Tag Archives: Diamond X-50N ARO antenna

2015/11/03 (T) The Penultimate Cut

I heard noises in the kitchen at 7 AM and thought the cats might be up to something. I got up and discovered that Linda was just leaving the house. She is normally out the door between 6:15 and 6:30 AM but did not set her iPad alarm last night. I stuck my head out the door and said “good morning” as she was getting in the car.

I had my usual breakfast of granola with fresh blueberries and brewed a half pot of Sumatra Mandheling half-caffe coffee. I was enjoying my cup-a-joe by the fireplace when Linda called to let me know there was a story coming up on Michigan Radio (WUOM) at 8:30 AM about an underground landfill fire in Bridgeton, Missouri. Bridgeton is where my sister, niece, future nephew, and grand-niece live and I had just heard about this fire for the first time on Sunday evening while talking with my sister.

I got the leaf blower out at 10 AM and spent a couple of hours blowing as many leaves out from under bushes and away from the house into the yard as I could. Keith arrived at 10:30 AM and followed his usual mowing pattern starting with the west half of the property. The lawn in the immediate vicinity of the house is the last area he cuts which gave me enough time to get the leaves out into the yard where Keith could mulch them.

Most of our trees have dropped most of their leaves by now and Keith’s mower did a pretty good job of mulching most of them. Before he left we discussed having him come back one more time. The grass has quit growing so my preference is to wait two weeks but that will depend on the weather. Keith will check with us next Monday and we will decide what to do at that time.

Mike (W8XH) is planning to come over tomorrow after breakfast and help me work on the tower and our Hi-Q 6-80 antenna. I have been collecting materials that I need and took a little time to see if they would work with the tower. I also took the Diamond X-300N antenna down as I planned to put it on the tower in place of the X-50N that is currently up there. My materials were not working quite the way I had hoped they would so I headed to Lowe’s to see what else I could find. I also planned to drop off the used oil and filters from the bus at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts store.

At Lowe’s I found clamp sets designed for mounting antenna masts and bought a pair. O’Reilly’s parking lot was still closed off. It looked like it had been re-blacktopped and they were painting the stripes for the parking spaces. This was my second attempt to get rid of the waste from yesterday’s bus maintenance. I will try again tomorrow; with any luck the third time will be the charm.damage

The area beneath the co-pilot/navigator seat. Not a pretty sight, especially when racing against the clock to get the coach finished for the upcoming winter season.

I finally got back to work on the bus at 2:30 PM and removed the front passenger chair pedestal base. The entire area under the base, between the side-to-side seat mounting channels, was rotten so I cut out the water-damaged wood. Just below the wood I found rusted metal which appeared to be delaminating. Metal does not do that so I presume there was a layer of sheet metal on top of a metal housing. The main structure of the bus is welded stainless steel but mild steel was obviously used to create compartments. Ugh.

After cutting out the damaged wood the remaining piece towards the outside was loose but would not come out. I removed a couple of screws from the 1/4″ walnut veneer side panel and pried the top out with a small screwdriver. This panel has a lot of switches mounted in it and a lot of wires behind it so I could only pull it out about four inches. That was enough to see a 3/4″x3/4″ piece of blocking screwed to the floor to catch/secure the bottom edge of the panel. It also enough to see a very large nest made of tiny bits of shredded paper.

The cavity behind the panel to the right of the co-pilot/navigator seat was apparently a great place for a mouse to build a nest.

I left the nest alone for the moment and removed two screws from the block that went into the piece of wood I need to remove. It appeared that a drain line for the front air-conditioner went through the floor near the outside edge and possibly some wires. I left the nest for Linda to see and will resume working on this tomorrow.

Linda made vegan grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and served them with some of the leftover broccoli soup and sliced fruit. We each had a small glass of the Frey Natural Red organic/vegan wine.

After dinner I called Phil to see what his plans were for this week vis-a-vis our driveway and French drain projects. I got his voice mail and left him a message. When we left on Saturday afternoon he was just finishing up placing and compacting the gravel in the driveway but said the west end of the yard needed to dry out (again) before he could finish working down there. Hopefully the new drain will help speed that process along.

The floor area under the driver’s seat in the bus with all of the rotten wood cut out.

Phil uses a self-leveling laser level system to measure elevations. Not only has he assured me that the new 40 foot parking area is level, he has demonstrated it with his system. Still, it does not look level, especially from certain points of view, and it does not feel level when driving in it, although that may also be an optical illusion. We have a transit level and I plan to use it to check the pad, but it requires two people, one to hold the measuring stick and one to look through the telescope and record the readings. That means I need Linda’s assistance, which means this will have to wait until the weekend. Perhaps by then I will have the cockpit in the bus repaired. It’s also possible that Phil will have returned and completed the job, I which case I may have him help me use the transit as a check on his laser system.

We watched our usual lineup of Tuesday evening TV shows while Linda checked in on her online word games and I worked on this post.

2015/07/26 (N) Rearranging

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I was up at 8 AM but did not make coffee as Linda was still asleep and the grinder is fairly noisy. I put the last load of laundry in the washing machine, cleaned the litter tray (which we keep in the downstairs shower), and then worked in my office. Jasper (the cat) came down to assist me but mostly ended up supervising.

All three monitors mounted in the ham shack using the ZioTek wall-mounted track system. The Dell is in the middle. There is a mount and room for one more monitor at the right end.

I mounted the fourth (last) arm on the wall-mounted rail in our ham shack. I swung it back against the wall to get it out of the way as I do not have a monitor that I want to install at that position at the moment. I cleaned up the tools and staged them by the stairs and then moved the coiled coax out of the way and cleared a few things off of the desks so I could move the desks back into position. I left them farther out from the wall than before so they were appropriately placed relative to the three wall-mounted monitors. I then put various pieces of ham radio equipment back on the desks.

Monitors obviously need computers. I removed the Dell Precision laptop from my computer desks, removed the computer from the combination docking station and monitor stand, cleaned all of the pieces, and reassembled it. I set it at the left edge of the ham desks, slid it under the left monitor, and placed our old Icom IC-706 HF transceiver on the monitor platform, just for appearance sake. We are not using thus radio at the moment but it fit nicely in that spot.

I placed the GoBox with the Icom IC-7000 HF/VHF/UHF transceiver and 12VDC power supply at the right edge of the desks, put the MFJ-998 Intelli-Tuner to its left (under the right monitor), and put the larger variable voltage DC power supply on top of it. The time we spent yesterday determining where to mount the rail on the wall was time well spent. The monitors are at a comfortable height for viewing when seated at the desk, tilted down slightly to avoid glare from the overhead down lights, and the bottom edges are high enough above the desk to permit sizeable equipment to slide under them. The desks are also far enough out from the wall to make it easy to attach and manage cables.

