Titan DX Antenna Install

I have recently received my Titan DX antenna from GAP Antenna.  As I was intending to mount it on a tripod mount on top of the roof of the house I also got the guy kit.  One note on the guy kit is that there are no anchors included with it.  As I am not experienced with HF antennas it took me a bit to figure out how to put the antenna together, and from everyone that I read online it does take a long time to assemble.  So the first day I got it put together, and mounted on the tripod.  On the second day I got the counterpoise installed and connected the end for the coax and attached the feed line. 

They don't mention anywhere in their documentation what the coax was and it is a house brand with no labels, so I called them and inquired.  GAP uses a RG-8X equivalent.  I needed this information because they had a male UHF (PL-259) to go on the antenna, and I had a connector for a male 259 to go on the feed line coax.  Also in my tool box I have a handful of male N connectors.  So I went down to MRO Electronics in Calgary and got a female N connector to go on the coax.  For those that are not as up to speed on coax a RG-8 and RG-8X are not similar at all.

As I assembled the antenna with the self tapping screws provided, I understand why several people have recommended changing the screws out for machine screws with lock nuts.  As Winter was nearing in Calgary and I did not have many days without snow on the roof I needed this to get done and put that off to a future day.

I was unable to get the grounding installed for the antenna, so that will be a spring project before the lightning comes.  Other than that I just need to poke a hole into the house, do some testing and get on the air. 

Below is some pictures of the build.

 The middle section where the coax attaches to the antenna.

Looking from the "top" down the length of the antenna.

A closer look at the center section

The base where the counterpoise will mount

The top covered with a dust cap and a capacitor just inside.

Push lawnmower

Here is a quick project that I did quickly in early June that never got published until now.  With the purchase of our home this winter I got my small patch of grass, and to be the good neighbor I should mow that lawn.  As outdoor storage space is limited, and the area of grass is small we decided to purchase a reel lawnmower.  I found a Gardena 380C on Kijiji and purchased it.  It had been used for a couple of seasons and I had noticed the blade was dull when I purchased it.

I tried it out on the lawn that was very lush and it seemed more like I was flailing my lawn into submission rather than cutting it and it took about 1.5 hours to do our little patch of grass.  I began to look for a sharpening kit.  They are not very common, but I did find a sharpening kit at Canadian Tire. 

This kit is more accurately called a honing kit.  First you take the wheels off because you will use the wheel to turn the blade against the back bar and sharpen the blades.  I tried getting the wheels off and it was nearly impossible due to the snap rings holding them in place.  So instead of injuring myself, which I came close to doing I went and acquired some snap ring pliers also from Canadian Tire.

Once I got the wheels off and applied the honing compound to the reels I noticed that there was a large gap between the reel and the back bar.  I adjusted the bar to be closer to the reel.  Be careful not to make contact as it will dent the bar and leave a rough bur edge that will knock on the reels.  Following the remaining instructions and putting the mower back together was real easy.  Now my mowing time is about 20 minutes depending on the amount of growth during the week.

Labour Day projects

It was Labour Day here in Canada and I decided to get a few projects done that have been pending for a few month.s.

One I wanted a metal topped table that could be used for Dutch oven cooking.  Earlier this summer I acquired a 26"x36" glavanized checker plate utility pull box cover.  It was going into the dumpster, so I had it put into my vehicle.  It is quite thick and I knew it would be good for the job.  The build was quite easy as I built a 2x6 and a 2x4 square of the same dimension.  I put the 2x6 right under the plate and the 2x4 square 13" down so that I could put a shelf in there in the future. 

With that built I moved onto the doghouse.  I wanted to have something for our dog that we acquired in June to have for the winter if she found herself outside during the day time.  I wanted a dog house that had a hallway that turned into the sleeping area.  After some searching I found one that is promoted by the Ontario SPCA.  It has dimensions for the sleeping area and the hallway and height for the dog.  There is no real construction plans but it seemed simple enough and I started to figure out the dimensions for the cuts that I was to make.  I must have been in a hurry when I did my take off as I missed a sheet of plywood for the roof, and I was short a couple of 2x2s.  Beware this is not a cheap doghouse to build if you don't have any scrap or pieces large enough to build this. 

