I spent much of the past few days, getting the 160 meter loop antenna put up. It was a 160 meter dipole then I pulled the ends together last fall and made it an 80 meter loop… that worked ok but was really odd configured because I couldn’t get it up high on the one side and it was too long that with out new corner poles I had to put a “V” in the north side to pull it tight… even in a very odd pattern it worked… but I had the need for more… the 80 would not tune on 160 and I want to work the low band… need one more state there to complete my WAS on 160… so… spent some time looking and figuring and came up with setting a couple of 4×4 cedar posts… at the far points, add a piece to a guy wire post to get the loop up 24 ft., etc.… I found that I could use the pole that I had up for a Martin house and add a few feet to that… then the set 4×4 cedar and then some tie offs in a couple of trees and … I had enough room to lay out a rectangular loop with enough wire for 160 meters…
I used treated 2×4’s and some 1×4’s one each side to get 24 ft. in heights… it won’t have to hold much and so far it is working fine and I can let the loop down as I put pulleys at the top of each post as well as on the tree connections… that is the NW corner post… mounted on a guy wire post set in concrete…
The NE corner pole set back in the tree row… I need to do a lot more testing but it will tune up on 160 meter and does hear a lot of stuff… but in summer the noise is really high so not sure how good or bad it is yet. I have made a few contacts on on it… JT65 with Chili on 40 meters the other night as the first contact made on the new loop …
Beyond that I have been tinkering with another airplane for GS#3… duplicate (of sorts) to the last one made for GS#1. Same type cans and same model. I have also been running around doing nothing, like a retired guy does…
Hum… can you guess what shoes I wear in the summer… I like shorts and sandals a lot now… except when I get out and walk but soon as I am back… swap out of those walking shoes…
Yesterday we got the car detailed so it is all cleaned up and pretty…
When I stopped by at noon to check on progress and leave some catalogs the detail guy wanted I caught these guys (2 of them) make a run at the airport.
They were back today about the same time… almost noon. anyway since the car was clean Sherrie had to check the weather this morning before going to work and …. I had to take her and the car stayed in the garage… it is still clean… We had a little shower come through about 8:30 or so and rained a bit for maybe an hour… just enough to get mud spots on everything… not really enough to get wet… but I did get this
Been a while since I have seen a full rainbow… usually only get one end or the other…
With all that happening today I had to make 3 trips to town… take to work, back for lunch, do some chores (get rid of some old sat receivers) and back to take Sherrie to eye doctor (has an infection? makes them water all the time) drop here off, do the Walmart run for supplies and stuff, drop that off at home and then back to pick her up… hell I was busy today and accomplished diddly… oh well, We are also planning on and getting a few things ready… stuff to take so we don’t forget… GS#3’s birthday… it will be a little early but he won’t mind…
Actually Grandma will be happy, more so than GS#3…
Oh and my timing was horrible when I got back this evening to pick up grandma from work… got behind the Freshmen leaving GIA… and they all walk in the middle of the street and never look back…
and this was just a part of them, some when straight south, some were coming out the north side (I got past them fine) and some were cutting across the parking lot… most seemed to be headed to the Union?
Tonight I worked on the airplane , got one wing on and part of the second wing… and got the dash panel glued in… I might actually get it done next week… with some concentration and effort…
WD0AJG