Thursday
January 12, 2012Thursday
January 12, 2012
Welcome to Australia Radio, my portal to cyberspace and a forum for my views on the history of radio (or wireless for the old timers), amateur radio rig reports and reviews and general radio information.
This site is a "work in progress" but feel free to bookmark this URL and visit on a regular basis to keep track of the latest postings. I have had to brush up on my own knowledge of web design as I had a catastrophic hard drive failure recently. Perhaps it has been a blessing in disguise as it has forced me to reconsider the overall design of this site, with a result that in the coming months you will see a revision of AustraliaRadio pages in style and content.
I am continuing to add information on amateur radio receivers and transceivers that I own, or have owned. This includes Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom and Philips equipment. I have also recently acquired some other "pre-loved" equipment, namely a Bearcat 220 VHF/UHF FM scanner and a Yaesu FT23 handheld. Both are old but in very good condition. The Bearcat has a surprisingly good receiver and the FT23 is destined to become the core of a foxhunt transmitter.
In 1978 I purchased my first "pre-loved" amateur radio rig, a not very well known Yaesu FT-201. This rig cost a few hundred dollars, a great deal of money at that time for a teenager!! The FT-201 had a similar design to the FT-101 but a much sharper receiver and better front panel design with a vertical frequency reading drum.
Sadly the FT-201 suffered an internal fire when the transformer shorted, however being the sentimental bloke that I am, I kept the rig for 30 years. The idealistic part of my brain has now been replaced by the realistic part, in that having examined the FT-201 it would take many hundreds of hours to repair so I have now stripped the beast to provide some valuable spares for an old FT-101E.
Aside from the FT-101 I have an FT-7, FT-7B, TS120V and Galaxy V all in need of some tender loving care to restore to full operational use. I have a love for older equipment and when you can obtain these type of radio's for a very reasonable price it is hard to say no. (Although my XYL would say otherwise!)
Otherwise the antenna's at my QTH are being consolidated with the assistance of my good friend Ian, VK3QL. Each week Ian and I have been tackling projects together, with excellent results. My small tower now has professional cable trays for running cables, the outriggers designed and manufactured some years ago are being put to use, new low loss LDF cable has been commissioned for 23cm/70cm/2m with the HF end fed zepp up higher and clear of trees. Progress with more to come!!
Ian has recently purchased an antenna analyzer which is a marvellous piece of kit for antenna design, testing and commissioning. It is a fantastic piece of test equipment and streamlines the tuning of antenna's whilst displaying a wealth of information on the antenna under test. More on that beast later.
And be aware that I am also seeking professional radio voice over work, so if you are looking for a deep, rich voice for your next television, radio or video masterpiece, contact me. A sample audio grab will be available on this site in the near future.
If you have a general inquiry or you would like to comment on this website and its contents, please provide feedback here.
In the meantime feel free to navigate around my site.
Solar
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From n3kl.org
At right is a sunset photograph of my antennae
array at my home QTH. Some significant changes are happening and I will have
an updated photograph posted in the very near future.
Three support poles for wire antennae have been strategically sited in my rear yard, together with a major fibreglass support pole for the newly built "end fed zepp".
The end fed zepp is a 1/2 wave on 80 metres, fed with open wire feeder and capable of tuning on all bands from 160 metres - 10 metres. Yes, the Zepp is an old design but one of the best multiband antenna's that is simple to construct and easy to tune. By the way it is fed with 400 ohm open wire feeder. The telemast (pictured at right of the tower) is down at present and just today a support structure was installed on a new concrete pad to support a newly acquired 3 section (9 metre) telescopic mast.
The new telemast will support a HF triband mini-beam, beams for 2 metres, 6 metres and 70cm, plus a Datong Active antenna for VLF/LF reception.
The tower is undergoing a revision as well with a rebuilt 70cm/23cm vertical on the top now. An ATV receive antenna is about to be installed, together with a number of vertical antennae dedicated to VHF or UHF bands. The 10 meter half wave vertical is back in the air, side mounted on the tower, performing very well last weekend on 10 metres with solid signals into Japan, Hawaii and the United States.
More on the new configuration later, with descriptions and photographs.
