Video

Thank you for the information! It's hard to find real people using awesome and affordable gear that new hams can use and relate to!

Anyone getting audio on youtube?

Hello Son, good thing your doing there, I’m actually hearing your voice. Don’t hear it much. 😊

No D star net tonight?

Happy 2 year Channel anniversary!🎉🎉

I knew I should have set a alarm for this. I missed the stream!

So guess I missed it, what’s the term falling Derrick mean?, doesn’t look like a literal falling Derrick to me

badass!

You really don’t need an antenna analyzer to to tune a Hamstick of your transceiver has a built in SWR measurement capability. For 40 meters start out at the high end of the band with the antenna stinger at its longest position in the collet at the top of the lower section. Incrementally shorten the stinger in half inch increments while putting RF into the antenna and monitoring the SWR. If you have a radio that does a frequency sweep SWR plot routine like current Icoms like the 7300 and 7100 , so much the better, use a 10 kHz step for all HF bands. When you are getting close to resonance you will start to see the SWR reading drop. Continue adjusting the antenna until the SWR starts going up, then return to the position that results in the lowest SWR. Measure and record the stinger length in inches from the tip to the top of the collet on the lower part of the stick. If you have properly located and installed and properly grounded the antenna you should have no problem attaining an SWR minimum of at least 1.5:1. See the details below on how to best locate and install the antenna. Once you have found the SWR minimum point at the top a a band, shift the transmit frequency down in nominal 10 or 20 kHz increments and incrementally adjust the stinger longer as necessary to hit minimum SWR at each increment, and record the stinger length for each frequency increment. Keep the table for future reference to set up the antenna properly for whatever frequency you wish to operate on. On my 40meter stick minimum SWR at 7140 kHz requires about 2 1/2 inches more stinger length compared to minimum SWR at 7290 kHz. About 3 more inches relative to the stinger length at 7140 kHz is needed at 7030 kHz for CW band operation. Locate the antenna feedpoint as high as possible on the vehicle body so that no portion of the antenna above the feedpoint is anywhere near parallel vehicle structure such as an SUV lift gate or a truck fender/tailgate - bumper mounting should be avoided at all costs, also avoid mounting the base of an antenna right behind the cab of a truck at the fender line. Always try for a roof mount at the left rear corner of an SUV or station wagon or at the left rear corner of a pickup truck with the antenna base at the top of the fender/tailgate line. Ensure that the shield side of the feed line is securely bonded to directly to the vehicle body not more than a few inches away from the bottom of the antenna. DO NOT use a mag mount base without providing a bonding jumper to the vehicle structure to the shield side of the feed point at HF. There is insufficient capacity coupling between the mag mount discs and the vehicle at HF, antenna will be very inefficient. My favorite way to put a Hamstick on a station wagon or SUV is to mount the antenna base either on left rear of a roof rack rail, and run the feedline up along the weatherstripping on the left side of the lift gate frame so it’s hidden with the lift gate shut. Break out the center conductor from the feed line and run it up to the bottom of the antenna over the weather stripping, add a layer or two of electrical tape over the existing center conductor insulation to prevent chafing against the lift gate when it is closed. Try to keep the length of the center conductor from the breakout with the shield to the antenna at no more than 6 inches if possible. If it is any longer you may have trouble resonating a stick on higher frequencies such as at 10 and 6 meters. On lower bands a few more inches isn’t significant. At the breakout point of the shield and center conductor at the lift gate opening upper left, bond the shield to the body structure with a ring terminal and starwasher and a stainless steel sheet metal screw into a hole drilled into the lift gate opening structure. Be sure to use a Dremel tool abrasive wheel or equivalent to get down to bare metal around the hole for the width of the ring terminal and washer. The grounding point and feed line will be out of sight with the lift gate shut. On every Hamstick or for that matter any other short mobile antenna I have used for over 20 years on 40 meters and lower frequencies , shunt reactance must be applied across the feed point to get the SWR minimum below 1.5/1. 500 pf on 40, 500 or 1000 pf on 80, 1500 pf on 160. Many but not all Hamstick type antennas note this in their installation instructions. Don’t neglect this. A shunt inductor may be used instead of a shunt cap, I’m currently using six close spaced turns of No. 16 insulated stranded wound on a prescription pill bottle for matching my 40 meter Hamstick on the roof of our 2017 Volvo XC60, gives a slightly better match than the 500’pf shunt cap. The shunt coil has the added advantage of providing a static drain path to ground for the antenna. Good luck! And 73 de Chris AJ1G Stonington CT

Your antenna is closer to the metal vehicle body..