I rearranged my primary ASUS laptop on my computer desks and checked my e-mail accounts. I have had a discussion going on this past week with Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine about hats with the BCM logo and responded to a couple more of those communiques. Around 10:15 AM I heard footsteps and knew that Linda was finally up so I wrapped up the work in my office, transferred the laundry to the dryer, and went upstairs.

Linda was working at her desk and was not hungry but wanted coffee. She did not sleep well last night so I made a pot of Sumatra Manhelding which is NOT one of our half decaffeinated blends. I got myself a bowl of granola and had a large glass of orange juice. We spent the rest of the morning in the living room reading, writing, and menu planning.

The dinette area of our bus with the two fan-coil heat exchangers on the floor. They will go in the bases of the desk when it is installed in this corner.

I like to hear the grandfather clock strike 12. Besides the charming Westminster chimes, it serves to announce that the part of the day has arrived where I am supposed to get some of the physical work on my to-do list accomplished. Today, however, my #1 priority was to redesign the pull-out pantry so I limited my physical work to gathering up my tools from the basement and moving them to the garage, moving the bus back to its normal parking spot, and taking photos of cabinet details in the bus for Jarel. I mixed in a little e-mail, a few computer updates, some ham radio, and time for meals, but basically I worked at my drafting board most of the day and evening.

For dinner Linda made a very tasty dish that we had not had before. The base ingredient was rice and she used basmati even though the recipe called for brown. I prefer basmati rice to brown rice so it was a good substitution as far as I was concerned. The other ingredients were garlic, power greens, mushrooms, and blanched fresh green beans. She sliced and caramelized a large onion and used it as a topping. This was essentially a “1-pot” dish in that all of the ingredients ended up combined prior to serving. Linda makes a lot of dishes like this and we both like them. This particular dish had the crunch of the green beans, the chewiness of the rice, and the soft earthy character of the mushrooms held together by the garlic and olive oil and topped with sweet earthiness of the caramelized onions.

At 8 PM local (EDT) I participated in the weekly SLAARC Info Net for the first time in a couple of years and did so from the comfort of our ham shack. It was a pleasure using our new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band transceiver with our Diamond X-50N 2m/70cm antenna at a height of 40 feet and connected by good coaxial cables all the way through. Club president Harvey (AC8NO) served as net control operator and did a nice job.

After the net wrapped up at 8:45 PM Steve (N8AR), Andy (N8DEV), and I chatted for another 20 minutes trying to find some rhyme or reason why our Yaesu FTM-400’s are experiencing random audio dropouts. We did not get it figured out and wrapped up our QSO so Steve and I could check into the LARK (Livingston Amateur Radio Klub) net that started at 9 PM (EDT). This was the first time I had checked in to this particular net even though LARK is based in Howell and the repeater is closer to us than the ones in South Lyon or Novi.

The LARK Net was much briefer than the SLAARC net and concluded at 9:16 EDT. Steve and I went back to the South Lyon repeater where Paul (N8BHT) heard us and joined the conversation. When we finally wrapped up our testing QSO I went back to work on my pull-out pantry drawings. I was about to shut everything down at 10:45 PM EDT when Mike (W8XH) announced his presence on the South Lyon repeater. He was mobile but full-quieting and I did not experience any dropouts during our 25 minute QSO. I took a few minutes to e-mail Jarel and then called it a night. I had a few almonds as a snack, got ready for bed, and worked on this bog post for a while.

2015/07/02 (R) 100,000 Radios

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We were tired and did not get up until almost 8 AM. Linda prepared a tofu scramble for breakfast, as we were almost out of her homemade granola, and served it with some cinnamon raisin toast and fresh grapefruit. It’s the closest thing we eat to scrambled eggs and she serves it as an occasional change of pace from our standard granola breakfast.

I had my annual appointment with my dermatologist this morning at 11 AM. I needed to pick up a cable from Scott (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics, which was on my way to the Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) clinic, so I left the house a little after 9:30 AM. The drive was fine initially and I had a nice QSO (chat) with Steve (N8AR) on the South Lyon 2m repeater. As I was approaching Wixom Road, however, all lanes of eastbound I-96 were stopped. I was able to exit at Wixom Road and headed north a short distance to West Road which I took east over to Beck Road where Scotty’s business is located a little north of West Road. I had a brief chat with Scott about the antennas on my tower before I left.

Two miles north of Scott’s shop I turned east on Maple Road (15 Mile Road). The HFHS has many clinics around the greater Metro Detroit area and my dermatologist is located at the intersection of Maple and Farmington Roads in West Bloomfield. That should have been an easy trip but there was construction on Maple Road that had the road down to one lane with flaggers. There were signs advising motorists to seek other routes but I did not heed the warning. I patiently worked my way through and arrived for my appointment about seven minutes ahead of time. Good thing I left as early as I did.

My exam was fairly routine and Dr. Nydorf wrote out a prescription for Doxycycline. I will try taking it (again) three times a week and see if it helps. I headed straight for home after my appointment but took a different route. Once I was back at the house Linda went for a walk. While she was walking I removed the license plate from her car, took the protective (anti-theft) cover off, and cleaned everything. When it was dry I put the new registration sticker in the corner, reassembled the cover, and installed the plate back onto the car. I then started working with the various pieces of the new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE mobile radio. When she got back from her walk she heated up a couple of tofu hotdogs for lunch. These are such simple fare but so tasty (with mustard, onions, and relish) and so appropriate for a summertime lunch. They are also a really easy lunch to get on the table.

After lunch Linda took her car to the Howell library to get some books and children’s DVDs and then stop at the Meijer’s supermarket to pick up a few grocery items for Madeline’s visit this weekend. While she was running errands I assembled our new Diamond X-300NA antenna. Once it was assembled it was over 10 feet long so I stored it by mounting it to the side of the tower. I put it up as high as I could reach from the ground to get the three counterpoise (elevated ground plane) rods above eye level. Moving it to the top of the tower as a replacement for the Diamond X-50NA will have to wait until next week or later. The exact timing will depend on the weather, Mike’s (W8XH) availability, and whether I have acquired appropriate standoffs by then for the X-300 antenna and/or the cellular booster omnidirectional antenna.

