OT: looking for a very lightweight telescoping mast

[info4mjs]

Hi,

Regarding an inexpensive telescoping tower...

I've been using galvanized conduit at all corners of my house to support various antennas for over 13 years without any sign of failure.  I use a 10'x1.5" section going into the ground 1', and then I put a 10'x1.25" section into that with a 1' overlap and lastly, a 10'x1" section into that with a 1' overlap.  I use stainless steel hose clamps tightened down so that the smaller one can't "fall" into the larger OD pipe.  I connect the two sections with copper wire so that the pipes can't rotate with respect to each other.  I also put a plastic inverted cone over each coupling so that water can't get into the pipes and do the same for the top or use a plug.

The 10'x1.5' section is attached to the eaves at about 9' and I don't use guy wires.

On one of them, I've had a 14' 2 meter vertical at the top.  On another, I've had a yagi for TV mounted close to the top which is about 27'.

To support my wire antennas, I add another 5' of aluminum tubing that I have just to make it over 30'.

Mike
WA1SEO


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[Leigh L. Klotz Jr WA5ZNU]

I gave my new T1 a workout operating /VE3 last week, and found an
oddity.  Sometimes pressing the tune button and sending dits or dahs
doesn't do anything but flash the green LED.  Taking the battery out
doesn't dix it, but a band change and a retune and then QSY back usually
makes it start again.

I noticed that the reported SWR on the 817 was full scale when this
happened, and being an adventurous soul I upped the power from LI to
blinky-LIII and got it to tune, sometimes.

One possible explaination is that the tuning is starting from the
current network settings, and when the resulting SWR is too high, the
817 high-SWR foldback is cutting the power way back.  (A tap of the PWR
button on the T1 also showed no output, but it's not fair to use the T1
to test itself.)

Another possibility is that I have an intermittent or cold solder
joint.

I suspect that if I had remembered to bring the band-data cable I would
have encountered fewer problems, but even populating the firmware memory
table seems like it would have this as a bootstrapping problem on a new
antenna.

I am not sure what to suggest for a firmware change, but wanted to
report the phenomenon.

Leigh / WA5ZNU
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[wayne burdick]

Leigh,

You've already figured it out. If you have the FT-817 set for very low
power output (0.5 watts), you'll be right on the borderline of what the
T1 requires in order to tune accurately. Anything lower than this and
tuning won't even start. If the present LC settings present a severe
mismatch to the rig on the selected band, the FT-817 might further roll
back power. In this case the T1 just blinks the green light, waiting
for you to give it a bit more ;)

To avoid this, I'd suggest using at least 1 watt and preferably 2.5
watts when re-tuning. The most convenient strategy of all is to use our
T1-FT817 adapter.

73,
Wayne
N6KR


On Apr 12, 2005, at 2:22 PM, Leigh L Klotz, Jr. wrote:

> I gave my new T1 a workout operating /VE3 last week, and found an
> oddity.  Sometimes pressing the tune button and sending dits or dahs
> doesn't do anything but flash the green LED.  Taking the battery out
> doesn't dix it, but a band change and a retune and then QSY back
> usually makes it start again....


http://www.elecraft.com

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[g4ilo-2]

Don't know the answer to your problem, Leigh, but a couple of years ago
I did some tests to find out what the FT-817 foldback protection did,
and on the 5W setting it reduced to 2.5W. On the lower power settings I
didn't detect any foldback action at all, at any SWR. That was an early
model 817 - I haven't tested this on the new ND model.
--
Julian, G4ILO
G4ILO's Shack: http://www.tech-pro.net/g4ilo

"Leigh L Klotz, Jr." <[hidden email]> wrote:

I gave my new T1 a workout operating /VE3 last week, and found an
oddity. Sometimes pressing the tune button and sending dits or dahs
doesn't do anything but flash the green LED. Taking the battery out
doesn't dix it, but a band change and a retune and then QSY back usually
makes it start again.

I noticed that the reported SWR on the 817 was full scale when this
happened, and being an adventurous soul I upped the power from LI to
blinky-LIII and got it to tune, sometimes.

One possible explaination is that the tuning is starting from the
current network settings, and when the resulting SWR is too high, the
817 high-SWR foldback is cutting the power way back. (A tap of the PWR
button on the T1 also showed no output, but it's not fair to use the T1
to test itself.)

Another possibility is that I have an intermittent or cold solder joint.

I suspect that if I had remembered to bring the band-data cable I would
have encountered fewer problems, but even populating the firmware memory
table seems like it would have this as a bootstrapping problem on a new
antenna.

I am not sure what to suggest for a firmware change, but wanted to
report the phenomenon.

Leigh / WA5ZNU

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