I have inuslated the walls with 1.5" SM, and the best way that I have found to cut it is to use a circular saw. 

I didn't get this finished, but I will work on it this week while the weather is nice so that the hardboard doesn't get wrecked.  Pictures will follow.  Below is the link for the pdf of the doghouse.

www.ontariospca.ca/docs/Ideal_Doghouse.pdf

 

Hitch Install

So with the purchase of the 2001 Nissan Pathfinder last fall we were able to to tow our trailer.  The one issue that I had was that there was no hitch or wiring on the vehicle.  Originally, I had thought that I would get the work done by someone else, but after looking on YouTube and looking at the install manuals for the parts that I needed, I figured that this would be a pretty simple install to complete myself.

I purchased the parts from HitchDepotUSA, they were not the cheapest for unit prices of the three that I looked at, but they had free shipping to Canada (because they have a warehouse in Ontario) and there was no duties to add so they were the cheapest at the end of the day.

I purchased a CURT hitch 13156 and the T-Connector 55361.  I also purchased a 4-way flat to both 6 round and 4 flat adapter (Part # I-4624/57624).  I hadn't got that onto the vehicle yet, but it will come (it is not critical as my trailer is wired for both too.)

I did the project in two stints, as I started with the hitch on a Wednesday evening after work.  The instructions said that it was a 15 minute job.  Now if all I had to do was mount the hitch on it may have been a lot closer to that.  I had the tow hooks mounted on the frame, so I first needed to remove them.  Also impeding my work on the driver side what I assume is the fuel pump.  That all took me a while to remove them, plus the bolts had been exposed to 10 years of use and 10 Alberta winters, which are not forgiving to anything metal.  Below is a picture of the hitch installed on the driver side.  The top right bolt hole wasn't used with the tow hooks so that took a little bit of work to get that into place.

 
Now for the passenger side; the muffler wasn't really in the way and I worked around it.

 
That was all that I got complete on Day 1. It was getting dark and I am glad I had my trouble light under there for the last few minutes.

Now the lighting kit was extremely easy  to install and the instructions were detailed enough that I had no trouble following them. I started by opening up the bottom trim and then pulling off the two tail lights.  Below is shown the passenger side light.

 
Before I joined the T-Connector in I put a shot of dielectric grease in the connectors for good measure to ensure electrical continuity for the connections.

 
You can see them together now with the control box right there that I tucked in the driver side rear column.  That was the only thing that wasn't clear on the ideal hiding place for.

 
I routed the wires under the rear trim plate and because I am going to install the 6 round adapter I did want to just have the trailer wire coming out of the back of the hatch I found a grommet above the spare tire that I could get access to that I sliced a bit and fed the wire through.  So currently it is just loose above the spare tire with the dust cap hooked around the where the emergency chains get hooked onto.

 

That evening I went out to my in laws and picked up the trailer.  It towed really well and now just a bit of work on it before we go out with it this summer.

See you on the open road.

Radio go box Part 2

Well, here is the much anticipated radio go box completion. I have a bunch of pictures here so I will go through them and explain what I have done as I go through them.


I waited until the radio equipment showed up at my house before I started to build the cabinet. I originally wanted to place them in a tool box or something, kind of like the links below:


http://home.comcast.net/~wx2nj/aresbox.html
http://www.freewebs.com/ai4wm/emergencycommunications.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~buck0/combox.htm
http://www.qsl.net/na4it/portable/portable.html
http://www.southbears.net/jump_kit/jump_kit.htm


I guess this was a little ambitious considering I had just moved and I don't have a lot of fabrication equipment at my house at the moment. I would have really liked to have been able to do it in part metal. Maybe at a later time I will be able to fabricate a more compact case.


Once I had the equipment below laid out I took some measurements and allowed a bit of room for air movement and cooling.

