Thursday, June 24, 2010

Loaded Up and Ready to Go!

Well, the Jeep is about 80% loaded and ready to take off for the Field Day site Friday morning. I can't believe how organized I managed to get this year, but then I guess that's what happens when you start planning and testing 4 weeks before. I got tired of making multiple trips to my car dragging one or two small items every year, so I bought some good sized plastic tote bins at Lowe's. The radio, power supply, rotator controller and PC interface, along with all the manuals, fit in one tote box. The other one has some of my tools and supplies (soldering iron, heat gun, heat-shrink tubing, cable ties, crimpers, connectors, etc, etc), and the third one has all the rest. I also shortened up most of the cables this year. I just couldn't see having 75' of rotator cable when 30' was plenty. Same with the coax; the cables I made years ago were about 50' long, so I made some new ones this year that are 30', like the rotator cable. Saves a bunch of space, and a LOT of weight.
All I have to load Friday morning is the mast with elevation rotator, the cross-boom (with the preamps already mounted), the antenna, my 5' tripod/8' mast for my GPS antenna, and then slide the ladder in last.
In the meantime, feel free to check out some pix from our past Field Day events.

3 comments:

  1. Go enjoy the weekend! I'm 'sure' there will be a good story or two out of it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Roger that!
    I'll post some pix from the site. I've go a little 3G USB modem dongle I can use to get to the 'Net from almost anywhere.

    ReplyDelete

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