With the antenna taken care of (for now) I disconnected the coaxial cable for the X-50 from the radio side of the lightning arrestor and positioned it so I could pull it back into the sump pump room. From there I fed it into the ham shack, disconnected it from the radio, and coiled it up. I uncoiled the new 20′ LMR-400 cable with the N-male connector end positioned so I could feed it through the corner of the ceiling in the ham shack (by the ground wire) and into the sump pump room. From there I fed it through one of the 2″ conduits into the cable entry box. Back outside I shaped the cable (LMR-400 cable is double shielded and stiff) and connected it to the radio side of the Morgan VHF/UHF lightning arrestor and closed the lid on the box.

Back in the ham shack I attached the PL-259 connector to the SO-239 socket on the back of the Icom IC-7000 GoBox. I could have gotten away with a 16′ cable but the 20′ length gives me more flexibility with respect to equipment placement. I turned on the IC-7000 but did not hear anyone on either the South Lyon 2m or the Novi 70cm repeaters so I turned it off.

I disconnected Mike’s Icom IC-2820H and set it aside to make space for the new Yaesu FTM-400DR/DE dual band mobile transceiver. I moved the new coax to the new radio, powered it up, spent a few minutes configuring some basic things, and then listened to the South Lyon and Novi repeaters. I tried calling them but was not triggering them so I knew the PL Tone was not set correctly. I called Mike for assistance and left him a voice message.

Linda was back by this time so she came down to see the new radio. We then went out to the bus to make our final decisions about upholstery fabric and window shade materials. In the end we chose the Lambright Notion Linen fabric for all four chairs and the MCD B50 material for the dark out shades. We brought all the samples back in the house and I e-mailed our choices to Josh at Coach Supply Direct.

I had an e-mail from Scott Neader (KA9FOX) at QTH.com requesting an admin login for the SLAARC WordPress website so I set that up and e-mailed him back. I had the new radio on and was listening to a conversation on the Novi repeater. It had just concluded when Mike returned my call. He walked me through how to set up the PL Tone and Squelch Tone for both of the repeaters on the FTM-400. We were then able to verify that the radio was working on both bands.

For dinner Linda made a salad and pan-grilled tofu with caramelized onions and barbecue sauce which she served open-faced on hamburger buns. We had watermelon for dessert, which we have been doing a lot this summer. I did not care for watermelon as a child but it has become a favorite summertime treat. I had dropped a small lock washer while mounting the new antenna to the tower earlier so I went to Lowe’s to get a replacement and some spares. On the drive there I got a call from XPO Delivery Service letting me know that the new refrigerator for the bus would be delivered to Chuck’s shop in Novi tomorrow between 6 and 8 PM.

At Lowe’s I picked up some 6mm x 1.0 Nylok nuts in addition to the lock washers. I also got some grass seed patching mix, a few more bags of decorative broken brick pieces, and a hummingbird feeder with a red reservoir so Linda can use sugar water without red food coloring. When I got home the odometer on my car read 100000 so I took a picture of it with my phone. I then spread the patching mix over the bare dirt I had used to fill a hole and troughs left by the installation of the natural gas line to our house last September. The rest of the evening Linda read and I worked on completing drafts of blog posts.

2015/06/26 (F) Field Day Setup

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I was up at 7 AM and ready to leave for breakfast with the other SLAARC members who would be setting up our temporary field site for the ARRL Field Day event. I called the SLAARC repeater and Steve (N8AR) came back and wanted to know if I had the site use permit from the township? No, I did not. Paul, N8BHT, got on the air and said he gave it to Linda so I went back home. Linda was up but had no recollection of receiving it. We looked through the materials she got from Paul but could not find it. I left again for breakfast but after more radio QSO went back a second time to retrieve all of the records and bring them with me to the field day site. (Our best guess is that he gave the permits to the other Linda (NF8C) who is the club secretary.

SLAARC’s Field Day setup begins in earnest when Steve’s equipment trailer arrives.

By this time it was too late to make it to breakfast so I stopped for coffee and fueled my car. Mike (W8XH) also did not go to breakfast with the group in South Lyon so we were the first to arrive at the site. Another 10 guys showed up shortly thereafter. John’s Sanitation then arrived and dropped off our rented porta-potty.

We had 12 people for most of the day and 14 total who were there for at least part of the day. It was a good group and just the right size for the task. We worked steadily from 9 AM until almost 5 PM except for an early afternoon lunch break. By the end of the day we had erected two towers and set up six antennas (20m beam and 6m beam co-located on the taller tower, two off-center fed dipoles from the taller tower, a 40m crossed dipole from the shorter tower, and a 40m 1/4 wave vertical with four elevated counterpoise wires). We also put up three radio tents, a screen room, and the big food tent.

Larry (K8UT) holds the 6m beam while Steve (N8AR) and others attach the 20m beam to the mast of the taller tower.

The weather was cloudy and dull and not the best for taking photographs but I took pictures anyway. I had to be deliberate in my shot selections, however, as both of my memory cards were almost full. All of the work that needed to be done today was finished by 4:30 PM and most of us took off. Our Field Day chairman, Paul (KD8SNZ), and a new member, Ron, setup their tents as they would be spending the night and keeping an eye on the site. Steve (N8AR) and Eric (K8ERS) stayed a bit longer to test the antennas using the mobile radio in Steve’s SUV.

Back home I took a nap for an hour before dinner. Linda grilled Portobello mushrooms and corn on the cob and cut up some fresh strawberries and cantaloupe. After dinner I went to my office and transferred all of our recent photographs from the Sony alpha 100 DSLR to my computer and then to our older NAS device which we had with us this past winter. I then started backing up all of the photographs we had taken since December 2014 from the old NAS unit to the new one. This involved a significant number of images, a lot of gigabytes of data, and took a bit of time.

Rather than sit around waiting for file transfers to finish I decided to turn on the Icom IC-7000 ham radio and see if I could figure out why I could not hear the Novi 440 repeater on Wednesday when we tested the antenna and coax installation. I checked the Nifty guide for the Icom IC-7000 and, as Mike had suspected, I did not have the Tone Squelch frequency set correctly for the Novi repeater. I changed the mode on the 440 MHz band from ‘Tone’ to ‘TSQL’ and then caIled Mike (W8XH) on the phone to see if he could help me do a radio check. We spent about an hour going back and forth between the Novi and South Lyon repeaters.

With the correct settings I was able to work both repeaters although I had a lot of background noise (static). I played with the noise reduction (NR) and pre-amplifier functions and both seemed to help. Mike tried various combinations of power and simplex operation and we determined that the basic problem seemed to be a weak signal in both directions. I am still suspicious of the fact that I do not have the Go Box grounded as I vaguely recall from three years ago having noise problems with this setup until I grounded the box, which is tied to the radio ground.

Field Day is an “all hands on deck (antenna)” event for our SLAARC group.

