Struggle

Well it was a struggle to have to pull myself up a ladder but worth it. I now have a 20 ft tall mast up. Next step is to pull up a couple of antennas. Right now not sure when that will happen, soon is all I can say right

OOPS

For some reason could not get the picture to post, operator error I'm sure, anyway here it is!

BEACON ON THE AIR

YEP, thats what I said the beacon is on the air. A while back there was a email about a guy who would help people with beacons if they were newbies. Because of too many health issues and no time I wrote him. Turns out he is making beacons out of JTech boards which were part of a 27mhz digital paging system. He has added a keyer and controller. Put it in a very nice case even supplied the power cable with the right connectors on both ends. Mother Nature seems to be against us here in South Dakota, like 6 inches of snow on Sun nite. The plan is to put up a new mast and hopefully keep it up this week. At the top will be a 88 ft inverted vee fed with open wire feedline because I've always wanted to try one. Right below that will be a dedicated 10m inverted vee for beacons. My yard is like walking on a sponge but I'm going to try to get the mast up tomorrow. All depends on 2 things, if I have the strength to climb the ladder, last time I could not get up to the first step, and the weather. The guy that builds the beacons is Paul Shinn. He does outstanding work and will work with you on its set up.



Last nite before going to bed I thought I'd fire it up and give it a test. Its been going since about 10pm last nite , cool to the touch. I have not measured the output cause the battery in my WM-2 is dead cause someone I know forgot to turn it off. hi When I move it to its permant location I will open it up and take pictures. I'm quite happy with it!!

Got Beacon

Well the new beacon came today and it sure looks nice!! Unfortunatly 6 inches of snow also came yesterday but its mostly melted now, only problem is my yard is waterlogged. I'm going to try and get the new mast up Wed with the planned date of beacon on the air by Friday. Well see what happens

Beacon being built

Hope to have a new beacon on the air soon. Its a converted JTech board and is putting out one watt Some day soon if winter will ever go away I will get the antenna up. Would you believe 85 degs last Wed, and 37 with snow on Thurs. Gotta love South Dakota!!

Tired

This time will not really have any beacon stuff but Bill Merra of Solder Smoke Fame is now doing WSPR and checking the Wispher Log he was heard a lot. Thats cool.

Today I didn't do alot, Mr Miles and I went for a 3 mile ride and enjoyed it alot. Started putting a large cutting board down on its real axle for the IC-706.

Paul is suppose to start working on my 10m beacon this week and I've been thinking about getting a inverted vee up.

Thats it for tonite pretty tired

WSPR

Got WSPR to magically work today. Last week I tried and tried to get it to work and it refused. Today as if by magic its working. Since coming home tonite I fired up the FT-817 running 1/2 watt to the 6BTV with 30 radials and this is what I'm treated too: Not too bad huh? Aw life is
good!!
2009-04-11 01:14

K1CT
DM12jt
1755 mi

K1JT
FN20qi
2364 mi

VK6DI
OF88cd
16357 mi


K3XT
FN20id
2319 mi
1441

WB9GHD
DM12kv
1743 mi
DN84lc

YIPPIE

My half watt 30m QRSS made it across the pond, to VK6DI and ON5EX. Of course I feel like its cheating using a FT-817 and Freakin Beacon to do it, but then again.......YIPPIE

KEWL

This is so neat, have the FT-817 at a half watt teamed with Freakin Beacon running QRSS on 30m. At 2320 utc I'm seeing myself on these Grabbers. VK6DI, ON5EX, and WA0UWH which means I made it across the pond. YIPPIE

Paid Bills

Have not got to have any fun today, maybe tonite. I'm transmitting QRSS on 10.140.07 tho with the FT-817 at 1 watt now. Very weak on a couple of Grabbers.

Beacons Beacons and more Beacons

I've been interested in beacons a long time. Right now my 10m is a Yaesu FT-817 running either 5, 2.5, 1, or .5 watts. Today its on my assigned beacon freq of 28.229. The antenna is a 6BTV vert with 30 radials. Its also doing QRSS which is very very slow CW.

I just put up a fiberglass mast about 3 weeks ago it was going to support a 10m inverted vee. However our first blizzard took care of it for me. To replace it are some steel masts right now burried under 3 feet of snow from our 2nd and 3rd blizzards in 3 weeks. Believe me folks its getting really really old.

I'm having a guy convert a JTech board into a beacon for me. I just have too many irons in the fire. He will convert the board, build a beacon, mount it in a nice box then ship it back to me. The JTech boards are part of a 27mhz digital numberic pager. A guy had a bunch of them so I got a couple. That will be my future beacon, untill then I'm using and lovin my used FT-817.

Thanks to my good friend Bill Merra of Solder Smoke fame he got me interested in 30m QRSS. My first tx was a failure. I was working on another one and got sidetracked for a short bit. Need to get back to it. I build a Freakin Beacon and it works great!

More will come in the follow days can't say it all at one time cause there will be nothing left to tell