Our next antenna project: The Open Stub J Pole

Greetings!  Yesterday we penned a post covering a wide range of topics.  You can read it below this post.  One of the topics discussed putting a possible antenna above our roof.  Well, lo and behold, VVARA Stalwart Member Bob S. (WB6ODR) graciously stepped forward (electronically) to do a little online Elmering.  Bob sent an email saying:
"You talked on your web site, about needing a different antenna that might stand up to some weather.  May I suggest the OSJ (open stub j pole) dual band antenna from Arrow Antennas  http://www.arrowantennas.com/sub/jpole.html.  I made 3 of them and they are just great and sturdy.  I attached a .pdf of the home brew antenna.  I think Arrow only wants $39 or so for the antenna and it's almost not worth making yourself for that price.  Very sturdy and may hold up to whatever weather you subject it to."

The antenna  on the PDF to which Bob refers was created by Allen Lowe (N0IMW).  We filed the PDF on our Google Docs and you can click here to see it.

We swapped a couple of emails with Bob about the antenna.  The project calls for using 3/8th aluminum rod and therein lies a story.  Here is how we told the story to Bob:

"When I was assembling parts for that first home grown yagi, I was visiting Family down in Mesa in April,  I decided to prowl the scrap yards--it seems there are a LOT of scrap yards in Mesa.  Anyway, I found a 10-foot length of 1/4 inch aluminum for the yagi for $3.30 total.  Next to it was a bin of 3/8th 10-foot rods and I thought "what the heck," and bought one of them for $4.40.  Well, our truck only has a six foot bed so I took along a hack saw and randomly whacked away at the 3/8ths rod with no clue that I might ever need it for the project you sent along today.  By some miracle I whacked it off with only a few inches to spare for having the right length for this project.  Pure blind luck!!!!  Thought you'd enjoy that story."

Bob followed up with a cautionary tale, "Don't do like I did and start putting threads and assembly until you have studied the print.  I threaded the wrong piece, twice, it still works but the resonate frequency is a little off.  Like I said, it's a great antenna for a dual band and the mount is very versatile."

I told Bob I would post up here on the website about the project so I spent some time this morning before the net online researching the Open Stub J-Pole and found a lot of interesting and helpful material.  That's one of the great things about the World of HAM--amateur radio operators really enjoy helping other operators learn about their various projects.  I've never been part of a group of people who are so universally helpful.  It's awesome!

Here are two great high quality photos of the project prepared by Jeffrey Bell (N1BMX). You can click on the graphics to see a large version.  Note that Windows will resize the graphic to your screen and you will then need to click it again to see the full size version. Note also that the originals are over one meg each so they may take awhile if you wish to right click them and save them to your computer. (Additional notes are below the JPGs.)

You can read more about Jeffrey's project by visiting his website for this antenna:
http://www.n1bmx.com/blog/?p=97

Here are some other resources:

http://www.w4cll.com/ijpole.html
Chuck W4CLL

http://www.iw5edi.com/ham-radio/?j-pole-antennas,76
by Mike Walkington, VK1KCK

The Wikipedia on the J Pole
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-pole_antenna

THANKS, Bob, for getting me back on track to do another antenna project.  I have all the right materials and maybe even the right attitude to set forth on this project.  I appreciate your Elmering me into doing this.  We will keep you posted as the project unfolds this spring.  Hopefully, it will be a relatively speedy project.

Have a great day & Many Cheers!  73, jp

Late May Update

Periodically, we will do a blog post that is merely a discussion of "whazzup" with our HAM radio life.  After we took our road trip Friday The 13th, we've not been too busy with HAM stuff.  We have managed to check in every day with the Knobby Knee Net at 7 am (Arizona Time).  This net is conducted by the Verde Valley Amateur Radio Association.  The net's a total hot.  The more we listen in, the more we enjoy it.  Each operator has their own personality and interests, of course.  Over time, one begins to learn more about the "regulars" and what they are doing and thinking and so forth.  Everyone's behavior is so pleasant and polite.  It's really refreshing and we are very thankful for the miracle of Echo Link to be bale to check in ourselves and listen, too.  Sometimes we actually listen to the entire net which is often nearly two hours long.  Luckily, we can multi-task while we are listening so we're not just sitting there glued to the speakers.  I check in and the other participants often have something to say about my remarks.  I feel very welcome there on that net.  It's great!