Mike was suspicious of the coax I used to go from the lightning arrestor to the radio but looked up the specifications on my Diamond X-50N antenna and suggested that an antenna with more gain might be in order. We also discussed the location where I placed the antenna on the tower. Although most of the antenna is above the tower it is on the northwest leg. The two repeaters lie to the southeast so the tower may be ‘blocking’ some of the signal although that does not seem likely to me. Of more concern to me is that I mounted the base of the antenna so that two of the three counterpoise (ground plane) rods are even with, and parallel to, two of the three topmost crossbars. If anything is being blocked it is likely those as the crossbars are between the rods and the repeater locations.

Ed (KD8OSM) jumped in briefly to let us know that I also had a ‘hum’ that sounded like the 60 Hz power line frequency only higher pitched. I have a small fan installed in the back of the Go Box so I hummed the same pitch as it was producing into the microphone and both Ed and Mike confirmed that this was the tone they were hearing. The fan is audible, but not that loud, and was two feet behind the microphone so I would be surprised if it was picking up the fan noise. It is possible that the fan is inducing the hum electrically, but I believe it is a DC fan, so that seems unlikely. I do not have an AC line filter installed on the fan, or anywhere in the box, so that may be a next step.

The larger of the two towers is up and secured. It has a 6m beam antenna on top of 20m beam antenna on a common mast with a rotator. We also attached one end of an off-center-fed dipole to this tower.

At the SLAARC Field Day site atop the Lyon Township Atchison Memorial Park the larger of the two towers is up and secured. It has a 6m beam antenna on top of 20m beam antenna on a common mast with a rotator. We also attached one end of an off-center-fed dipole to this tower. Tents are being erected to house the various operating stations. The weather was overcast and forecast to get much worse before Field Day as over on Sunday.

Mike and I wrapped up our QSO and I shut the radio off. I checked my e-mail and saw that the May 2015 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine was available. I logged in to the website and downloaded both the standard and high definition versions of the April and May digital editions. By the time I got to bed it was well after 11PM. I finished up yesterday’s blog post draft and outlined as much of today’s post as I could before I lost the sequence and details of the day’s events.

2015/06/24 (W) Up The Tower

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Today was the day to finally climb the tower to remove an old TV antenna, reposition an amateur radio antenna, and install two new antennas, one for OTA TV and the other for a cellular booster system. But there were other things to do before I was ready to climb.

I was up at 7 AM and on my way to Lowe’s in Howell by 7:20 AM in search of a solution to the problem of how to mount the outdoor cellular booster antenna. I ended up buying two 2-1/2 inch U-bolts. Although the tower legs are 1-5/8″ in diameter the angle bracket attached to the bottom of the antenna is 2-1/4 inches wide. Thus I needed the 2-1/2 inch spacing for the threaded ends of the U-bolt to clear the bracket.

Back at the house Linda was up and had the coffee made. We had a quick breakfast of homemade granola. I removed the tire pressure sensors and GPS from my car and headed to Brighton Honda to drop it off for its 100,000 mile service appointment. Linda arrived at the dealership about 10 minutes later. We then headed to Adams Electronics in Wixom. While Adams Electronics primarily serves the public and business communications markets owner Scott Adams, AC8IL, is a long-time ham and a member of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club and Novi Amateur Radio Club. Well known in the local amateur radio community, Scotty is the local go-to guy for certain kinds of equipment. I ordered two coaxial cables from him the other day and we were here to pick them up.

We left to return home at 10 AM so I called Mike (W8XH) to let him know we were running a little behind. So was he, but thought he could be at our house by 11 AM. That gave me time to drill a hole in each of the two U-bolt retaining plates and cut a short piece of 1″ square aluminum tube to use as a spacer. That was the last fabricating I needed to do and we got busy staging all of the materials we were going to need to get the tower work done efficiently.

Mike (W8XH) setting up the tools and parts outside the “drop zone” of the 40-foot tower on the east end of the house. (Photo by Linda)

Linda set out a sheet near the tower but not in the “drop zone.” We spread out materials and tools on the sheet and used it to make sure we could find things quickly and keep them from getting lost in the grass. I also brought all of my tool boxes to the tower area. With everything assembled it was time to climb. I set up our 7 foot step ladder on the east end of our rear deck to provide access to the roof near the tower. Mike helped me into his climbing harness and got it adjusted. Once on the roof I took the harness off temporarily as my first task was to remove the 2m/70cm base station antenna. After clipping the plastic cable ties I lowered it down to Mike while Linda took photographs. (She helped with many aspects of the work today but was the only photographer.)

Starting up the tower from the roof of the house. (Photo by Linda)

I put the harness back on and Mike tossed me one of the 100 foot ropes which would eventually be used to haul materials and tools up and down the tower. I secured the haul rope to one of the unused seat clip rings and Mike instructed me on how to secure the harness while climbing. I put the waist strap around the tower and clipped it in. I then put one of the two fall cables, attached to the ring at my upper back, around one of the legs above one of the cross bars above my head and clipped it into the ring at my chest. The tower is adjacent to the east end of the house and is attached to it by two pipe assemblies just below the soffit (the house has hip roofs) so it was easy to step onto it. After that things got tougher.

The horizontal trussing on the tower is two feet apart vertically. That spacing was right at the limit of how high I could lift my right foot and required me to pull myself up part way until I could push with my right leg. Once up on the next rung I attached the other fall cable, moved the first one higher, and slide the waist strap up to position myself for the next step. I repeated this pattern with the two fall cables and the waist strap as I worked my way slowly up the tower, clipping old plastic cable (zip) ties as I went. The tower definitely had some give but I was quickly acclimated to the amount of sway and found it to be acceptable so we decided not to guy the tower with the other three ropes, which would have slowed my ascent even more.

When I finally reached the top of the tower I untied the haul rope, looped it over one of the southeast facing horizontal bars and hauled it up allowing the free end to lower down to the ground. Mike then tied the rope to the standoff pulley I had fabricated and hauled it up to me. I already had cable ties, a diagonal cutter, and a pair of slip pliers with me. I set the threaded rod on the northeast and southeast cross bars, inside and against the two legs that were parallel to the side of the house, and secured it with cable ties. This was a three-handed job that I had to do with two hands but I got it done while only dropping one cable tie. With the pulley rod secured I undid the rope and then undid the knot tying the two loose ends together. I fed one end through the pulley and retied it to the other end. We now had a way to haul materials and tools (in a bucket) up to me at any needed height while keeping it 18 inches away from the tower.

