So what did did I do today? not much, hey I am retired you know…
Got up early cause that damn cat was scratching at the door and someone yelled at her and so I was awake and that was about 5am…I went and chased the cat downstairs so she knew I was upset most of the day after that… I got back to bed and I wrestled in bed for about an hour and finally got up, Got myself around and out by 6:40. Picked up a Cran-Grape juice and was at Walmart Auto before 7AM… first in line to get my oil changed… I had brought the list of needs so picked them up and back and they rolled the jeep out… The girl handed me the charges and I looked twice at it and seems they charged me $27 for 1 extra quart of oil? I almost came unglued but with some mean looks and how can this be? questions they got it taken off… You go in for a $49 oil change with synthetic oil and the bill is $95? I don’t think so… I am going to have to check with other places about the synthetic change and see if I can get it at the same price (ends up being $54 due to extra oil , always needed? ). Maybe I should go back to doing it myself, but then I would waste about 3 or 4 hours getting set up, messy, cleaning it up, and then I have to haul off the used oil? Not sure it is worth the savings?
After that I got home and went to work on cleaning up some over due excess coax runs… since I had lost one antenna on the shop I had an extra run of coax that had been up there and along with that I had a run of RG75 for a TV antenna that is not there now either… Got all those pulled back, sealed the hole and closed things up as it all now runs out a connection I put in years ago near the tower… I will rework that as well in the next few weeks…
Then it was off to lunch… another exciting activity for today but I also had to mail off some cards and pay some bills while I was out.
Back home, I had gotten the bug to do some antenna work but the wind prevented doing anything but ground work so I pulled out the BB7V vertical I have had for a couple of years (b ought it for the motorhome as a traveling antenna cause it folds up really small… ) I got a steel post planted at the end of a piece of coax and mounted that vertical for some testing…
Most of my tests show that vertical is really a poor antenna compared to my dipole but does hear some things? I think I need to get it raised up some but that will not help much other than get it cleared away from a tree it had to be placed close to for now… I did some research reading and it is supposed to be ok for 40 –15… I also had problems getting it to tune on 10 meters with any reasonable signals… one report had said it would tune on 6 meters and that was a goal for me to use it for 6 activity but since there wasn’t any today it couldn’t be tested for that… I am not sure it is going to work there either but I can get it tuned on 6… For digital work it heard nearly all the same stations on 10 and 15 that the other antennas heard and reported strength was nearly the same , but the S meter showed a lot less signal? not sure what that means. Just more testing and maybe some changes to see if it can be improved on… pulled this as a possible to work toward?
http://hflink.com/antenna/#BBVL
Not sure I can get the 350ft loop? but may try the radial first or 2 or 3?
So that is how I wasted my day…
WD0AJG