I got the new GP-15 up today…
now to get the tower back and put the new antenna on top of that to see if it improves the APRS coverage here. My current temp pole at 21ft is just not covering much of anything. When I had the tower and the Diamond 50XA up on top (about 45ft) it would cover from Perry to the north down to about the drop into the Cimarron river and covered most of town… the temp pole does not cover town very well and I only get an occasional hit from I-35. I am hoping it does a little better with the new antenna. I also aim to try a little 6meter – see if there are any repeaters I can hit from here? That is very doubtful but it is worth a try.
My APRS station info:
http://aprs.fi/?call=wd0ajg&mt=roadmap&z=11&timerange=3600&_s=ss_call
After getting the antenna put up, I then went in search of my old guy cables. At one time I Had a lot of 3/16 guy cable with turnbuckles and all the stuff but over the years with out a tower it appears they are all missing, well not all. I found the turnbuckles but it was really strange, one end was missing off all of them? I also found only one cable and I had 8 of them at one time? the one is about 70 ft. long and may be too short for the SW leg and way too long for the East leg…? no way it does the NW leg… So I need to go buy about 200 ft. of new cable and some new eyebolts for the turnbuckles. I also need to get the loop around the tree to the SW for that leg to tie off to. Will put it in some heavy plastic pipe so it doesn’t cut the tree.
Once all that and the tower is back in place then I can string out my Carolina Windom (160meter) and get ready for the winter “quiet” time and do some 160 contacts. Very interested in seeing how it work compared to the old 80 meter dipole with ladder line and tuner…
Oh and the weather was great today… even got the lawn mowed. – WD0AJG