I’m in.
Much Thanks @zmetzing for coordinating and keeping the dream alive!
1 Like
Remember, folks, antenna work tomorrow starting at 10am!
Wish I could be there, but have family in town and we have overlapping plans.
Heading up soon - I expect I will be there about 10:15am - sorry for delay
1 Like
Running a bit late myself. Almost there.
1 Like
Success! Thanks in no small part to the efforts of @BenjaminGroves and @artg_dms, the antenna has been re-erected and the problem with the antenna auto-coupler has been resolved. The antenna and cinder blocks are now entirely on our roof.
The auto-coupler is not going anywhere:
Entire antenna, in all its glory:
6 Likes
My hubby and I came in while you were working there, I wish I
had known you were working on the antennae, He was a ham back
when he was in college
Sorry, guys, this is very off topic, but David @Photomancer , this is what the top of the roof looks like.
1 Like
You can just post a link in the original thread that points back to a specific message or photo.
1 Like
well that’s gone circular…
Is there an extra coax run for the dual band 2m/440 antenna that’s been on the bench ?
That would be a good thing to have up on the roof when time permits.
We did not run coax for the 2m/440 antenna. I’d like to try mounting it above the drop ceiling, perhaps clamped to a girder, to minimize coax length (and, in turn, loss).
What kind of coax is the run to the roof and how long is it ?
I think the performance will be very poor at all elevations below the top of the building walls, simply because of the amount of rebar that’s usually in tilt wall construction.
LMR-400, and, if I had to guess, approximately 175 feet.
If we could go directly through the roof (which we can’t) above the Electronics lab, then I wouldn’t be so concerned about coax loss, but we’ve got to find the nearest existing penetration and use that. Given that the rebar is likely not grounded and will re-radiate our signal (perhaps in odd directions), I feel it is an acceptable stop-gap solution. We’re looking to get into local repeaters, not do DX with it.
1 Like
DX may not be the goal, but good signal to Dallas, Denton, Mesquite, and Ft Worth would all be good things in bad weather.
I very much doubt the rebar will re-radiate in any useful way. ( I could be mistaken, but 35 years of ham radio suggests the attic is not optimum. ) If we are stuck with the attic, go as high as possible at least. That’ll help.
146 MHz loss is 2.6dB and 450 MHz loss is 4.7 dB through 175 feet of LMR-400. Not great, but the height would make up for some of it.
I haven’t seen it yet, but is there maybe enough sheet metal around the fume hood penetration that we could install an N connector feedthru ? That would shorten the path quite a bit I think.
The fume hood doesn’t penetrate, it’s a filter-based system.
The one for the plasma cutter ? I think not.
That’s a vent, not a fume hood.
There’s an actual fume hood over in Science, that’s what I thought you were talking about.