Fence Progress and First Radio Operation From New Place

Beautiful day today, high 50's/low 60's, and blue sky with some clouds.

I got up, got dressed, and headed out the door to go up to the Kid's Place.

Got there, packed up my tools AND the power supply with the adapter cable on it, and spent some time talking to our "general contractor" about various and sundry things in progress, things on the schedule, things on the calendar and things "next year".

All the fence posts were set today, and our carpenter buddy (the "fence guy") and I finalized the gate design. The total usable width of the opening will be 14' 1-1/2", and he built it that way because that's the width of one lane of "highway" according to him, and he knows the tree guys can get their truck through that sized opening with ZERO trouble.


Nicely set posts:

Getting most of them out was pretty easy, as a lot of them were "half-bag posts":

While others were a "full bag post":

And this particular post refused to surrender!

This is the one that the chain snapped on. After getting a bigger chain, it died rather than surrender!

SO...we finally have all the new fence posts properly set and aligned. The pole closest to the truck in this shot will be one side of the gate:

SO after getting back from the Kid's Place, and yakking with the carpenter for some time, I finished the radio setup I started last night. Rather than make up a new adapter cable for the power supply, I just plunked down the complete supply and cable I brought back. I can make a few up on one of those afternoons the wife goes "shopping", and I have a couple of hours to myself.

The power supply I brought back is under the laptop, and the chair is my radio room/office chair we got on our furniture shopping spree last week. For now, and with the approval of SWMBO, this will be the Radio Room.

Today I setup the BuddiStick antenna. I adjusted the length to 17' 4" with a tape measure, strung out well over that amount of wire for a "counterpoise", and ran the coax back to the autocoupler for the K2.

Yes, I guyed it. I have some 3/8" dacron line that I use, and ran three lengths from the top of the tripod (about 5' off the ground)to some of those super duper military "tent stakes" I have.

I started out with one guy, but then the wind shifted 180*, and it fell over...DUH! So that's when I went to the garage, got three stakes and my BFH (nice having my tools readily at hand), and redid the guying on the little guy. They're pretty rugged, but still, your portable antenna shouldn't blow over!

Got on-the-air about 1300 local and tuned around 20 Meters where the ship always operates, and one email later found NI6BB at 14.290MHz, and had a nice chat with two of my friends there.

And even the wife commented that it was nice to hear "radio chatter" again.

Once things settle down here, I'll get the big vertical set up, but I need to get a nice weatherproof enclosure for it. It was in a Tupperware tub, upside down under the porch for seven years, and that plastic tub now has all the structural integrity of a fresh potato chip. I know the size I need, and nice fiberglass weather-resistant enclosures for Industrial use are pretty common. I'll have to ask our "general contractor" who his heavy duty electrician is, and/or can he suggest a good industrial supply house to be. We went by a Grainger the other day, so I'll look online and see what they have.