Antenna Work

Did not happen today.

I dug out the bottom piece from the garage, only to find I've misplaced (what else is new......) the M6x8 bolt that holds it to the bottom of the antenna!

So, not having any metric bolts that size that fell "readily to hand", I made a run to Home Depot to get a replacement.

This issue with the antenna started sometime ago when I took down my Arrow Antenna GP52 6 Meter 1/4 wave vertical antenna and replaced it with my Comet GP-3 2M/70cm vertical so I could run the net from the shack, instead of using my Drake TR-270 which is in the living room on my wife's computer desk.

There were just too many times when people were over, or she was watching TV, and the "QRM" in the room was too high, and went out over-the-air, to properly conduct the net.

The GP-3 is a great little antenna, very rugged, and only 6' tall, meaning it doesn't really stand out in the neighborhood. The Drake is connected to it's little brother, the GP-1, and that's also an excellent antenna.

I'd been using the GP-3 at my apartment in Torrance before I moved here, and it worked extremely well. Back at the apartment it was on a 5' tripod, with a single 5' piece of mast, on top of a large two story building, with a clear view in all 360*. I could easily hit repeaters that were 70 miles away, and make reliable simplex contacts out to 30 miles.

Here at the house, it's on the same 5' tripod, ground mounted this time, with three 5' sections of mast, getting it well above the roof line with a clear view in all 360*. I'm even using the same length of coax, as it was "close enough" to being the right length, and was in excellent condition. The loss measurement for that piece of coax (Davis RF "Bury Flex") was as expected for the length, and the connectors were like new due to the fact I always properly weatherproof my connections on the outside ends.

I swept it with my Rig Expert AA-520 antenna analyzer, and the SWR was almost identical to the published curves for the antenna.

So I should be good to go, right?

Well, not really......The antenna just never "worked right", with receive being down from what it was in Torrance, although transmit seemed about the same. Now that's not really a good indicator, as I have a clear shot at the repeater, and can hit it almost "full quieting" with 5 Watts from my HT in the front yard. The problem came with simplex operation, when this higher gain (4.5dBi on 2M), physically higher antenna didn't even perform as well as the Comet GP-1 ("3dB" on 2M. No mention of it being dBi or dBd but I suspect dBi) on the other side of the house, and just barely clear of the roof line!

The only difference between the way it's mounted here at the house is when I swapped it out with the 6M antenna, I couldn't find the bottom "mount support pipe" piece, so I slipped it into a section of PVC conduit, and put it up.

This picture shows the metal piece, directly under the radials, at the bottom of the antenna:

And this is the actual item, measuring 245mm in length:

I'm not sure that this would be part of the antenna, or just a structurally sound piece to support the antenna. If it were actually part of the antenna, electrically speaking, I'd expect it to be held to the main part of the antenna with more than ONE bolt.

And since the radials are "too short" for doing much on 2M, I'm guessing that they're for the 70cm section of the antenna.

Guess I'll find out tomorrow when I put it back on the antenna!

Thursday Night Net Operations - Listening In......

The "other" radio club I'm in has been running a Thursday night Net since way before I got back into Ham Radio in 1995, and for about 10 of the last 21 years, I've been the Net Control station.

The functions of the Net Control are varied, depending on the type of net run, what frequencies it uses, and a whole lot of other things. Our club net was generally an informal on-the-air gathering where roll was called, people checked in, net control made some general announcements, and then turned the net over to the club president who polled each club officer, told us what specific events were coming up, and then opened the net up to club members for questions, comments, tall tales, etc. Pretty informal stuff, and not nearly as structured as an EMCOMM or traffic handling net would be, where you basically check-in, and then maintain radio silence until asked to respond.

WELL.....some years ago the owner of the repeater we used decided to connect the repeater as an Internet Radio Linking Project (IRLP) node. IRLP is an interesting technology, which requires the users to access the node using a radio, and then the node converts to voice to VOIP, and sends it into the Internet, where it pops out on another node, and goes back out over-the-air. While a Ham can make a direct connection from their PC to the node, it's generally NOT allowed, somewhat ensuring that actual radios are used by the participants.

This is different than Echolink, which may or may not require a radio to access a node, or may be accessed directly from your computer.

Echolink has been (sometimes unfairly) compared to being a "glorified chat-room", as Hams can make "contacts" computer-to-computer, with NO RF involved at all. The only thing that makes it "Ham Only" is that in order to get registered as a node and have access to the system, you have to submit a copy of your Amateur Radio license.