I returned the ARRL General Study book to Gary W. who lives a few doors to the west of us.  We chatted about our mutaul neighbor Chuck A. who has his Technician license but isn't doing anything with it.  Gary agreed to give both Chuck and myself a tour of his radio shack this coming week.  I then talked with Chuck and asked him to participate so things are looking good in that direction.

I also did participate for the second time in the local Tuesday 9 pm net.  The operator KK7Q calls roll and those who are present on the air repeat their call signs.  This process generally takes less than 30 minutes.  It dawned on me this week that I ought to use a digital voice recorder to capture the roster of active call signs.  Then I could use QRZ to make my own roster of local club members.  The local club does not send out an Alpha or Call sign roster like the VVARA does.  I really would like to know who's who here in Idaho Falls.

I've been thinking about Terance C.'s suggestion to put up a fixed antenna here at the house.  It would have to be something that could come down during the winter when we're gone so we wouldn't worry about it toppling into the roof of the house.  The only practical place to position the antenna is in a location that is a major ice dam area during the winter so its existence during the cold season isn't practical.  The more I think about putting the ground plane there, the more I like the idea.  We shall see.

I need to find out for sure if and when there is going to be a General test coming up in June.  Sadly, it's difficult to get information about such things here.  I'd like to upgrade to General.  Speaking of upgrades, I did change my address on the FCC database and they sent me a new and updated hard copy license.  I need to go get that laminated.

KK7Q (Terry T.) has offered to use his SWR meter to analyze the ground plane.  I doubt that I will do that unless and until I erect it above the house.  I've also decided not to pursue DSSTV as I need to spend the money on other stuff.  Although I am very intrigued by DSSTV, I know that I won't really be using it hardly at all, if ever, so there's no point in spending the money for stuff that will simply sit around.

Finally, I went to the local Motorola shop on First Street.  The guy there takes care of a lot of two-way radio communication needs for local businesses. He doesn't carry HAM radio stuff, per se.  But he DOES stock RG58 coax cable and all the connectors you can imagine.  He will put together custom cables for a reasonable fee of perhaps $10 per cable plus the cost of the coax and connectors.  That's real nice to know.  He seems like a cheerful and friendly guy.

Well, that's my late May update.  Have a Great Day & Many Cheers!  73, jp

MFJ-1714 vs. Yagis & The Groundplane

As everyone who reads this blog knows, we've been totally preoccupied with building an effective Yagi antenna to use during our backcountry travels.  We have no idea the amount of hours (and money) we've thrown into The Yagi Project.  Well, we have to admit it's been a relative failure and we're abandoning it at least for now.  Why?

In a nutshell, the MFJ-1714 Long Ranger half wave telescoping antenna works better than our homegrown Yagi, takes up less space than the ET-style groundplane and is a breeze to use in seconds.  It reaches out as far and produces excellent TX and RX.  Frankly, we only discovered this by accident-- quite literally.

We built our homemade groundplane on Tuesday, finishing it up at 6 pm that day.  We ran a preliminary test from our backyard and then took it out to what we call Windmill Ridge east of town Wednesday afternoon.  For some reason it simply wouldn't work.  And we were having trouble getting the Yagi to work as well.  We were very frustrated and packed up our stuff and drove off.  When we were almost home, we realized we left the groundplane out in the field at our test site.  So, we turned around to fetch it.  When we arrived at the site, we looked and looked and couldn't find it.  Sadly, we finally found it.  We ran over it when we left and we totally flattened it.

