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.

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