This morning I pulled the boom off the shelf in the garage and reconnected the motor wiring loom. Tested the motors and all working as they should.

Slipped the fibreglass tubes in the holes and tightend the rubber boots holding them in place. Took about an hour and the antenna was on the lawn ready to go up.

3 El SteppIR waiting to go up on the tower.

 

Pak Ujangthe famous Indonesian tower man arrived about 10am and after a look and a smoke took off up the tower dragging his rope to set up the pulley system.

The tower has a bit of a bend...they were sposed to fix it but I think it is worse now than it was! Have to make sure I take photos from the good side! I hope the rotator to the bushing is square or else we have to redo the rotator plate again.

Pak Ujang came down tied the antenna to the end of the rope and with 2 people pulling, Pk Ujang on the tower to guide it and me holding the antenna out till it cleared the trees it did not take long for the steppIR to be at the top of the tower.

3  El SteppIR atop the tower and waiting to be connected up.

 

When I noticed the Antenna horizontal on the tower I took my leave and went to work.

Hopefully the rotator will be installed and the wiring complete when I get home tonight.

Getting on the radio won't be easy as I have no where to work from unless Ana lets me put the radios in the bedroom for a while...fat chance of that so I better get working on my radio shack!

Hope we can run a few tests from the veranda tonight!

After several years of trying we are finally getting close to our goal of being able to release an SSB radio into NZ that incorporates the normal NZ CB frequencies and their channels and with the flick of a switch revert to the international multimode 10 meter radio frequencies.

We have several models under test at the moment ranging in power from 25w to 50 W.

The radios will not be our normal Magnums but from a different supplier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have several types to choose from.

Some with frequency counters and a couple with just the channels.

The more basic ones will have a subset of 40 NZ frequencies and channels built into band A or B for instamt access.

The better ones will have the NZ 40 channels accessible from a button or switch on the main panel.

All done with software these days.

The picture above give you some idea of how it will look.

We have ordered the first samples and fingers crossed they have got it right!!!

Now you can drive down the road and flick between ch 35 NZ and 35 Aus at the flick of a switch.

Just like we can do now with the the 257's and s45's, except now when asked to QSY to 32 NZ you just turn the channel indicator to ch 32.

 

 

Had an offer of a 5m section of triangular tower that they said could hold up without guys.

Irresistable and they mounted it the other day so yesterday we played about and finally swung the 33' center fed vertical dipole into position atop it.

Had two of us standing on the tower plus the Zero five vertical and there was no movement.

Chopped down a tree that was a bit close...

Well don't know about the TX signal but the Rx has picked up and the tuner can now find tune on 80 thru 10 so perhaps the longer 450 ohm twin lead is helping compensate for the length of the antenna. I don't expect it to be a DX power house but it is doing OK...I could almost live with it!

A 66' center fed vertical for 40m must be a real killer. Biggest problem with these is bringing the lead out at right angles to the antenna so the lead does not interfere with the radiation pattern. I have the twin lead lead going accross to the remote tuner mounted just under the apex of the roof. About 30'. I thought it would have been enough but 40' would have allowed me to locate the tune higher yet. The lead angles down at about 15 degrees.

 

If that bloody Tom from Zero Five ever sends me the 20m 5/8 vertical he has promised I might just stick that up on a couple of those small towers or better still atop the big tower and use it as a lightning rod!!

For such a simple antenna it is a great multiband set up and while perhaps not "non earth" dependant certainly does not need an extensive ground plane under it to get out well. Well made and works well..can't ask for much more...but why he refuses to send me the 5/8th's is beyond me. I sent the money and he is sitting on it. I guess he knows I am too far away to come pay him a visit...

I have been using CG5000 for about a month now with a temporary verical dipole and running about 500w PEP from 40-10 meters. Hard to discuss a tuner without explaining the antenna because the tuner can only work as well as the antenna it is connected to. The antenna is a vertical dipole 33' fed in the middle so a good match on 20m where it works very well. I have had it ground mounted close to the house and the tuner sits on the roof in a plastic box connected to the aluminium dipole with about 5m of 450 ribbon pretty well at right angles to the antenna. The roof is tiles with no metal or foil to interfere with the ribbon. 

The antenna is one of those pleasant surprises. Despite being ground mounted it works very well on 20m and the tuner enables me to use 500w which helps a lot.

Have not done much on 40m but it picks up signals from VK, JA, VU and around Asia so not bad. Tuner brings the SWR down to about 1.6. Workable.

17m is also good..worked the UK without any difficulty one night. 15m I thought was OK..SWR still good but the locals with the beams were working signals I couldn't copy. It think the antenna does not have a lot of low angle radiation above 15m. Being so low certainly does not help. 10 and 12 have only been used for close in stuff so not sure how good those band are but the antenna could only tune it to 1.7-1.8 on 10 and 12. Bit reluctant to run the solid state amps at those SWRS.

Not sure if it has something to do with the low mounting, length of 450 ohm ribbon or length of coax back to the shack. Shouldn't be the coax but one never knows.

20m is flat SWR. Perfect. So tend to do most of my operating there.

The box is pretty tough, Looks pretty stout and feels pretty stout.

One has to be careful not to over exert on the connections or they will turn inside the case.

On the top there is the antenna wire connector and the bottom has the power, coax and ground connector.

No control line like an icom. It tunes when it senses hi SWR on tx.

2SC2879.pdf MRF422 spec sheet.pdf

 

For those interested...

The vertical dipole is doing well considering it is so close to the ground. We installed a self standing base for it yesterday and hope to get it up on top today if nthe weather holds off. The dipole performs well on the Ham bands it is designed for but the tuner does not get a good match on the Marine bands I need to use also. Workable but over 1.5:1. Hopefully the increase height will help the performance and at least all the antenna will be above the wall of the house. As the antenna is not too ground dependant I am hoping it will allow the tuner to work better. The twin lead back to the tuner will need to be lengthened which hopefully will give the tuner more options. Tuner is the CG500, an 800w PEP Chinese made remote tuner along the lines on the icom marine tuners. Usually used in a ground mounted vertical configuration I have had good luck placing them at the end of a run of 450 ohm twin lead and feeding dipoles and wire antennas. Coax to the tuner and twinlead or single lead out. This is about the biggest non commercial unit available but I am sure legal limit and above units can not be far away.

Put an aluminium horizontal dipole as high up as you can, feed it in the middle with a big tuner such as this and you have all bands and probably all directions!

Very low SWR on the coax to the tuner so keeps the shack cool. The unit takes a second to ind tune from memory but you should let it tune with about 20W before cranking things up. needs a 12v DC power to the unit. Downsides of this one is that it can not be ordered to tune like the icom ones do when hooked up to an iom radio. All we can do is watch the SWR come down to see it working. If you turn off the power it seems to reset the unit. I think it goes into bypass when no DC attached.

Quite water tight but I stuck in in an ugly plastic box just in case. It will be a while before anything goes on the big tower so I will keep enjoying the vertical. it has been one of those pleasant surprises.

The small tower will make a good end point for an 80m sloper of the big tower as well.

Tower topped out yesterday and today the lightning rod goes up. Need to get this grounded as soon as possible. The monsoon has not left yet.