As we sat rather dejectedly there, we thought we might as well try out little MFJ-1714 Long Ranger.  We popped it on the HT and put in the freq for the Jump Off repeater 65 miles away.  Much to our abject amazement, N7TDC picked up our signal and we carried on a great QSO on three freqs.  I was amazed at the power of the MFJ-1714 Long Ranger.  I hadn't even thought it possible the little thing would be so powerful and had never bothered to test it here!

The following day I decided to go west of town and try to hit a repeater 69 miles far to the south with the Yagis.  No luck.  At that point, I thought, "Well, why not try the MFJ-1714 Long Ranger again."  Much to my surprise once again, it produced a great signal and we had a great QSO with W7GIB in Downey, Idaho!  At that point, I was sold and convinced.  I went home and pulled the Yagis out of the Samurai and kissed them goodbye.
Friday (yesterday), we did a 164 mile backcountry road trip through some remote parts of Southeast Idaho.  While on the dirt portions of this long route, we saw only a grand total of 3 vehicles---so we're talking remote here.  While out in the boonies, I decided to test the HT and the MFJ-1714 Long Ranger once again off Sedgewick Peak and, lo and behold, KF7LUB answered from downtown Logan, Utah!  (QSO with KF7LUB shown in photo at top of blog.)  You can click here for an account of the trip.

At this point I no longer plan on carrying a Yagi on our road trips--unless it can be shown to me that a Yagi can outperform the MFJ-1714 Long Ranger.  I am very pleased with this antenna and it fits perfectly in my "go kit" along with the GPS and the digital voice recorder, old-fashioned compass, various maps and freq lists, etc.  My next blog post will show the contents of this kit.

Many readers of this blog will undoubtedly remember the opening scene of the Lone Ranger's TV series.  The Masked Man is riding his white horse while blazing away at imaginary villains.  The words to this song were: "A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi-Ho Silver--the Lone Ranger."  Now, whenever I pull out the MFJ telescoping antenna, I head the melody to that theme song and I've morphed the lyrics to:

"A fiery handheld with the speed of light, a cloud of TX 

and a hearty Hi-Ho Signal--The Long Ranger!"

By the way, I did get the groundplane back up and running the following morning and therein lies a story.  I set it up in the front yard and ran an antenna check via the local ERARC repeater on Iona Hill (146.64).  N7TDC answered and we had a great QSO.  He became curious about the groundplane and said he would like to build one.  Since I had a lot of leftover welding rod, I said come on by and pick it up.  Sure enough, Terance C. stopped by within the hour and we had a wonderful FTF meeting and chattered together about all manner of HAM topics.  THANKS, Terance, I am looking forward to meeting with you again.  The photos below are of the groundplane on Wednesday before is became a FLAT groundplane as shown in the last photo!

Have a great day, Many Cheers & 73!  jp

New Antenna

Here is the new antenna we built today.  It is a 1/4 wave simple groundplane antenna.  We saw a version of this antenna Saturday at KK7Q's house.  Terry T. graciously sent us a PDF of the plans as they appear in Chapter 18, Page 38 of the ARRL Antenna book.  We will put up a more detailed description of this antenna tomorrow.  Thanks to Gary W. AE7LE for helping us check the antenna this evening via the ERARC 146.64 repeater on Iona Hill.

Hollow Arrow Yagi A SUCCESS!

N7NUU conducted a test of his two ounce Yagi antenna about 0930 May 9.  He used both half watt and 5.5 watt power on his IC V-8 HT.  We received his TX very clear up here in Idaho via our Echo Link connection to the VVARA Mingus repeater.  (N7NUU's lineal distance from the repeater was 22 miles.) The outdoor photo has minimal contrast so it is next to impossible to see the .025 music wire elements of the antenna.  See lower photo for a better understanding of this lightweight backpacking antenna.  (Photo by Robin W. N7OAU)

Here is a rendition of the original hollow hunting arrow Yagi antenna as described here by Paul Dryer (KD5IVP). Click here for the original hollow arrow design by Paul Dryer.  His construction diagram is shown below.