These systems generally work quite well, and usually allow "arm chair copy" of the stations you're talking to, as long as you have a good (full quieting) signal into the repeater/node.

HOWEVER.....since you're dealing with interconnected machines over long distances, your operating procedure has to be different than if you're using a "normal" repeater, or operating simplex, namely that you must add a significant pause after the repeater stops transmitting, and another pause after you start your transmission, but before you speak.

This is because each of the linked repeaters has to stop transmitting, sit idle for a bit, and then accept your transmission. The pause before you speak is required to allow things to "settle" into their new state, and if you don't pause before speaking, you're likely to have the first few syllables, or even complete words, chopped off.

All this is quite variable, and depends on how each node/link is configured, and can vary from "pretty quick" to "almost useless".

Unfortunately the repeater the club was using falls into the latter category.....

I got very tired of explaining the same thing, to the same people, over and over and over again, week after week after week.

One particularly bad night I decided I'd had it, and sent an email to the club that effective immediately, I was no longer going to be the Net Control Station. A few guys jumped in to do it on a week-to-week basis, but it took a couple of months before somebody volunteered to take it over.

A few weeks ago the club decided to abandon the repeater, and go to a simplex net. We have a couple of guys who live on the Palos Verdes peninsula, and have enough elevation to overlook the entire L.A. Basin, so they can act as relays for those times when the Net Control Station can't hear someone clearly.

Some club members were unhappy with this, with reasons ranging from "All I have is an HT, and I won't be heard" (valid reason, but get an outside antenna and it'll help a lot. This guy lives where outside antennas are allowed, and his family is very well off), to "I'll have to reprogram my radio" (bogus - if you can't program ONE new, SIMPLEX frequency you probably don't deserve a Ham license), along with the usual complainers who gripe about EVERYTHING.

So, tonight I listened in, and as expected, the guys on Palos Verdes come booming in, and the other stations ranged from readable, to pure noise. I know I have an antenna issue with the 2M/70cm rig I'm using in the shack, and I have the parts to fix it. I suppose I should do that tomorrow, take a few pix, and have another post about "Don't Do This!", but that's for a later date.

The guy who took over the net has come a long ways, with a significant amount of "Elmering" by myself and the other experienced operators, but that's also another story for another day........

And We Thought "Innah-Gaddah-Da-Vida" Had A Good Drum Solo...

Yeah, well Iron Butterfly didn't have anything on Gene Kruppa!

A Bit More Rain On The Way

Supposed to start tonight after 2200, taper off during the day on Sunday, and then be partly sunny and dry until Wednesday.

Just let the dog out, and it's sprinkling again....

So far for the year, we've received 3.98" of rain, compared to a 5.77" "normal" rainfall for the same period, July to January.

The 12 month "normal" rainfall for Long Beach is 12.26" from July to July, so we're still quite a bit less than "normal".

We'll just have to wait and see what the rest of January, along with February, March, and maybe April and May bring.

And we're going to see the new Star Wars movie tonight. I've heard good and bad reviews of it, but I really want to see how a 73 year old Han Solo acts.....

Last night we went to the local Stonefire Grill, and I was NOT impressed.

It's one of those places where you order, get a little "table beeper" so they can find your table when the food is ready, and then bring you your food,

The entrees arrived at different times, followed by the side orders, and the appetizers arrived last.

I had a French Dip, which was like chunks of yesterday's (fatty) pot roast dumped on a decent bun, served up with OK garlic mashed potatoes, and some of Dow Corning's best "au jus".

The bread sticks were slightly burnt on the ends, doughy in the middle, and slathered in some concoction of "cheese", parsley, and Mobil One.

Needless to say, I won't be going back anytime soon.....

WHOO-HOO! New Water Heater Installed!

Our great neighbor and dear family friend, Mike The Plumber, had the old one out, and the new one in, in under an hour.

Hey, he's a Professional, so don't try this at home!

He also replaced the inlet/outlet flex pipes, as the old ones were crummy, and new ones are CHEEP!

The old, dead unit is laying in the driveway now, and we'll haul it out later to have the city pick it up.

States I've Visited

Courtesy of Rev Paul!


Create Your Own Visited States Map




Create Your Own Visited States Map

Rain, Day 2

So far we're at 1.35" for this storm, and Friday is supposed to be a nice day, before the next round of storms hits on Saturday.

And that's a good thing, as our 20+ year old water heater, which has been slooowly failing has finally decided to call it quits.

I'm not sure what "wears out" in a gas water heater, but this one is no longer heating the water, even though we've cranked up the thermostat on it to almost max.

