icom 746 Pro , Tr 7
-
Mark Coady- Ontario
-
Dan Sheedy, Moonlight Beach, CA
G5/PL606 + 6m X wire
XM - Cedar Key - Florida
NRD525D - R8A - E5
---
Robert Wilkner - Pompano Beach , Florida
Pompano Beach, South Florida Drake R8, Icom 746 Pro, NRD 525
DXSF 1981 - 2015
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