N7NUU used all of the "ingredients" as specified in the design and finished his first edition on Mother's Day. May 9th, we tested it out on the VVARA Mingus repeater to an Echo Link connection in Idaho Falls.

Great meeting of the ERARC

The May meeting of the Eagle Rock Amateur Radio Club was great in many ways.  First off, it was well attended and a majority of those present came early to talk with one another.  Second, the meeting was held in a room that contained a lot of radio equipment.  We don't know the usage or backstory on all that technology but it certainly wasn't a sterile room. Third, the meeting started on time and the business end of the meeting was delightfully short and sweet.  The club has a total treasury of $6500 and appears willing and able to support worthy radio-related projects.  Fourth, the featured presentation was precisely and exactly what I was hoping to learn: How to Program a Han Held Transceiver (HT).  Bob S. (KB7VWC) the presenter really knew his stuff and passed it on to the group in an enjoyable and memorable way.  Fourth, the followup presentation was exciting stuff--the Bone & Back marathon and DSSTV.  In a nutshell, you can interface an HT with a netbook and send really high quality digital photos over the radio airwaves from a remote location to any given enabled recipient location.  Club members will be doing it at the Bone event. The club and one of its very active members, Terry T. (KK7Q) is helping members grapple with the learning curve during a weekly one hour net on 146.94.  THANK YOU, TERRY! We will be chattering more about this intriguing topic here soon.  Lastly, about half of the members stayed around after the meeting's close to exchange more thoughts, ideas and tech tips.  Bob S., The HT program presenter, helped me one-on-one to FINALLY learn how to properly program my Icom IC V-8 HT.  I have been extremely frustrated with my lack of success in this aspect of the HT's operation.  I was expertly coached to prepare a 3x5 card with specific instructions in my own words on how to leap this hurdle.  I came right home tonight and converted the card into the learning aid below.  It was a great gift of HAM Elmering tonight and I am most appreciative of the assistance.  THANK YOU, BOB!
Terry (left) and Bob (right) are shown in the photo above during Bob's HT programming presentation.  I can hardly wait to dive into the DSSTV functionality.  Many Cheers & 73, jp

If at first....

 ....you don't succeed, try, try again. 

I'm sure we all grew up with that motto.  I know it's ingrained in my brain.  Just because we may not succeed on any given day is no reason to drop the ball.  Sooooo....here's what happened today.

We were studying various HAM-related topics and mulling over some emails we received regarding yesterday's experience.  By and by, we stumbled onto a much more complete and thorough listing of Idaho's 2 meter repeaters.  This list includes ALL of the local nearby repeaters in the vicinity of Idaho Falls.  We had heard the Eagle Rock Amateur Radio Club (ERARC) maintained a repeater on Iona Hill northwest of Idaho Falls.  Sure enough, that machine's frequency was on the list we found this morning.

Naturally, we had to do a radio check from our front yard here in the middle of the city.  We used our MJK Long Ranger 2 meter half wave antenna and came through loud and clear. Terance C. (N7TDC) in Rigby received our signal and we exchanged greetings.  Before signing off, he said that he had heard me do the antenna check off Sawtell yesterday but I hadn't heard him.  Frankly, I was shocked and alost speechless but I thanked N7TDC and we both signed off the Iona Hill ERARC repeater.

Well, that really started some wheels spinning and I began reviewing the frequencies I had programmed into the radio yesterday.  Although I can't be certain, I suspect I goofed up on the input of the PL tone yesterday.  Nevertheless, it was amazing to me that somehow my signal had gone over or around Iona Hill itself.  The hill is an old volcano and sits a few hundred feet above the Snake River Plain.  I'd guess it's 2-3 miles diameter at its base and it's highest elevation is around 5500 feet (400 feet higher than my previous antenna test site).