New subscriber here. I am using my nanoVNA tuning my 4 shark sticks. I am having trouble getting them in the SSB portion of any bands (10, 20, 40, 80). Do you use a wider scan than the band of interest? Oh yeah,I am using and tuning with the quick disconnect on the truck. NOTE: I have not bonded the metal of the truck together which may be part of my problem. Any advice for this noobie? All the best 73 de KI5HXM Yes, I think she should get her ham license.

Well it's been a year has your daughter gotten her ham license yet because inquiring-minds-want-to-know?

Yes your daughter should get a Ham license

Good job with your granddaughter passing the ham radio test! What type of handheld does she have?

Missed the net tonight. Had dinner at Hog Tide, and it ran longer than what I thought it would.

Received my vanity call sign this morning! KC0OJI. Was KF0NIG

Thanks everyone for checking in. Great to hear from you all. 73.

I believe people visit parks to escape that sort of thing. Call me names if you want, but I feel very strongly about it.

So does the derick bring up the tower or is there a cable attached to the tower? Nice setup. I run that Mosley here but only at 32’. Would like to try 64’ to see how much better it performs. I’m uncertain of the stress points of rohn tower

is this on the Linked Repeater System? I know yer call from POTA...Im in the Houston area for the summer. K8ROY

hahahahaha, Leave it to Bob to end it perfectly hahahahaha. Sorry I missed it. Was at Dinner and Totally forgot till I seen my reminder but it was too late.

Good job tonight. Have a great week to all.

Ya, they say them northern lights, moved more south. Would have been cool to see.

Hello , Enjoying this.

Greetings from the inter web. Zach's Dad!

Thank you. I have been long neglected in my renewal of my FCC.

That looked and sounded awesome

Great net, Glad I could catch it mobile. Zach breaks another record. Great job! 73.

Yap she very patient and doing great.

sorry I missed it

I’m in the process of trying to tune a 40 meter shark stick with very little luck. The best I have so far is 1.8 at 7.340, anything in the band is 2.0 and up but it’s 1.1 across the entire 10 meter band go figure. How has your effort been ?

Well I guess I made it! lol Thanks for all the help getting set up.

Looking good Wes!!

Sweet. I'm itching even more to get my tower up. Especially since I can't make it into the clubs D-Star repeater. I'm hoping 40+ more feet for the GP-9 will do the trick. Lookin good man!

Awesome video Wes looks great.

I like pota on 15 and 20. 73 from Spain, Europe. EA8DIO. How many watts are you running on 10.

What a Net!!! Excellent Record Breaker!!! Sorry I couldn't watch the live, but Glad I could get checked in. Zac's got his work cut out for him next week!!!

Here's a bit of a secret.. as soon as you start pushing that rod down inside the coiled fiberglass, it changes the reactants of the antenna and creates an inductive reactants load rather than an inductive load. When you want to shorten your antenna you would be much better off to actually cut the pieces off and avoid allowing it to slide down inside the fiberglass. The whole idea of the whip sliding down inside the fiberglass is actually for storage purposes not for tuning purposes except for fine-tuning where you only allow up to 2 in to fall down inside the fiberglass tube. Source; I am an RF engineer.

Man Sorry I missed this net Wes. Was outside doing Farm/Yard work, and forgot all about it. CAN NOT WAIT UNTIL APPLE BUTTER DAYS IN MT. VERNON it's going to be a blast. Will be there for Breakfast, and helping set up too.

I've had my FT DX 10 now for about 2 weeks and I am impressed with the receiving on it. My 991a is also a great rig but this thing is at the next level...73

Great first activation. I am also a new ham have had my general for about a month and a half and I was so nervous calling cq on my first pota activation. I recently purchased a set of shark hamsticks and a mfj trimag mount I want to use to activate from my truck. Having a quick setup will let me get some weekday activations in after work. 73

Thanks for the video man!

I just installed a Diamond 40 meter hamstick on my truck. Finally got it to the point where my FTDX-10 can tune it. Got some POTA contacts today. I hear grounding is important so I will attach a ground strap to the frame.

Great video. I've been looking at a couple car audio EQ's for a while now. I'm trying to get a better microphone setup for my IC-7100. Right now I'm just using the stock hand mic. The mixer I had took a power surge and quit on me so I've been eye balling that Pheonix or Fenix pro (however you spell it lol) I've got most of the cables I need and even a foot switch that I made, but I'm going to have to either make a custom cable for the 7100 or order one from Heil. Anyway, glad you were able to get it figured out at least mostly. sounded good on video. See ya soon. 73's.

Happy Hamiversary and cool net I'm gonna have to do my best to check into that one I keep missing it somehow.

Congrats, and happy hamiversary!!

To slowwwwwwwww

Standing with back to the camera lol