From there I sketched up a small wood cabinet that I wanted to build. I was going to put European doors on it. This was also going to be my first attempt at hinges, which I learned a lot on how not to do them on this project.(click this one for a closer look)

After I was comfortable with the dimensions of the cabinet I transposed the pieces onto the sheet of the right which had a sheet of plywood drawn on it. This allows me to estimate how much plywood that I am going to need and what sort of cuts that I am going to do on the table saw. Since there were a lot of pieces that were the same width I wanted to rip them all at the same time, as it is harder to reset the fence on a table saw to match the cuts up.


I went on to build the cabinet and paint it.

The lower shelf view

The back of the cabinet

In went the radio bodies and the mounts for the faceplates. Since these were European cabinet doors I had to make sure the faceplate mounts were far enough back so that the doors could close with them in place.

From there I added the powergate and the rig runner distribution panel in the back.

Now I put in the last pieces of equipment

And ran the wires to all the components. I made sure that the middle shelf was an inch shorter on both the front and the back to account for the microphone cables and the other wiring runs that were going to be placed.

Here is the final product with all the gear in.

Now we close it up.

And highlight Steve’s callsign VE6SDM

A little bit of solder

I got sidetracked a little from finishing the radio box with a little bit of plumbing.  The ensuite toilet valve needed to be replaced.  I had replaced the toilet when we moved in as the bowl was broken due to the house being frozen.  This was supposed to be a simple install as I had replaced one toilet ion the main floor.  That toilet flange was below tile so I had to get an extended.

The toilet flange in the ensuite was just above the finished floor level, so a lot of the wax oozed up through the bolt holes.  When I went to attach the supply line up to the tank, the fitting came off of the line.  This was an old supply line, that was apart of the valve, so I had to replace it.  The valve that came off of the 3/4" copper line was a compression fitting.  I was replacing the fitting with a soldered on connection.  This was going to be my second plumbing fitting that I was going to be soldering I felt confident.  Funny enough I had also learned a little from a recent Holmes show on how to solder and position the torch. 

The key to soldering a good joint is to make sure that the copper is clean and bright.  I made sure that I took the emery paper and sanded down the pipe.  From there I applied a liberal amount of flux and fitted the valve to the final location.  From my understanding the flux serves a couple of purposes. The first is to shield the metal from oxidation during the application of heat.  Oxidation would create a barrier from the sold from joining the two metals together.  The other is to help wick the solder up the joint.  As a person that is used electrical solder that has a rosin core this weting action is very different to me, this is acomplished through the capillary action of the joint. I applied the heat to the joint and since it was a very tight location I could only apply the heat at one side. Due to the heat on one side I had the solder on the other side, so that once the pipe was heated the solder was just sucked up into the joint. 

With a ring of solder around the valve I deemed it good and turned the water back on.  The moment of truth came seconds later as it held water.  I cooled the valve with a wetted wash cloth and hooked up the new supply to the toilet tank and went on my way.

Until next time...

Radio go box Part 1

So, a couple of months ago I was approached by VA6SDM to spec and then asked to put together a radio kit.  It is referred to as many things as a radio go kit, radio go box, or a slip seat box.  So this is the equipment that has been put into it.

TM-D710A (dual band radio)

TS 480SAT (Multi-band HF radio)
LDG KT-100 (antenna autotunner)
Rigblaster PNP
Rigrunner RR-4004USB
Rigblaster PG-40S Super PWRgate
PWRBrite
Power Supply SS-30DV (by PowerWerx)

I had originally thought that I would put the unit into a tool box or into a road case (the ones that bands  or DJ's use), but due to the lack of fabrication tools I was extremely limited to what I could case the unit in.  The radio operator that will get this will likely not use it too frequently so one of my design considerations was to have everything as operationally ready as possible. 

One of the problems that I had with casing a kit like this into a tool box is that the rigrunner gets buried in underneath all of the other components and that adding a unit is not really easy, or accessing a blown fuse will take a lot of time.  Or accessing the power supply main switch without removing the main plate and creating a panel for it.  The other issue that was of real concern was that of cooling.  If I started cramming in all of those devices into a small space I would be limiting air circulation so I would have to add some active cooling devices. 

