Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
Check Mom’s accounts
Fix mom’s printer working
File estate taxes.
Research Lawyer for Arizona
Gift for Camryn.
Tag renewal is in glove compartment.
Prayers
Children saved.
Solve Arizona Probate
Children health
Our Health
Wisdom
Our sleeping habits
Help for Larry and myself.
Safe trip to Blairsville
Planning to Ohio
Planning for mom’s estate.
Court Witness
Monday I meet the guys on the repeater every weekday at 7:30AM for about 30 minutes. Kathy and I spend a little time in the morning getting organized at 8-8:30 (Mostly Doctors and Meals)
Areo care called us about 9AM to confirm my 2PM apt to get my new CPAP. Talked to my daughter for a couple hours to plan her move to Great Falls ND in July. Took a nap before my apt at the Doc. It’s an hour drive to the doctor’s office, arrived at 13:45 They gave me a new CPAP without having to sit through their mandatory class since I’ve had one for 10 years. Got home about 3:30 and my daughter wanted to go to dinner with us at 5:30 She sent a message at 4:30 that she’d be at the restaurant at 5.
We got home at 7:30 and I met the guys on the GARS NET which lasts about 20 minutes. The ARES net meets at 8:15 for about 15 minutes. I spent some time looking for a Yeasu 7100 without much luck. With all the digital being used I want to make sure that the HF radio I get supports those modes with as little modifications as possible. ICOM 7100 seems to be the middle of the road. I had to attach my new CPAP to the online RESMED portal that monitors my sleep. (Which is just the new S/N) Packed up the old machine and attached the new machine to my mask.
I had to modify the doctors settings of 6-16 mm H2O to 11-16 mm H2O. If the machine starts at 6 mm H2O the mask is pretty tight against my face until the pressure gets over 10mm H2O. The machine normally arrives at 14 mm H2O during the night. This machine had a strong plastic smell when I went down, I don’t remember that with previous machines. (I dug out the manuals, there’s no “Break In” procedure either.) I used my old tank, hoses and mask so the only new component was the machine. The insurance pays $45/Month rent for 14 months, then the machine is ours. The Wife gets her new machine in August.
Tuesday Entered info for yesterday in my blog. Checked my radio for today’s NET. Grocery Shopping HRO trip for a 710 radio.
Wednesday Received documents for Arizona Land.
Thursday Going over documents looking for errors Checked in with Paul (10:00)
My new 7″ Tablets, old 5″ ones are now a security risk and 10″ is too big.
Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey They shipped today, that makes 4
Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
Check Mom’s accounts
Fix mom’s printer working
File estate taxes.
Research Lawyer for Arizona
Run generators
Gift for Camryn.
Sign form for cabin.
Received $500.00 Fron Georgia Taxes.
Received $ from 2020 Federal taxes
Emissions for van 22 May Tag renewal is in glove compartment.
Memorial Day Parade
Upgraded all my home routers today, that took me about 2 hours with all twelve wireless/VPN routers. All six VPN tunnels are up and running, we watched TV over one of them on our last trip to the mountains. 🙂
Created a new “Octopus” for powering our personal devices. It runs on one 18V 36W power supply *Wall Wart. The micro-USB DC inverters can provide 3A @ 5V and can be located quite a way from the power supply.
This is what the desk looked like using the previous version of the Octopus that terminated every lead with a connector. Yes, that’s a AT&T slimline phone with our home supplied from a white Majic Jack Plus that’s next to the wireless router.
Took the VAN in for its first emissions test, the gas cap failed. Got a new one and brought the operator lunch. All set for renewing the plate in July, with my HAM call sign. 🙂
Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
Check Mom’s accounts
Fix mom’s printer working
File estate taxes.
Run generators
Received $500.00 Fron Georgia Taxes.
Received $ from 2020 Federal taxes
Emissions for van 22 May
State Park pass.
Plans for truck competition.
Spent the week up in Blairsville Ga in a two-person cabin. We drive the van up and brought the kitchen sink including a portable refrigerator on our first trip.
Cannot do stairs with the refrigerator, ground floor or have an elevator.
We don’t need a huge inventory of fruit on our next trip.
We MUST disable the camera security before we arrive home the next time.
Brought a little too many clothes.
Wash cloths and towels were very handy.
Brought too many eggs.
Vogel state park turned out to be very helpful as a rest stop. Need to apply for a state park pass with my military ID.
Need a large tire beach wagon to move the refrigerator.
Small tubs were also handy for pills and bathroom supplies.
Heated throws were pretty handy.
Need to bring solar generator for the Wife’s CPAP.
Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
Check Mom’s accounts
Fix mom’s printer working
File estate taxes.
Call lawyer for Arizona at 2PM
Run generators
Gift for Camryn.
Sign form for cabin.
Received $500.00 Fron Georgia Taxes.
