{"id":1673,"date":"2010-10-05T05:54:37","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T09:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/?p=1673"},"modified":"2010-10-05T08:28:53","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T12:28:53","slug":"ta-33jr-ground-crew-college-football-rfi-and-caqsop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/?p=1673","title":{"rendered":"TA-33jr, Ground Crew, College Football, RFI, and CAQSOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spent some time over the last week re-conditioning an old Mosley TA-33 jr, courtesy of N4YDU.\u00c2\u00a0 The date on the box is 1979.\u00c2\u00a0 Gotta wonder if 30 year old aluminum is ready for metal fatigue, but its a novelty project.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of the hardware was shot, so I decided to replace most of the u-bolts.\u00c2\u00a0 Got a quote from Mosley on those parts, but since I needed some other hardware bits for other projects, I instead went with parts from DX Engineering.\u00c2\u00a0 The u-bolts available from DX engineering were slightly shorter than the original parts, but seem to be a good fit.\u00c2\u00a0 Spent some time cleaning everything up, and used a scotchbrite pad to remove some of the oxidation and crud around the joints and at the trap connections. Got all of the elements assembled on Friday evening without burning any of the chicken on the grill.<\/p>\n

That project will likely languish after testing the elements for resonance.\u00c2\u00a0 Might assemble the whole shebang for an on the ground SWR check, but it looks like some moderately serious tree trimming would be required before it could ever actually be put to use at the QTH.\u00c2\u00a0 More likely to use it for Field Day. The TA-33jr is a versatile bit of kit. It is light weight for a three element yagi.\u00c2\u00a0 If space or weight were a problem the driven element and reflector can be used to make a ta-32jr, the two element version.\u00c2\u00a0 The driven element can also be used by itself as a stand alone dipole.\u00c2\u00a0 Mosley also sells a set of traps for converting the low power version into the hybrid light weight\/high power version.<\/p>\n

Saturday morning was spent over at KZ1X tugging on ropes along with KA1ARB, with KZ1X and N1LN up the tower.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve needed to debug a problem with his 20\/15\/10 yagi.\u00c2\u00a0 We found that the coax run up the tower seemed to be the problem.\u00c2\u00a0 After swapping that off to a different coax run, things looked better.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve also\u00c2\u00a0 hung a replacement 80m dipole for one that went down with a falling branch.\u00c2\u00a0 Got a first look at the K3 panadapter while doing the in shack checks.\u00c2\u00a0 A cool gizmo.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lesson Re-Iterated:<\/strong> Do NOT<\/strong> trust readings from an MFJ antenna analyzer when the power supply is weak.\u00c2\u00a0 A portable supply or external battery pack is worth using when that is practical.\u00c2\u00a0 My own MFJ-259 has long had its internal battery pack removed in favor of an external pack.\u00c2\u00a0 The pack is about 1″x3″x”slightly longer than the 259″.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a cool little pack, that has a charger and two output jacks<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It is taped to the back of the MFJ-259.\u00c2\u00a0 With 10 rechargeable batteries it supplies about 13v when fully charged.\u00c2\u00a0 It is slow to charge, but the cigarette lighter socket makes it versatile.\u00c2\u00a0 Note<\/strong>: don’t have the matching solar cell, just the charger, ac supply, and car adapter.<\/p>\n

Had a bit of R&R on Saturday unwisely spent watching the LSU-Tennessee game.\u00c2\u00a0 Being an LSU football fan is an interesting experience -\u00c2\u00a0 but not always pleasant.\u00c2\u00a0 O’course, the Tennessee fans\u00c2\u00a0 really got the short end of the stick, but their own teams last second decisions were just as squirrelly as those of “The Hat” and associates.\u00c2\u00a0 I sure hope LSU gets their offense to pull together going into the tough part of their schedule against three current top-20 teams(Florida, Auburn, Alabama) in the next four weeks and end the season with another(Arkansas).\u00c2\u00a0 Ouch. Tough schedule. Life in the SEC West.<\/p>\n

Glad to see the Tigers defense is working well as a unit, but the talent on the offensive side is there too, just not clicking yet.\u00c2\u00a0 After being beaten by Tennessee(and UNC and WV) right up to the brain death of coaching staffs on both teams on the last play of the game, they really need to find their best game quick.\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise the losses will accrue rapidly, despite excellent defensive play.\u00c2\u00a0 I suppose Florida will be mad as hell after their spanking in Tuscaloosa.<\/p>\n

Sunday R&R consisted of a hour or two in the shack.\u00c2\u00a0 Turned on the radios and heard some of the California QSOP guys on 15m.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve sorely missed 15m these past few years, so it was a bit of fun to make a few Q’s on the band. Signal strengths ranged from S1 to a very loud S9+, and only one station was called without answer.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s an improvement compared to 15m over the past two years.\u00c2\u00a0 Not a lot of stations heard, but a few European QSO’s were also decent copy.\u00c2\u00a0 10m was still silent.<\/p>\n

Requests for audio reports indicated the RFI issue introduced on SSB when setting up the sound card DVK into the SO2R set up is now fixed. [Yippeee!]\u00c2\u00a0 Good audio reported by all.\u00c2\u00a0 The issue with the RFI on the PTT line for the K2 is still a mystery, but ferrites on the mike and PTT lines going into the K2 were needed to resolve the problem.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Resolving that problem has me looking forward to the coming contest season, and hoping that the bands are better during 2010 Sweepstakes.<\/p>\n

As fall rolls in it is time for some much delayed antenna maintenance on the 160m inverted L.\u00c2\u00a0 It would be nice to get the 80m element added, and the radials need maintenance since the falling branches have taken out about half of them since last contest season. Gotta work that into the leaf raking schedule – the sooner the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spent some time over the last week re-conditioning an old Mosley TA-33 jr, courtesy of N4YDU.\u00c2 The date on the box is 1979.\u00c2 Gotta wonder if 30 year old aluminum is ready for metal fatigue, but its a novelty project.\u00c2 Some of the hardware was shot, so I decided to replace most of the u-bolts.\u00c2 Got a quote from Mosley on those parts, but since I needed some other hardware bits for other projects, I instead went with parts from DX Engineering.\u00c2 The u-bolts available from DX engineering were slightly shorter than the original parts, but seem to be a good fit.\u00c2 Spent some time cleaning everything up, and used a scotchbrite pad to remove some of the oxidation and crud around the joints and at the trap connections. Got all of the elements assembled on Friday evening without burning any of the chicken on the grill.<\/p>\n

That project will likely languish after testing the elements for resonance.\u00c2 Might assemble the whole shebang for an on the ground SWR check, but it looks like some moderately serious tree trimming would be required before it could ever actually be put to use at the QTH.\u00c2 More likely to use it for Field Day. The TA-33jr is a versatile bit of kit. It is light weight for a three element yagi.\u00c2 If space or weight were a problem the driven element and reflector can be used to make a ta-32jr, the two element version.\u00c2 The driven element can also be used by […]<\/p>\n

Continue reading TA-33jr, Ground Crew, College Football, RFI, and CAQSOP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1673"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1679,"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions\/1679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w4kaz.com\/qth\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}