Naturally, I packed up everything and headed out for Iona Hill to see if I could reach Sawtell.  Never having been there before I took the wrong road and drove deep into remote farm country onto the northeast side of the hill before deciding to stop.  While I was out there, I figures I might as well try Sawtell from the flanks of Iona Hill to replicate my previous test site minus the presence of the hill.  My location out in the farmland was about 7 miles north of the previous antenna test site and only 120 feet higher.   Therefore, the distance to Sawtell was 72.9 miles instead of 80. (43 33.254 -111 52.920)

Using Trusty Elmer Don Butler's advice, I corrected my bearing and used the Suzuki as a windbreak at my back.  (The wind was then blowing to near 40 mph.)  My first contact off Sawtell was very poor.  I did make out the call sign: KE7OGS and that comes up as Dee O. in Springville, Utah.  Presumably, the Intermountain Intertie helped route my signal down to Dee's local area.  Dee said my signal was very poor, about 40 percent intelligible.

At first I was disappointed and signed off and began to put the antenna down when another operator recognized my test signal.  I did not get his call sign but we carried on a clear conversation. He said my signal was "full quieting" and said it sounded like I was standing right next to him.  He was 25 miles south of Idaho Falls on Interstate 15.  So, consequently, we now believe that we have obtained a clear signal from 73 miles distant to the Sawtell repeater.  Our Yagi was pointed directly at the Sawtell bearing and Iona Hill lay between me and the operator on I-15.  There would be no other way for him to receive our signal on that frequency.  So, we have partial success today!!

After breaking down our gear, we found a way to drive to the top of Iona Hill.  Up there the wind was probably blowing a steady 40 with higher gusts.  We attemped to reach the Mount Harrison repeater with no luck.  Frankly, it was all we could do to hold onto the antenna, much less keep it aimed.  Meanwhile, there had been a recent (last year probably) wildfire up there and the wind was filling our eyes with fine volcanic dust.  Not fun.  So, we packed it up and bagged it for the day and drove home to a nice hot lunch.

All-in-all, it was a very interesting day.  I am truly happy to have validated our ability to reach the Sawtell repeater.  I couldn't understand how we could get out 63.4 miles to Jump Off and not be able to reach Sawtell.  Don believes it's the topography but clearly someone heard us yesterday so maybe the local lay of the land didn't have as much affect as we would have suspected.

It was blowing too hard to set up the tripod for a photo.  The tripod would probably have blown over to Wyoming by now.  The two photos embedded here are just for representative purposes.  The first one below is our first site on the north flank of Iona Hill.  Sawtell would be approx. where the arms of the "X" cross. The second is a general view of the busy electronics site atop Iona Hill.

Thanks for reading!  Cheers & 73, jp

Faces of the VVARA Mingus Repeater

Repeaters are the "bread and butter" of the 2 meter world.  Who knows how many thousands of 2 meter repeaters dot the world landscape.  Many such repeaters are maintained by various amateur radio clubs and the tireless volunteers who make those clubs tick.  We are very fortunate to belong to one such club: The Verde Valley Amateur Radio Club (VVARA).    The VVARA repeater is located up on top of Mongus Mountain at one of the electronic sites there. My wife and I love Mingus Mountain and we go there fairly often.  In fact, we were up in that neck of the woods this past February 11th.  You can click here to read about that trip. 

The VVARA Mingus repeater will always hold a special memory for me as it was on this machine that I made my very first radio contact after receiving my FCC call sign.  I've never forget the stage fright I had when pressing the TX button to begin to speak.

Sometimes we forget that repeaters are just a reflection of the human faces that maintain and operate them.  So, today, we'd like to say thanks to the most recent group of VVARA members who trekked up the mountain April 30 to provide some routine maintenance for the trusty repeater.  Without the people you see above (and many other VVARA members as well), we wouldn't be checking in on the morning Knobby Knee Net.  Our Arizona neighbor and Dear Friend N7NUU is fond of speculating that the VVARA repeater is the most reliable such repeater up on Mingus and, in an emergency, would probably be operative longer than even the municipal public service agency repeaters located there.

