Here is our shack and antennas. Updated January 2012
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June of 2010 I came across a brand new looking, used, Icom IC-756. WOW! Being an old bench tech I love the spectrum display and the rest of it works great also. This was suppose to be my ultimate HF radio, but, in February 2011 a deal came along I could not resist. Sound familiar. Above my new used 756 PRO II. As great as the 756 is the PRO II is even better. The 756 is now at the Campo Fire radio room replacing a Kenwood TS-430. The base mike on the PRO II is a Turner Sidekick 100. Click here for an excellent user review of the PRO II. Note the LDG Z-100Plus on the 756 PRO II. Although the PRO II has a built in tuner but it's range is not sufficient to tune my Windom 160M on 80M and 40M. The Z-100 plugs into most Icoms and will tune DC to infinity, not really, but it's wide tuning range works on the sometimes 5/1 VSWR on bands the Windom was not cut for. I also upgraded my cross needle meters to a Daiwa CN-101L on the FT-897 and a MFJ 815B on the 756. All the audio reports from the setup are good which is very irritating to someone who likes to change things.
Close in shot. Left to right. Home made switch box so I can switch
my 2 HF antennas between my 2 HF radios. Above the switch box a Kenwood TM-631A, 144/220 FM radio connected to
a Comet Discone. On the top shelf is my Motorola R-2001C System Analyzer. It measures and tests almost everything
from 1 to 999.99 MHz.
My book case radio rack top to bottom. The radio on the top shelf
is a Motorola 5000 series, 800 MHz public service radio from Campo Fire, part of the San Diego County Regional
Communications System. See my main page for links.
January 2012 a new tower for 50 MHz and up. We had
to stucco the house and fix the roof so
Tower closeup..
Diamond Discone with 5GHz NanoStation wireless Internet transceiver below.
The hole for the tower. The 2 sides next to the house have 4 rods
glued into holes in the house foundation as
Cushcraft R7000 40M th 10M vertical. Mounted about 50 feet South of the house. With 60 MPH + wind gusts during the Santa Anna winds we need lots of guy wires up here.
2008, fun antenna project. A 160M Carolina Windom. Located South of the Cushcraft. Our retirement home is on 8 acres, 500 x 1000 feet so I had plenty of room to put up a full length 160 Meter antenna. The guy wire coming off the top left of the antenna is moved towards where ever the current wind event is coming from.( Update: I now have 4 guy wires so I don't have to move the one anymore when the wind changes.) Below are some details on the construction. The wire is a FLEXWEAVE™ 14 AWG with extra tough Black Polyethylene jacket from thewireman.com. The formula to compute the length is the standard 468/frequency with the 4/1 Balun at 62.2% from one end. For details on Carolina Windom construction see our push up poles antenna projects page.
With Xena Warrior Princess in the background this is the center support structure for the Windom. The wood is a 4x4 pressure treated buried in 360 pounds of post hole mix. This bottom section of the mast is the top rail material used in a chain link fence. From the bottom to the top is 37 feet of assorted pipes and TV masts from our local East County Lumber. I just kept sliding stuff together till it looked like that was as high as I could get without the winds blowing it over.
Up and down the 4x4 post are 4 of the brackets designed to hold the chain link fence to your support pole, that is if you were actually building a fence with it. This top one makes my pivot point so I can drop the antenna. The next one down is 90 degrees from this one and so on down the pole. This pulls the mast tight against the 4x4.
I think next time I will put in a taller 4x4 to give me a little more leverage. Behind you can see the position of the Windom in relation to the house. The feed line is fed underground through PVC pipe.
Here is the 4/1 Balun mounted to a 12" shelf bracket with a chain repair link to hold it away from the top of the center pole. The shelf bracket is screwed to the mast. I don't know if this is necessary but it seemed like a good idea as the Carolina Windom uses the vertical feed line as a radiating element.
Above is my answer to a common mode choke. To see the discussion on how I ended up with the above go to my saga of the Balun page.
Here is the base for my 20' end poles. The PVC pipe is held in place with 120 pounds of post hole mix. I use 2ea guys in addition to the antenna wire to hold the end poles up.
My end pole guys are attached to one of those steel stakes they use to hold up concrete forms. With decomposed granite as my ground they stay in place. With soft ground you may need some concrete. Note my liberal use of chain repair links to tie the dacron guy wire to. I also use them to hold the pulleys on the end poles to hold the antenna wire up Plots of my 160M "Carolina" Windom. Below is the frequency vs. VSWR plot of my Windom measured with a MFJ-269 Analyzer. I think I have zeroed out the common mode but, I am getting some funny readings at 100 Watts on 75 Meters. Click on the chart for a larger version
So that's the latest from Campo. Hope you enjoyed checking out my projects Craig Williams W6CAW
2 good links to Windom antennas Craig's Ham Radio Projects Links
 2008 Yes, it snow's in Southern California! |
