I've got GAS....

Gear Acquisition Syndrome continues unabated.... I have removed the 40 channel UHF CB in the car and replaced it with a new Uniden UH7740NB 80 channel narrow band one.





Works well, very happy with it...although I don't care much for UHF CB. The Uniden UH012SX is now in the radio shack.....which led me to a need for a UHF CB antenna for that one....time for some DIY. Following the instructions on http://www.aurfscan.com.au/ I tailored it for 477Mhz. Had problems, split the T-junction, bracket was wrong, drilled mounting holes 10 degrees off vertical.





But it's all done, up in the air pointing North West and hitting Ch2 and Ch7 repeaters. At the same time I took down the Station Master antenna and put up the new version from Shockwave Antennas. A bit of messing about tuning it to 10m and I've now got a SWR of 1.2:1 on 28.480Mhz and now getting all of my meager 10 watts up the stick.



Next items on the list are to chase another HF radio, keen to get onto the 40 metre band. Also starting to plan for the next antenna mast (possible another vertical and a G5RV Jr. dipole). Have to balance this with getting the RGV250 on the road....and upgrading to the Standard licence.

Annoying antennas and other updates

I had some problems last night with the antenna giving me a high SWR intermittently. It didn't seem to matter what I did or what rig I was using I was getting a reasonable SWR reading and then a high one. The antenna tuner was struggling bringing it into something usable and it switched back and forth for a while until I came to the conclusion that my 25 year old 11m vertical is due for retirement.....so I bought a new one. I gave Peter a call at Shockwave Antennas - http://shockwaveantennas.com/ - and after a quick chat settled on just replacing the Station Master with like for like. Some advice on tuning the antenna length for 10m and that was it. I'm looking forward to retiring the current vertical and putting up the new one, I also have a new connector coming and will dump about 5 inches of the RG213 in case I have some water in the coax. Hopefully the intermittent problems will disappear after that although...it is behaving itself really well at the moment. Doh!!!

Other items of note are that the LDG Z11 auto antenna tuner has arrived, gave it a quick test and it worked well. A bit noisy when cycling it's relays during a tune but nothing to worry about. It's about an inch smaller width-wise than the Dragon SS485H I'm looking to pair it with but no problems on depth. Should work well portable.

I also have another 3 antennas on the way: 1 Military HF antenna ~2.7 metres in length, a 10m dipole, and a super flexy antenna for my VX-7 handheld. Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) has bitten hard. I also have an old Kenwood 2 metre VHF rig on the way which I'll pop into the car to replace the scanner I have now returned to the shack.

The Standard licence study material has arrived from the Radio and Electronics School (RES) - http://res.net.au/ - so it's time to knuckle down with the books and get to work on the passing the theory and reg exams.

And the last thing I have done is to install the HRD suite of Ham software. I'm not fussed on the remote control stuff but the HRD Logbook app certainly looks complete.