Setting up a new antenna design;
I call it a tri-element vertical.  Ten watts is almost always the name of the game here, and almost always on solar power.  A Kenwood TS-50 is my small claim to fame.  We are on the road now about 8 months out of the year and this is one of the many fine backyards we have been privileged to share.

(P.S. I am little surpised how shiny that head is on the back side, I usually don't get to see it.  Maybe I can use it as a signal mirror when times get rough..)

Studying for the next radio exam..

Photos courtesy of KG7WPJ
(my wife, Carol)

April 2018:

It has been suggested, with good cause, that I might want to update this page every few decades or so... so here I am!   We are on the road about 8 months out of the year now, but once in a while we come back to a place with electricity and a thermostat.  And so, here are a couple more photographs from that perspective, with the luxury of figuring out how many wires I can cram into the smallest space possible and then hide them from you at the same time.

And here is the antenna experiment project that continues to this day.  I see now that a more proper historic name for this style of antenna is that of an "umbrella antenna".  Essentially a top-loaded vertical using sloping radiators from the top.  This is a home base version of the project that evolved on the road trips; here I have the benefits of a more permanent mount and a fair amount of freedom with the space available.  I can get the portable version set up in about 10 minutes now; originally it used to take me an hour or two. The base antenna will tune easily on all bands from 10 to 160m; the portable version can tune easily from 10 to 80 meters. The fundamental resonant frequency of the antenna can now be designed  at will.  There are actually numerous points of resonance that occur, but the lowest frequency of resonance is of greatest interest to me.  I have now also modeled the antenna design within software and the radiation pattern seems highly favorable from my perspective.  Field experience supports the modeling process.

There is significant background noise in town that I am simply not used to compared to what happens in the road and field camps, and it presents an entire host of receiving challenges for me to work on.  I see that this electromagnetic pollution and soup is now commonplace and encountered by many of us in the town circuits.  In the process I have learned about DSL modems and how atrocious they can be; lack of shielding is an understatement in the case that I have examined here.  I am working with phased antenna noise cancellation projects with some level of success. Ironically there are more challenges that exist in town than occur along the nomadic route.

And yes, that is a pizza pan from the Dollar Store at the top of the antenna.  It is an extra large size in case I ever get hungry.  Let's just say it is a part of the experiment...

Now there is a Yaesu FT450D that is in the mix, along with the Kenwood TS-50.  Everything I do here and on the road is a low power operation; 80 watts is big juice for me compared to what I have learned to work with on the road.  So sometimes, I get to take advantage of the pleasures of a desk with plenty of buttons to push and books to read, but soon enough the nomad will always win out again.  And by the way, thanks to the kind folks in Quartzsite that administered an exam for me last year; that just means the learning is only starting.  These days, radios are a whole lot more fun, interesting, and reliable to me than computers are.  Low power operations, digital operations, and emergency communications are the hot topics foreseeable on this end for some time.  So expect more hamming rather than less in the future...

Best regards, from Clifford N0LKC