Three-quarters of the way up ad working with the haul rope. (Photo by Linda)

The next task at the top of the tower was to remove the old TV antenna, mast, and rotor. When I finally had a close up view of these old components it became apparent that my best course of action was to try and unclamp the base of the mast from the rotator, lift it off of the rotator, and toss it to the ground.

The mast clamp parts were all very rusty so Linda got the WD-40 and Mike sent it up in the bucket. I sprayed the nuts on the mast mounts and also the rotator leg clamps. I tried undoing the mast clamps with a slip pliers but it was no good, so Mike sent up three open/closed end wrenches. One of them was the right size and to my surprise the rusted nuts broke loose and started backing off. One of them did not want to come off but unscrewed the entire bolt instead. Fine. The bolt had a screwdriver slot in the top and was threaded into the rotor housing and I did not care how it came out as long as it did. I got the mast clamps loose enough that I could work the bottom of the mast free from the top of the rotor. There was a lot of rust there too. After clipping some coax cables, rotor control wires, and plastic cable clamps I repositioned myself up one rung on the tower so I could get enough leverage to the lift the mast clear of the rotator collar and control it well enough to make sure the antenna fell to the ENE away from the house and my helpers down below. And that is exactly what happened.

The first antenna to get mounted was the outdoor antenna for the cellular booster system. Mike sent the antenna up in the bucket along with the various pieces I needed to secure it to the short top/center mast support tube so the entire antenna, which is omnidirectional, was above all parts of the tower. What would have been an awkward assembly on the ground took on added difficulty 40 feet in the air but I got it secured with good access to the N-female connector on the bottom.

At the top with the pulley in place and using it to haul up a bucket with tools and parts. Mike is controlling the haul rope on the ground. (Photo by Linda)

We decided to run the coax on the outside of one of the tower legs rather than down the inside of the tower. Mike tied the LMR-400 coax to the rope and hauled it up to me. In addition to the haul rope Mike tied a second control line to the bucket to keep it from swinging all over the place. I connected the coax to the antenna feed point and then wrapped the connection with coax seal tape. I then routed the coax down the east leg of the tower and zip tied it to take the weight off of the antenna connection.

Next up was the 2m/70cm amateur radio base station antenna, often referred to as a 2m/440 dual band antenna. (In this nomenclature the “2m” refers to a range of wavelengths for one of the VHF ham bands and the “440” refers to a range of frequencies for one of the UHF ham radio bands, so it is a mixed units designation.). The antenna is about five feet long with three short counterpoise (ground plane) rods near the base. It had an LMR-400 style cable connected to it but with PL-259 male connectors on each end. The antenna feed point is an N-female connector so I had an adapter installed to make everything compatible. Mike removed the coax and the adapter, zip tied the antenna to the haul cable at three points, put the 10mm wrench in the bucket, and hauled it up to me.

The ham radio antenna was also tricky to get mounted. I installed it at the top of the northwest leg so that most of the antenna was above the tower and two of the three short counterpoise were parallel to the west (N-S) and northeast (NW-SE) crossbars. The antenna by itself is light in weight but it is five feet long and mounts at the bottom nine inches, so most if it was above me with a tendency to wave around in mid-air. With the coax connected, however, it weighed quite a bit more. I temporarily zip tied the coax to take the weight. I then had to hold the antenna with its base against the northwest post at my head level, push a U-bolt through the mounting bracket and past the tower leg, slip the mating clamp over the two ends of the U-bolt, and then get a small lock washer and nut on each threaded bolt end. I then had to repeat this for the second U-bolt. Again, a three-handed job that I had to do with only two hands.

The old OTA TV antenna and mast on the ground. It came down by the gravity method. (Photo by Linda)

The bonus to this work at the top of the tower was a commanding view of the surrounding countryside, which was mostly trees in every direction. I even saw two towers far to the north and was kept company by a soaring vulture just to the NNE. I was also able to determine that the tops of the large white pine trees behind the east end of our house are about 10 feet higher than the top of our tower, putting their overall height at about 55 feet as their bases are lower than the base of the tower. We plan to put the 70 foot tower at a spot that is surrounded by these trees on three sides (W, S, and E) so the top of the tower, and any antennas mounted there, will be well above the tree tops. That is especially important as we plan to eventually put an HF beam antenna up there on a mast attached to a rotator and it will need to be able to rotate freely for 360 degrees.

The final antenna was the hardest. The Antennas Direct DB8e OTA UHF/digital TV antenna was very large and heavy by comparison to the other two. In this case ‘heavy’ meant a few pounds. It is actually two UHF antennas mounted at the end of a dual support arm structure. The support arm mounts to a vertical pole, such as a tower leg, at its midpoint and there is a combiner box located there as part of the mount. A short length of RG-59 (75 ohm) coax connects each antenna to the combiner box and the main coax connects there as well.

How tall the tower appears (and feels) depends on where you are standing. (Photo by Linda)

How tall the tower appears (and feels) depends on where you are standing. Pulley and haul rope in the upper right. Lots of coaxial cables to be dressed (secured) on the way down. (Photo by Linda)

RG-59 is a different kind of coaxial cable from the LMR-400 used for the first two antennas. LMR-400 has a 50 ohm characteristic impedance and is used for receiving and transmitting RF energy with considerable power if needed. RG-59 is much smaller in diameter, more flexible, has a 75 ohm characteristic impedance, and uses F-connectors that are the standard for OTA TV, video, and satellite cables. But I have gotten ahead of myself. I had to come down a few feet on the tower to install the TV antenna but before doing that I had to start securing the transmission lines to the tower legs with cable ties.

Mike rigged up the haul rope in a ‘Y’ to lift the antenna from its center of gravity while actually attaching the rope to its ends. That allowed the haul rope to both support the weight of the antenna and keep it oriented correctly while I positioned and clamped it to the southwest tower leg with the dual support arms pointing in an east-west direction. Because of where I had the pulley mounted, and the length of the ‘Y’ in the support rope, I had to mount the antenna a few feet lower on the tower. Fortunately the slightly lower height was not going to affect its performance.

Like the ham radio antenna, the OTA TV antenna mounted to the tower leg at two points. The upper assembly was a U-bolt with a retaining bracket on the back side. The lower assembly was a pair of straight bolts that went through the combiner box past the tower leg and had a retaining bracket on the back side. The antenna came with wing nuts instead of washers and regular nuts, which helped a little, but I really needed three hands to get the antenna into position and tighten the mounting brackets.

