... an end and beginning ... V4 ham radio

It is hard to believe that I missed a whole month worth of blogging. With 28 days to a month it is almost two months between blogs. Is this a sign that the end of the world is close? I see ads on Facebook pointing to an end time just months away. Now if this for real what should we be doing about ham radio? I guess the uncomplicated response is simply, nothing. Nothing we can do or say will change anything, so I am not complicating my life any further, so nature will just have to run its course and we will see what is left back the day after. Mark you, I did not say who, because, if they are correct, some of us reading this today will not be here ... and that would be something else, but that is not the subject of this blog, so I will leave that alone for my blog at http://v44kf.wordpress.com.

I am seriously dropping behind with the experimental antenna, half wave vertical over another half wave vertical. Everything was assembled on the ground but I  was not happy with the stability of the center PVC insulator so I have temporarily shelved the plans until I can get my mechanical engineers to advise on a super solid center antenna connector. Nothing was wrong with the PVC insulator, I just had a concern when it was time to raise the antenna up into the air, and aborted the plan. I feel in my gut this antenna is a winner and I will have it up shortly. In the interim I have converted an 18-ft length of the aluminum pipe into a linear loaded vertical dipole antenna, and that one will be up in the air soon. It has been on the ground for some 2 to 3-weeks now. Time is really moving on fast.

The linear loading on this 18-ft vertical is made with another 18-ft of wire spaced about 4-inches, and I will take a photo at installation time. I know that the top and bottom loaded vertical dipole with an 18-ft vertical section works very well, and it is only down 0.5 dB in gain from the full sized half wave vertical dipole. I don't have any gain figures for this linear loaded vertical dipole, but I suspect that it may be quite similar. I am hoping this antenna can serve as my portable 40-meter antenna for use with my mobile/portable Flex radio system, most likely the Flex 1500, but if lady luck smiles wider it can be the Flex 3000. Actually I am still undecided on the radio, and when the time is right I will make a snap decision, but I have a sneaky feeling that maybe the Flex don't win this  mobile bid.

I think the Flex radio is the ideal base station. Like I have justified, I can sit at my computer processing my photos and/or on Facebook, and be still on my ham radio with the Flex, in just another window, or on the other computer on the desktop. The ultimate in integrated living and Flex-ibility. So what will be the other radio? Surely not one made in Japan, or anywhere Asia, unless the price is 50% below anything made in the USA. For now it looks like TenTec, but like the second coming , we won't know until it happens.

A couple week ago I lost all the computers. All of them in the repair shop, and all for the same problem, with the same solution, a new motherboard. Then it struck me that if I did not have an old time conventional radio like my TS-940SAT, me and my SDR radio would be up the creek, and be off the air for as long as the computers were down. But there must be some good somewhere. The only thing good is that I could install the Flex PowerSDR software [from my stick] onto any other computer, anywhere, and I am good to go on the air in 5 minutes. What is even more amazing is that given this Flex-ibility I can now become a ham radio entrepreneur and operate a ham radio rental service, by day or by night. If you have the FREE Flex radio PowerSDR software on your computer, I can rent you the hardware by the hour or day. So you don't have to shell out the eleven thousand plus VAT to buy the new Flex radio. Maybe this is something I can really give serious thought to for 2011 to get our hams on the air fast.

Ham radio in V4 has taken a turn for the better. At the AGM of the St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla Amateur Radio Society, founded on 12th April 1973, a new Executive committee was elected to serve for the next year or few. It is the kind of committee that I can live with, being comprised of all past presidents of the Society. Since last year, 2010, if not earlier, I said that this was one of the options we should consider, " the establishing of a task force of all the past presidents" to create a recovery plan for our ham radio society. I did not do any "hocus pocus" to ensure that this wish came through, but the "forces" came to our aid and today we have an Executive of past presidents, and co-opting the others past presidents, as is necessary. 

I have to make an emergency move now and will continue this blog later
[to be continued]

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