A productive radio day

Today has been a day for doing things.  I’ve only had one QSO on the wireless but I’ve spent a lot of time doing radio related stuff.

I started off this morning by getting all the bits together for my set of 5B4AGN bandpass filters.  My first attempt to wind one of the toroids was a disaster and resulted in my taking it all off and starting again but I was pleased with the second one I did.

7 turns, quadrifilar wound toroid

7 turns, quadrifilar wound toroid

It didn’t take too long before I had a complete set of toroids wound for the 40m filter.

All the toroids wound for the 40m 5B4AGN bandpass filter

All the toroids wound for the 40m 5B4AGN bandpass filter

I fitted two of them and the capacitors onto the board ready for the first stage of the alignment procedure.

The 40m filter board ready for the first alignment stage

The 40m filter board ready for the first alignment stage

At this point I realised that I don’t have everything I need to start aligning the filter so everything went back into the boxes and has all been stashed on my shelf.

The next thing I did today was to do some aerial work.  I wrote a while ago that I’d refitted my smartuner and increased the size of my delta loop but unfortunately it wasn’t working very well.  I was suffering badly with RF feedback into the tuner and so it needed changing.  At the end of March I removed the loop and replaced it with a random length doublet, running from the top of my mast to the pole at the end of the garden with 450 ohm ladderline feeder going back to the tuner.  This worked OK but because the ladderline was close to my mast, when the wind blew, the feeder touched the mast and the tuner retuned.

I went to B&Q and picked up a two plumbing T-pieces and a length of pipe.  I cut a length of pipe around a foot long and fitted the T-pieces to each end.  One T-piece had a slit cut through the side and the other one was completely cut in half.  I fixed this end to my mast with one jubilee clip (I’ll put a second one on when I next lower the mast) and ran the feeder through the other end, thus supporting it a distance away from the mast and secured so that it won’t move when the wind blows. It’s a poor picture because I took it from the ground but hopefully you can see how it’s been done.

Homebrew standoff to keep the open feeder away from my Alimast

Homebrew standoff to keep the open feeder away from my Alimast

Finally, I made up the clamps for the 12m Spiderpole I recently bought in preparation for the DXpedition later this year with the Martello Tower Group to Herm (EU-114).  This involved opening 11 jubilee clips, cutting and fitting rubber strips and heatshrink and using a heat gun to fix it all in place.  I then put the Spiderpole up in the garden to test it.

Clamp set for my 12m Spiderpole

Clamp set for my 12m Spiderpole

All in all, it’s been a good day.  I didn’t hurt my fingers too much winding the coils, I didn’t fall off the ladder while I was fixing the bracket to my mast and I only burnt myself a couple of times while using the heat gun on the clamps and I only cut myself once while fitting the clamps to the pole!

1 Comment

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  1. Very nice job on the toroids this part of the build can be time consuming and when done rewarding. Some the the toroids looked very tricky.
    Great job
    Mike
    VE3WDM

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