I decided that I would build a small cabinet out of wood.  I am very familiar with wood cabinetry or joinery.  I received the highest mark in CTS 30 or Grade 12 shop class with the dresser that I built for myself.  Now this cabinet is nowhere to the same quality as that as it has been a few years and I don't have a fully equipped shop to build it in.  I will post my sketches that I used to plan my cabinet as well as estimate my material. 

Currently I am placing the equipment into the cabinet, which is a little difficult because I did not mount the brackets in place before I assembled the cabinet so I have to put all the screws in place with a stubby ratchet screwdriver. 
 
The last installation issue is that of mounting the power supply and the autotuner into the box so that the do not move.  I have thought about using some All Round Steel Strapping, but I do not want to scratch up the devices.  My wife suggested I use some nyon straps, which is likely what I will use, but I am still open to options at the moment.
 
Well, I well get back to assembly and be back later with pictures and an updated. 
 
73s
Ben

New House - New Year

Well,

This year it is shaping up to be plenty of projects for me to complete.  We recently purchased a house in NW Calgary.  It was built in 1980.  There were a few renovations done to it, but several were not fully completed.  I am not saying that it is not livable, but little things like there was no trim put over the tiles, so there is a bare edge kind of stuff.

In October we had bought a 2001 Nissan Pathfinder at the auction.  It has been a great vehicle and the only thing I have done to it thus far is change the oil and replace the battery.  We have had an unusual cold winter here in Calgary, so I am not surprised that the battery failed.

A leader at Church wants me to put together a radio go box for him.  This is exciting, because I get to buy all these radios and put them together, and it won't cost me anything to play with them.  I will discuss that project in detail in a future post.

So for the house thus far we have done a little bit of work on it thus far.  We purchased a home foreclosure from the bank, so there are some risks that are Realtor's explained to us.  They were rather nervous about it, probably because they haven't processed very many foreclosures in recent memory.  There must be some systemic issues here in Calgary that are not well publicized because approximately a quarter of the houses that we viewed were foreclosures.  One of the things that our Realtor said was that it must have been some young couple that got in over their head.  Well, that didn't make us young first time home buyers feel better, but we knew our financial position so we charged ahead.

On the day of possession we arrived and the heat was off.  It was a very cold February day, so it took a long time for the house to warm up.  As it did, we noticed some dripping from the cold water line by the clothes washer pipes.  There was still some water left in that pipe and it split it.  So off to RONA to get a pipe cutter and some pipe solder.  I already had the torch to solder the pipes.  Now our cold water tap is approximately 2 inches above the hot water tap.  Now we were able to charge the rest of the house water lines.

During this time we noticed that there was still water (i.e. a block of ice) in all of the toilet bowls.  This was going to take some time to thaw, but once we charged the tanks, there was one tank that was full of ice too.  It turns out as the ice melted there became a lake around this toilet.  It had broke the bottom of the toilet out.  Lucky for us we were already planning on changing the toilets with high efficiency dual flush toilets, which we had got on sale at RONA.  There is a RONA about 3 minutes from our house, so it is likely to be the unofficial supplier for most of our home renovation needs.

The third frozen item in our house was a trap of the main floor half bathroom.  It is the only metal trap in the whole house and when the water froze in it, it split the metal.  Lucky for us RONA, was also the unofficial supplier for the previous occupants renovation efforts.

So I spent the weekend getting plumbing issues sorted out.  A blog on toilet installation to follow.  During this weekend we had several of our good friends come over and assist us in painting the house.  There were a couple that were very experienced which helped the finished product look superb.  As we were removing face plates for the electrical outlets we commented on the fact that the outlets were the original cream colored round plugs, but in an attempt to modernize the look of the house the previous occupants had used white cover plates.  This looked rather poor to us, so we decided to replace the oulets and plugs to the decora model.  A quick conversation with one of my electrical engineering consultants at worked agreed with the decision to change plugs as they typically have a useful service life of approximately 25 years.  They tend to get loose and don't make a very good contact after a while.

So for upcoming projects:
-fur out the basement wall and run electrical wire for plugs, and install a new sub-panel
-install a hitch onto the vehicle
-change the regulator on the trailer
-build and install some raised flower beds for some produce this summer
-install a vhf and hf antenna

This should be a good start for the year.  A lot of new experiences to learn from.