Mike ties off the DB8e OTA TV antenna with an inverted “Y” so it will haul up in the proper orientation. (Photo by Linda)

Once I had the antenna sufficiently attached to the tower I was able to position the support arm close to the southeast facing side of the tower. I then pointed the antenna on the east end of the arm ESE towards the Detroit area TV towers and tightened the two nuts on the mounting studs. (The horizontal dual support arms are about 3 feet long so I was able to reach through the tower to get to the mounting studs and nuts.) I left the antenna on the west end of the support beam loose and turned it out of my way so I could complete other tasks.

Mike attached the end of the main RG-59 coax to the haul rope, put the amplifier and a 2-foot length of RG-59 coax in the bucket along with lots of zip ties, and pulled them up to me. The amplifier is about 3″ wide by 2″ high and 1.5″ thick including the concave plastic backplate. The backplate accepts two zip ties for mounting to a pole. I positioned the amplifier about 8 inches below the antenna combiner box and cinched up the two zip ties. I then connected the short coax to the combiner box output and put the combiner back it its protective, weather-gasketed plastic box. I connected the other end of the short coax to the amplifier input and wrapped the connection with coax seal weatherproofing tape.

Installing the DB8e OTA TV antenna required three hands. Note that I am installing it at the highest point possible when suspended from the pulley with the haul rope in an inverted "Y" attachment. (Photo by Linda)

Installing the DB8e OTA TV antenna required three hands. Note that I am installing it at the highest point possible when it is suspended from the pulley with the haul rope in an inverted “Y” attachment. The yellow waist strap allowed me to lean back and work while the two red security straps would catch me if something broke. (Photo by Linda)

I attached the main RG-59 coax to the output of the amplifier, which is also the DC power input, and wrapped the connection in coax weather seal tape. I then dressed the cable and secured it to the tower leg. I aimed the antenna on the west end of the support arm WNW towards the East Lansing TV towers and tightened the nuts to lock it in position.

At this point I was finally done working on the antennas but had three coaxial transmission line running down the outside of the tower, one by each leg. As I descended the tower, reversing the protocol I used going up, I secured all three cables every few feet. I finally had my feet back on the roof at 2:20 PM, almost exactly 2 hours and 30 minutes from when I started climbing. Projects usually take me twice as long as I think they will but this was about half as long as I thought it would take, so we were all pleased that the work had gone smoothly and relatively quickly. My main objective was to get the old TV antenna down and the three antennas up but my secondary objective was to only climb and descend the tower once. Mission accomplished, at least for now.

By now we were all hungry and thirsty so Linda made chickpea salad sandwiches and set out fresh sweet peppers, sliced apples, baby carrots, and cold water. After a suitable lunch break we returned to the next phase of the work which was routing the coax cables into the cable entry box (CEB) and making the connections.

We started with the RG-59 coax from the OTA TV antenna. I coiled the extra cable and hung it on the tower (with zip ties, of course), routed it into the CEB and connected it to the power inserter / lightning arrestor. We purchased this cable from a Radio Shack store in Florida two winters ago to hook up our bus to the RV resort cable TV system. Besides the coax it had a separate ground wire. The amplifier and the power inserter both had connections for a separate ground wire so I connected it on both ends.

Routing coaxial cable into the cable entry box from the tower and the basement and making the connections. (Photo by Linda)

We had already routed a 75 ohm video cable from our bedroom TV to the sump pump room in the basement. I selected a suitable length of this same type of cable from our existing inventory, connected it to the other side of the power inserter, and routed it through the back of the CEB into the sump pump room where Linda guided it. Conveniently, I had a double-ended F-female barrel connector designed to connect together two cables with F-male connectors. I plugged in the AC power adapter for the power inserter, which was already in the sump pump room, and we went upstairs to see if we were receiving any TV stations.

We set the ‘Source’ on the TV to ‘Antenna’ and did an ‘Auto Scan’ for digital channels only. There are very few analog TV signals still in use and the ones that are reside in the old VHF TV spectrum which our new antenna cannot even receive. The scan found 58 signals, which obviously included the sub-channels. Besides the main Detroit stations and the East Lansing PBS station we got other Lansing area stations and even a station from Flint. The nice thing about digital TV is that if you get a picture at all it is very good.

There is a large TV tower at I-96 and US-127 on the southeast corner of Lansing so we were probably picking it up. There are several TV towers SSW of Lansing about 35 miles that serve Battle Creek and may serve Lansing and Kalamazoo. They are 50+ miles from us and I did not have the west antenna pointed in exactly that direction but it may have been close enough to pick them up. Flint is at least 35 miles away straight north off the sides of both antennas so theoretically we should not have received any stations from that direction. We will have to check the AntennaPoint.com website and confirm by station identifier what stations we are actually receiving.

Feeling good about our success so far we routed the coax for the cellular booster across one of the support arms that brace the tower to the house just under the east soffit. We dropped it down next to the wall and brought it into the bottom of the CEB, replacing the hole plug with a rubber grommet. Routing it this way kept it out of the way of future foot traffic, or lawn and garden work, in the space around/between the tower and the CEB. I connected the cable to the lightning arrestor and coaxed it unto position inside the CEB. LMR-400 is stiff and bending it sharply will damage it.

I connected one end of the 15-foot LMR-400 cable to the other side of the antenna arrestor and routed it into the sump pump room where Linda guided it into position. I secured it to the ceiling, brought it down the opposite wall, put a large 180 degree bend in it, and attached it to the connector on the bottom of the cellular booster. I turned it on and watched the lights blink for a while. All three of us then started checking signal strength throughout both floors of the house. All five of the ‘Alert’ lights went from blinking yellow, which means the unit is adjusting the gain on that band, to solid yellow, which is not described in the manual. Since we had not yet registered the device with Verizon Wireless I turned off the booster.

Back out at the CEB I removed one of the hole plugs directly below the input of the Morgan VHF lightning arrestor. We routed the coax for the 2m/440 ham antenna across the tower brace, down the wall, and around through the bottom of the box where I attached it to the lightning arrestor input. I had an old piece of 50 ohm coax with an N-male connector on one end and a PL-259 (male) connector on the other end. I attached the N-connector to the output of the VHF lightning arrestor and fed the other end through one of the 2″ conduits into the sump pump room where Linda routed it out into the ham shack.

We set our “Go Box” on the desk, plugged the PL-259 into the SO-239 socket on the back of the case, plugged it in to AC power, turned on the power supply, and turned on the radio. The radio, an Icom IC-7000, came up tuned to the South Lyon (K8VJ) repeater. I transmitted and successfully triggered the repeater, which is currently at a secondary site about 20 miles from our tower. Mike went out to his car and used his mobile radio to verify that we could transmit to and receive from the repeater. I had a lot of background static (white noise) so Mike switched modes and transmitted directly to our antenna. The signal was full scale and full quieting. I have a ground lug in the Go Box but did not have it connected. I vaguely recalled that I had to ground the box at the previous house to eliminate a noise issue. (The radio and power supply are grounded to the box.)