So, THANKS, GUYS, for all you do to keep this machine up and running--we appreciate your volunteer service!!!!!!

Left to right in the photo above are: Bob Thompson (KC8BOB), Steve Pearson (KC7TIL), Jim Beck (KJ7NW), Mike Wingate (WA6LSE) and Bob Kiekenapp (KØCKE). The photo was taken on a tripod by KØCKE (AKA: Capt. Bob). KØCKE is one of our most active and energetic HAM Elmers. He's really helped us in so many ways. THANKS, CAPT. BOB!

Cheers & 73, jp

Finally: Failure

We finally hit the wall on how far our little 5.5 watt hand held VHF transceiver will transmit.  Encouraged by our success in reaching 63.4 miles to the Jump Off Peak repeater, today we attempted to reach Mount Harrison (122 miles) and Sawtell Peak (80 miles). (Click here for an interactive map shown in the screen shot above.)  Finally, we enjoyed failure.  We could raise nary a peep from either repeater.  For Sawtell, we even relocated our test site to two other locations with no luck.  So, for all practical purposes, our effective range now stands at the "high water mark" of 63.4 miles with the homegrown Yagi and 52 miles with the Long Ranger.

That's not too shabby but we are itching to do better.  We suspect our bearing for both repeaters may have been off a few degrees.  Also, the wind was blowing hard this afternoon, gusting into the mid-20 mph range.  It was very difficult to hold the Yagi antenna steady.

We are going to calculate a much more precise bearing for each of those repeaters from our test sites and give it another try after we also learn how to create a stable mount for the antenna.  We won't quit trying to reach those repeaters until we have exhausted all options, even if it means rebuilding the Yagi again with much closer plumb and square alignment and tolerances.

One of the net benefits of today's effort was that we really took our organization to the next level.  We used printed checklists and filled in all the appropriate data fields for each attempted test.  We also brought along a digital voice recorder and turned it on when we began to transmit our test signal.  In this manner, we will be able to keep much better logs of our various tests on this antenna (and others in the future).

Even though we are thoroughly enjoying our failure today, we have only just begun!  Tomorrow's another day!

Cheers & 73, jp

Yagi Test #3

We went back to the same spot described in the blog post below after lunch on May 1.  We prepped our 3rd PVC "T" and aligned the elements much better plumb and square.  There's still more work to do in that regard but we are coming along well.  We also now hold the antenna in the proper polarity alignment.  Our Online HAM Elmer, Don Butler (N4UJW & The Ham Universe website) got quite a chuckle out of improper aiming of the antenna during Test #2.  He's right, that antenna works a heck of a lot better when it's held correctly!  Don today put online an article about using the protractor to align drill holesin a piece of PVC pipe.  You can click here to check it out.

We transmitted an "antenna check" message to the Jump Off Peak repeater.  The first response was too garbled to decipher.  The second response was so clear it was as if the operator was standing beside us carrying on a FTF conversation.  We are 99% certain his call sign is K6ROV.  However, in looking at QRZ, the person with that call sign is registered in Metro Los Angeles at a Hawthorne, California address.  How in the world we could reach California from an obscure Idaho repeater is beyond me.

Sadly, I forgot to ask his whereabouts and equipment.  From now on, I'm using a checklist each time I conduct one of these tests.  I'm also going to bring a digital voice recorder to capture the transmissions so I can study them later in more detail.  K6ROV said I was coming through very clear and complimented me on the antenna project.  Well, live and learn!  We will keep at this project until we not only have a workable antenna but also some proficient on-air procedures with which to conduct ourselves.

Below is a screen shot of a Google Map we made showing the signal test site in relationship to the city's most visible landmark--the water tower.  You can click here for the actual zoomable Google Map.

73, jp