Received $ from 2020 Federal taxes
Emissions for van 22 May
Every new ham needs three things. 1. A dual band Handy Talkie. To listen to their transmissions 2. A Mobile 2M radio. To use as a base station to get on the air right away. 3. A SWR meter. To check the setup on their antennas.
The second thing I’ve noticed is decoupling the RF riding down the coax from the antenna was a LOT bigger influence than anyone was suggesting. I was amazed at how well a vertical antenna can be matched by playing with the radials underneath the antenna. (Like no reflected reading on the SWR meter.) Also, the mast has an effect on the radial length for some reason. (They were roughly 1/4 wavelength on the taller mast.)
Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
Check Mom’s accounts
Fix mom’s printer working
File estate taxes.
Hire a lawyer for Arizona.
Run generators
My station ground into my “Cave” required a little more effort than I had planned. The ground loop around the homestead had several breaks in it, I decided to make it one contiguous piece of wire this time. The hole above was already made through the wall by the AT&T installers who drilled through the bottom plate of the wall to install DSL years ago. I still need to seal the hole and bury the wire.
Finally got my coax with lightning protection and grounded.
Check temperatures for Pahrump pump house every week.
Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
Check Mom’s accounts
Fix mom’s printer working
File estate taxes.
Hire a lawyer for Arizona.
Run generators
Pull RG213 through attic to cave.
The van doesn’t get driven much, maybe two 5 mile trips on Sunday to church and back. I am getting worried about the battery not having enough time to recharge. I’ve connected my yard’s solar panels to a Solar Charge Controller to apply about 1/2 amp charge during the day.
The white wire on the bottom is to reduce the wear on the door seal and to have a break-away connection if I forget to disconnect it. (I had previously driven our cars with the wire attached and tore through the door seal.)
Cleaned up the weeds on the fence today.
Well, the new antenna is up. I really don’t like the SWR of 2 though. The base of the antenna is a MUCH better design with the cable connections protected under a hood of sorts. The receive sensitivity doesn’t seem to have improved much if any.
The antenna claims to be a 6/8 wave C-Load(2m) antenna, which I assume has a capacitor in series with the radiating element to make it appear as 50 ohms.
I had to add radials to reduce the SWR below 2:1. After cutting almost 3 inches off 1/2 inch at a time I ended up with 13″ radials and a SWR of 1.2:1. (200MW reflected) I don’t know yet why the SWR went up a little with the addition of 50′ of coax?
Now this looks a little better with the 2M radials. (Not much, but every little bit counts.)
Check temperatures for Pahrump pump house every week.
Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
Check Mom’s accounts
Fix mom’s printer working
File estate taxes.
Hire a lawyer for Arizona.
Run generators
Pull RG213 through attic to cave.
I had removed the lining of the door to facilitate closing the window after it failed. I know how badly moisture can ruin a vehicle from previous broken windows.
To remove this panel it required releasing the two handles holding the window AND supporting the window in a raised position until I could get this panel back in place.
This is the old hardware that I am about to replace. There weren’t too many bolts, and it wasn’t terribly difficult.
The most difficult part of finishing the door was getting the window clips back into their holes under the window. I ended up using a pair of wire cutters as pliers to push the clips behind the glass.
I measured the voltage between my house ground and the coax shield and it was 6VDC.
When I first mounted this antenna I did have a 6AWG wire running from the antenna to the house grounds. I had to steal that ground wire to ground the antenna on the 25’ pole. *Which is where I originally planned on returning it too. I’ve been fighting with the poor design of the antenna base ever since I got this antenna. The base (Without the ground plate) seems commonly used to mount whip antennas on vehicles. I also had plans to ground the radio, but alas I have been using my time with moving / modifying this silly 5/8 wave antenna.
The ground was left off the antenna so that I could evaluate how much RF remained at the base of the antenna. I had also put a loop in the coax and a ferrite toroid core around the coax at the base of the antenna to lessen/isolate any RF riding on the coax shield. (It seemed unlikely that I would get injured with 12W RF (25V @ 50 Ohms) My ELMER does not use a ground plane OR a ground wire at his antenna. (His antenna is sitting on a wooden painting stick LOL.) I have looked at antenna analyzers on Amazon and they all look like China grey market crap.
As bad as the following antenna looks, I am only getting a little over a watt back from the antenna at 25W forward power. It was a LOT easier to work with 18AWG wire radials which is also the gauge of the magnet wire that the antenna radiating element is made of. (Which I read is a way of increasing the “Q” of the radials.) The reason for the high number of radials was to vary the length slightly so that several of them would be resonant at any given frequency. (According to “Google Foo”, if the “Q” is high, then resonance of the radials would be a narrow spike.) I did realize that the radiation pattern would change as the radials that are resonant changed. (But then I have 9 of them.)
I hadn’t counted on the “L” bracket from Dish network being approximately ¼ wavelength long. I’ll have to insulate the antenna from the mast to find out how much that affected my setup.