I switched the radio to UHF and it was set for the Novi repeater. I listened but did not hear anyone transmitting so I transmitted, giving my call sign and a brief message, and then listened. I did not get a reply even though Mike was also monitoring the Novi repeater so I switched back to the South Lyon repeater. Mike indicated that I had, indeed, triggered the repeater and that a couple of other hams acknowledged hearing me in addition to him. It thus appeared that I did not have something set up correctly on the receive side of the radio for the Novi repeater but the system (radio, cables, arrestor, antenna) was clearly working.

That was enough work for one day so we gathered up all of the tools and unused materials and put them away. We offered to take Mike to dinner as a ‘Thank You’ for his assistance. It was more than helpful to have someone on the ground who was familiar with tower operations. We considered several dining options but opted for Olga’s in Brighton. Linda and I had small salads, sans the Feta cheese, veggie Olga’s that were excellent, and curly fries without Tabasco sauce for the ketchup. Warning: As inconceivable as it may sound, Olga’s does not have any kind of hot sauce in its restaurants. Mike had a dish with chicken in that he said was very good.

Mike headed home from the restaurant as did we. We were tired but very pleased with what we had accomplished in the course of the day. We celebrated our accomplishments by watching several programs on Detroit PBS, something we have not been able to do for more than two years.

2015/06/22 (M) Cable Me This

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We turned the air-conditioning off last night and enjoyed the fresh air, pleasant temperature, and lower humidity. The overnight low was 58 which made for good sleeping. We awoke to blue skies and what we thought would be a picture perfect Michigan summer day until Linda checked the morning news (iPad). There was a story about a storm that moved through the upper plains yesterday and had a bead on Michigan for later today and this evening. What had been a 10% chance of rain for today had been replaced by a forecast for strong-to-severe thunderstorms with the possibility of strong winds, large hail, and tornadoes. Ahhhh, summer in Michigan.

Not ones to sit around and wait for the apocalypse we did what any sensible couple would do, I made coffee while Linda reheated the last of the Baked French Toast from yesterday’s brunch. We had breakfast and then sat on the deck enjoying our coffee and contemplating the end of the world, or at least the possible destruction of our brand new roof. But it’s insured, so “no worries, maan” as they say in Jamaica. More coffee please.

We have a whole house generator that runs on natural gas so as long as a storm doesn’t damage it we can survive for a very long time without electric utility power. Losing our AT&T Internet connection, however, would be a genuine hardship as that would require us to use our Verizon Mi-Fi (without the benefit of the new Fusion5s cellular booster which I plan to install on Wednesday) or go to Panera, McDonalds, or one of the libraries to get online.

Keith showed up around 10 AM to cut the grass. We were hoping he would make it as we have not had too much rain this past week and the last few days in particular have been dry. I think this is the first time this season he has been able to cut our grass without it being wet. It looked nice when he was done.

I got a call from Phil Jarrell. He had been successful in reaching Mike Fearer of Bid Rite Concrete on Mike’s cell phone. Based on Phil’s description Mike was interested in looking at our tower foundation project and was expecting me to call so I did, using my cell phone, and this time I was able to reach him. It turned out that the information about his business on the Internet is out of date. He is no longer in Whitmore Lake but now operates from near M-59 and Latson Road, not far from us. We agreed that he would stop by tomorrow at the end of the work day to look at our project.

I did not want to do a lot of heavy work today, as I was still a bit tired and sore, but I needed to mount two lightning arrestors in the cable entry box and mount the cellular booster in the sump pump room so I could figure out what coax cable lengths I needed and go get them from Scott Adams (AC8IL) at Adams Electronics in Wixom. But first I called Mike (W8XH) to let him know I was planning on Wednesday for the tower work, assuming he was still available and the tower was still standing.

Cable entry box showing copper ground plane with Morgan lightning arrestors (lower left), control line arrestor (center top), and cellular and OTA TV arrestors (center).

I determined that I needed two coaxial cables and ordered them from Scott by phone rather than take the time today to drive to his place of business. They will both be LMR-400 with N-connectors on both ends. One will be 50 feet long, for our 2m/70cm Diamond X50-N VHF/UHF base station antenna, and the other will be 15 feet long, to get from the cellular booster lightning arrestor in the cable entry box to the repeater (amplifier) in the sump pump room. I will pick them up early Wednesday morning and install them.

One of the lightning arrestors was for the SureCall Fusion5s cellular booster system. It has N-connectors on both ends, one of which is intended for bulkhead mounting. It came with an angle bracket that fit over the bulkhead end and I used that to mount it. I used the 2′ length of LMR-400 that came with the booster installation kit to position the lightning arrestor so the cable from the repeater could exit one of the 2″ conduits and bend around and connect to it. LMR-400 is a low loss, 50 ohm impedance, coaxial cable that can handle high RF transmit power. The cellular booster only has a 1 Watt transmitter but is operating at frequencies where energy losses in coax cables become significant. To do what it does LMR-400 is just under 1/2″ in diameter. It is fairly stiff and does not make sharp bends so cable runs and connections have to be carefully planned.

The other lightning arrestor was for the Antennas Direct DB8e OTA TV antenna and serves a dual purpose as the power insertion device for the tower mounted amplifier. The coax cable for OTA TV signals is typically 75 ohm impedance RG-6 with F-connectors. It is half the diameter of LMR-400 and much more flexible. It is also typically used to receive low power signals and convey them in one direction; from the antenna to the TV. Because we are 25 miles from the nearest TV tower and some of the towers are 50+ miles away, I ordered a signal amplifier to go with the antenna.

Ideally you want to amplify an OTA TV signal as soon as it comes out of the antenna and this amplifier does just that. It will mount on the same tower leg as the antenna about two feet below the antenna feed point. However, being an active electronic device it needs electrical power to operate. There are two basic ways that could be done.

One way would be to have power wires, such as +5 VDC and DC Ground that are separate from the coaxial cable that carries the radio frequency (RF) energy. The two OTA TV antennas on our bus are set up this way with three wires to supply power and control the enclosed rotor.

The other way is to provide DC power through the coaxial cable itself, which is how this amplifier is set up. The nice thing about this arrangement is that the amplifier only has two connections and they are both coax connectors that can be weather sealed. To get the DC power into the coax cable, however, requires a special device called a power inserter. The power inserter, in turn, requires the coax to be split into two segments so there end up being four connections instead of two. The power inserter for this amplifier very conveniently acts as a lightning arrestor as well, which is why I mounted it to the copper back plane in the cable entrance box.

