2020 station maintenance log
Mar 22 - Work continues on rearranging the rover box. I’ve moved parts around to where each shelf is for a specific task - 220 stuff on a shelf, radios on a shelf, etc. The next steps are to tie down all the 220 gear, make some short coax jumpers, and figure out how everything’s going to be powered. The point of all this is to make things less messy by having shorter cables that don’t need to cross all across the box.
Mar 20 - I spent an hour or two over the last few days working on installing the 6m moxon. I got a line hung up in a tree, figured out how to hang the antenna from the line, and cut coax to length. Unfortunately, I discovered that among the many many crimpers I have, none is the right size for LMR-400. So I’ll need to order new dies before I can continue.
Jan 25 - I finished building my new MFJ 6m moxon, which I’m hoping to put up within a couple weeks. I’m just going to hang it off a tree pointing mostly southwest. I should be able to finish up VUCC with this antenna. I’ve got a coax cable run under the yard to where it will be hung, but I still need to build a cable to go up the tree and I need to check its SWR.
Jan 25 - I also built new power cables for the Raspberry Pi on my rover box. This computer will be the interface for my transverter switch, run a panadapter, and probably also be where the logging takes place. The previous power cables were too thin and long, leading to too much voltage drop for the Pi to operate properly. The next step here is probably to build a larger rover box to organize things better.
Jan 23 - My 160/80 meter double l antenna has collapsed due to the rope on the tensioning cinder block breaking. The lower wire and balun are on the ground, and the upper wire is hanging across the top of several trees. The rest of the rope attached to the upper wire is out of reach. I’m not sure how I’m going to fix this.