I remember way back when I was a kid, that they'd "burn out", usually flooding the basement until somebody could valve off the water to it.

This one isn't leaking, and when our plumber friend was over here earlier this week, he tried draining it, and very little sediment came out, so apparently it isn't loaded up with gunk.

The new 45 gallon commercial grade heater gets delivered Thursday afternoon ($540....OUCH!), and our plumber friend and my wife's oldest son will swap it out. The place he ordered the new heater from will come and collect the old one, so that's a worry we won't have.

But in the meantime, we have barely tepid water to shower with.

Hot water on demand is one of those things you just take for granted, and when it goes away, life gets a little different.......

Rain, Day 1......

Well, it's been raining here since a little before 0800, about five hours, and we've received .9".

No signs of the yard getting saturated here yet, and the storm sewers are keeping the streets clear, at least in our little neighborhood.

It stopped raining about 5 minutes ago, so I'm going to grab the dog, and toss her out in the back yard as she hasn't gone outside since about 0200.

She'll go outside to do her business if it's raining and she's been inside for 8 hours or so, but she starts getting really "antsy" by that time.

At least she's really good about letting me wipe her paws off before she goes back inside......

Batten Down The Hatches!

Looks like we've got five days of rain coming, starting later tonight.

Spent all day on the Iowa doing Tour Guide duty, not something I don't normally do, BUT.....

New Year's day was quiet on the ship, as most of the visiting Iowans were at the Rose Bowl, but Saturday was swamped, with around 1500 visitors, and few Tour Guides.

Uh-Oh!

So our lead sent out an urgent plea for people to show up today, Sunday, so I told him I'd be down.

Pretty quiet until noon, and then over the next few hours we had several hundred people show up, mostly people who weren't able to get aboard during the Thursday pre-game rally.

So, I got to meet a lot of new people, and explain the various parts of the ship that I know, and answer a ton of questions.

Happy New Year!

Hope we all have a happy and joyous New Year.

My wife gave me a nice little Polaroid 10.1" Android tablet for Christmas, and I gave her a Liberty Cross from the Liberty Rings Company, along with a nice silver chain, and a gift card to Macy's, her favorite place to shop.

One of the projects for the coming year is to figure out how to get root access to the tablet, which is running Android 5.0.1 "Lollipop", and so far, all I've managed to do is lock it up hard enough that I had to do a "reset and restore" back to the OEM image.

5.0.1 isn't the newest Android version, but it's new enough, and this tablet is obscure enough, that I haven't been able to find a pre=packaged app to root it.

And the "allow installation of apps from unknown sources" selector is greyed-out, so the apps I have been able to find from "unknown sources" (i.e., NOT from the Google Play Store) so I can't go that route.

Time to brush up my hack-foo skills, I guess!

***UPDATE*** 

Turns out that if you go to Settings/About Tablet and tap the "Build Number" entry about 7 times, you get elevated to "Developer" status.

Then going to Settings/Security, and tapping the "Unknown Sources" entry several times, it pops up with a warning, which you tap "OK", and the control is no longer grayed-out.

So, I can now install the apps needed to root the tablet, and even access the bootloader if I want to change the ROM to something like ParanoidAndroid or Cyanogen.

HUGE Day on the Battleship Iowa

Since the Iowa Hawkeyes are in the Rose Bowl this year, an estimated 25,000 Iowans came to L.A. to support their team.

And it looked like about half of them came down to the Iowa today for the rally!

**UPDATE** The current estimate is that we had between 10,000 and 15,000 people during the day.

I've seen big crowds at the Iowa before, but I've NEVER seen the entire parking lot, and the cruise ship parking lot, so full that the police blocked the entrance, and people were parking blocks away.

 This is what I saw when I was finally able to get into the parking lot and find a space:

The area between the road and the ship is about 60~75 feet wide, and the area between the forward and aft ramps leading onto and off the ship is several hundred feet long.

It was wall-to-wall people, spilling over onto the road in front of the ship. and requiring the security staff to "make a hole" for vehicle traffic.

And every single person was happy and smiling, and there were NO "incidents" of any kind!


This was taken later in the day, after the crowds had (somewhat) diminished, but as you can see, we still had quite a large number of people:

We even kept the ship open an hour longer so that everybody (as far as I know) who had been in line to get aboard at least got to see some of the ship.

So, a big THANK YOU to the wonderful people from the state of Iowa who helped make it possible to get the ship down here, and we hope you all had a great time!

Thank you all for your support, HAPPY NEW YEAR, and GO HAWKEYES!