By boosting what I presume will be weak signals from distant towers the amplified signal should be strong enough to survive the trip through the coax cable to the power inserter, from there to a 1-in/2-out signal splitter, and then through additional lengths of coax to the two TV sets.

After getting the two lightning arrestors mounted in the cable entry box I took a break for lunch and then went to Lowe’s for some supplies. When I got back home I turned my attention to mounting the SureCall Fusion5s cellular booster (repeater amplifier) in the sump pump room. The sump pump is in the northeast corner of the basement, which is also the northeast corner of our ham shack and office. (The ham shack occupies the north wall and my desks occupy the east wall. Most of the rest of the room is storage.)

I gutted and rebuilt this space, with the help of long-time friend John Rauch, before we moved in and created the large closet (small room) around the sump with insulated walls to contain sounds. I installed an electrical sub-panel in this room to provide power to the office and ham shack desks and to an RV outlet by the pull-through driveway. I fed the power for the RV outlet through the bond on the east wall just above the concrete block foundation and ran it underground to the far side of the driveway. It was my intention from the beginning to mount a cable entrance box next to the power feed and have all of the coax cables and control wires for outside devices enter the sump pump room in the same manner as the power.

The ham shack/office walls are finished with T-111 exterior plywood with 4″ groove spacing and I finished the interior of the closet the same way as I knew I would eventually want to mount things to the walls. I mounted the SureCall Fusion5s booster on the west wall of the closet about a foot inside the door and just below my eye level so I could see all of the connectors, switches, and indicator lights on the top and front of the unit. It had four mounting tabs, two top and two bottom, that attached easily to the wall with short wood screws.

There is a duplex AC electrical outlet on that wall and one on the opposite (east) wall. The power supplies for the cellular booster and OTA TV antennas will plug in to these along with the sump pump and the charger/controller for the battery powered backup sump pump. One of the things I bought at Lowe’s were two outlet expanders which I installed in these two duplex outlets. I also bought a switch with a pilot light to replace a single pole Decora switch that will eventually control the light in the closet. I installed the switch but did not complete the wiring as I have to tie it in to the light fixture which requires me to cut the power to that circuit. I would also like to replace the bare bulb fixture while I am at it but have not yet purchased a replacement.

Although it was late afternoon I decided to install the inside antenna for the cellular booster system and run the coaxial cable that connects it to the booster. The antenna is designed to mount to a flat ceiling and provide a hemispherical coverage area below the plane of the ceiling. I had previously figured out that if I mounted this antenna in the main floor hallway near the midpoint of the house I could connect it to the cellular amplifier using a 50 foot length of coax cable that came with the system.

The desired mounting location was opposite the door to the hall closet and the access to the attic is through the ceiling of that closet, so that was very convenient. We emptied the closet, removed the clothes rod, and setup our six foot step ladder. I removed the piece of foam insulation we currently use to seal the attic access opening and climbed up, flashlight in hand to check out what was on the other side of the ceiling.

Our desired location for the antenna was free of problems on the back side so I drilled a 3/4″ hole for the mounting stud and used a piece of rebar to poke a hole through the insulation for the coax cable that came out of the stud. Linda fed the coax and stud through the hole and I put the retaining nut on the stud from the attic side of the ceiling. The antenna is shaped like a coffee filter, is about six inches in diameter at the ceiling, and tapers down to about four inches in diameter about four inches from the ceiling. The housing is white plastic and blends in well with the ceiling paint.

About four feet from where we installed the antenna is a chase that runs from the attic to the furnace room in the basement. It appears that once upon a time something having to do with the furnace ran through this chase, such as the combustion air intake. The combustion air is now drawn through the back wall under the deck and the exhaust goes out through the east wall of the basement via a double wall stainless steel flue pipe. The chase is no longer used for furnace or other utilities although there are electrical cables to switches mounted in the bathroom walls and it still contained a piece of 4″ plastic pipe.

I positioned myself near the chase and guided one end of a 50 foot length of LMR-400 coax down through the pipe and through the hole into the furnace room while Linda held the roll of coax near the top of the ladder and unrolled it. At one point the coax bunched up and Linda had to go to the furnace room and untangle it. At another point the 4″ plastic pipe slipped through the bottom hole into the furnace room which caught me by surprise. Once the cable was mostly fed through I routed it to the location of the antenna, connected it to the pigtail coax from the antenna, wrapped the connection in weather seal tape to keep moisture out, and secured it with a cable tie.

With the antenna installed Linda started preparing dinner while I dealt with the 37 feet of coax in the furnace room. The furnace room does not have a finished ceiling so I had access to the areas above the suspended ceilings in all of the adjacent rooms. In particular I was able to feed the free end of the coax above the ceiling in the office and into the sump pump room. I secured the cable with plastic cable ties at two points in the furnace room to keep it away from the flue and various hot water pipes. I had about 8 extra feet of cable so I made a large coil with two loops such that the free end came off the loop straight down into the connector on top of the booster. I hung the coil on the wall above and to the right of the booster making for a very neat installation.

I took a shower to try and get rid of some of the fiberglass itch while Linda finished the dish she was making for dinner. It was a complex Indian style dish with Basmati rice, garbanzo beans, Swiss chard, onions, and shallots, seasoned with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, cumin seeds, garam masala, fresh lemon (zest and juice), and fresh dill that Linda grew herself. The house was filled with the aromas of all these ingredients for a couple of hours as they were prepared and combined into the final dish. It tasted as good as it smelled with many flavor layers.

Our beautiful blue sky gave way to high, thin clouds through the morning and then to lower, thicker clouds during the early afternoon. By 2 PM the clouds to the west were dark as I drove to Lowe’s in Howell and the first, heavy rains came as I got to the parking lot. I waited a few minutes and they stopped so I got into the store without getting wet. I had the same good fortune on my way back to the car. The sustained rains came later in the evening along with a tornado watch. We went to bed before 10 AM but did not go to sleep. It took me a long time to write this post and we kept a watchful eye on the weather radar. Although thunderstorms were forecast as a certainty from 1 to 5 AM with the possibility that they might be severe, we finally turned the lights out around 12:45 AM and tried to get some sleep.

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Tag Archives: Diamond X-50N ARO antenna

2015/11/03 (T) The Penultimate Cut

2015/07/26 (N) Rearranging

2015/07/02 (R) 100,000 Radios

2015/06/26 (F) Field Day Setup

2015/06/24 (W) Up The Tower

2015/06/22 (M) Cable Me This