15-JAN-2005
Wall quick-disconnect panel
This is a must for us HAMs living in the "lightning capital of the US". I (with the help of a good friend, Chris Lyons) made it out of an old "ONE-WAY" road sign -- Don't worry, I got it from the City of Fort Myers' discarded stock with permission.
I know it's all scratched up, but then again, it's 15 years old. With push-on pl-259's, it takes me less than 30 seconds to isolate the entire shack! Most of the cabling is pulled in these pics so I could show-off the panel.
08-JAN-2005
A homemade 1:1balun
A close-up of the balun. The bracket holding the SO-239 is
no longer needed as testing is done. It will be removed,
along with the red-n-white, haphazzard radial mock-up.
They were replaced with a perminent assembly cut to
1/4 wave (102 inches each).
01-JAN-2005
The Fully-Assembled Gamma Rod
The gamma rod completed. The white tip is just a plumming fitting plugged with a screw to keep water out. The red is pretty electrical tape. The base insulator was made from a flat piece of plastic paint stirrer stick.
01-JAN-2005
gamma-rod stuff
This is the next attempt at building a stable gamma match.
It was designed after an example found in ARRL's website
from a two element beam. It didn't werk too well on my 5/8
vertical tho, but I posted pics as it probably werks great
on the driven element of a beam.
It was worth a try.
30-MAR-2009
Gamma Rod capacitor end
The end of this gamma rod has been modified by making an inch long insert out of solid 3/8" aluminum rod stock,shoving it into the end, then tapping a hole thru it (10-24) so that the center conductor of my coax could be attached directly to it. This method reduces a lot of line loss and should remain electrically sound much longer.
30-MAR-2009
A simple coax switch.
Three SO-239 coax connectors, an aluminum enclosure, a 12VDC relay and a 3-prong mic jack yields a nice remotely-triggered coax switch to switch my beam from vertical to horizontal.
The N/O contacts are for horizontal,while the N/C contacts are for the vertical.
The relay (a "R10-E1-2Y" DPDT) is out of an old 350 watt mobile brick. It should hold-up fine to that level, if not higher. The aluminum case acts as the shield, so no internal shielding is required. My only regret is that I didn't put another relay in there for my omni ground plane.
29-MAR-2009
Gamma rod?
OK... I have no clue why i posted this pic here, but it must be in order to link to a forum post or some such rot -- so i'll just leave it here.
