Two Verticals

I mentioned before My Nephew passed His General and bought some radio equipment from Me. He also was deciding on which antenna to put up and I've included a dipole with the radio. Turns out he bought a Hustler 6BTV which is a great Vertical but His original idea to install it on a mono-pole turned up several problems-- mainly radials and guying it!
Luckily I have a good resource with the MWA group and after explaining the situation, the replies were 10-1 for a ground mount installation. After explaining options to My Nephew, it was agreed the best route is to ground mount the 6BTV and save space on the mono-pole for another type antenna-- small beam maybe??
During this whole time of email and phone calls I had the intermittant problem with My Butternut HF6V resurface. I think the problem is the coax to antenna transition. After retightening, the SWR and antenna started playing better. I should probably coat the connections there but if another problem crops up there,its a mess then to deal with! Its working now-so that decision can wait.
73--have a safe Easter weekend!
Tim

2 New DXCC's

Well 15m was hot yesterday,too bad I had very limited time to play! I happened to be listening to the locals chatting on 146.52 and one mentioned about 15m being open and lots of signals.Tuning to 15m did reveal lots of signals but the one that caught My ear was VU2PAI from India. I need India and He was just commenting on "only those who need India and lets start with zero's first". I threw My call out and a curt reply back said He's listening up five!- oops, I broke a cardinal rule--listen first dummy!! With My tail between My legs so to speak :) I went split and proceeded to try to make contact. Luckily running split and by the numbers made for a much more organized chaos! I did hear several locals get thru- running power and tri-banders and was starting to wonder if My measily vertical and barefoot would ever be heard. All too quickly VU2PAI announced last zero-- I threw out My call again and - HE came back to uniform-juliett-juliett again? I gave Him My call and report and He came back with W0UJJ-- what?-No its N0UJJ and the correction was noted and He was in the log!! Right after Me He switched to "ones" and the first one was someone He knew from before and they chatted for a bit then VU2PAI switched to low power-QRP 5w and then 1w and I copied both power levels OK. Not surprising since with the amp He was 10-20 over! I next worked YL2KO from Latvia before I really needed to get back to some chores. I did notice both contacts are again direct or Bureau and I've actually been checking into the ARRL option plus several others - one of those being Global QSL which sounds interesting. I'm looking for the least cost one! No surprise there!! 73---Tim

3 Boxes

I finally decided to sell My Kenwood TS-850

and associated accessories- MC-60a Microphone,CAT cable and digital soundcard interface. Who is the lucky recipiant? None other than My Nephew who is now a new "general" class Amateur!

I opened the 850 up to make sure no capacitor explosions or memory battery leakage had occured. Powered it up one last time and made sure it was in good working order and then packed it up ready to go!

I also included several Kenwood specific accessoreies such as a CAT cable and digital interface, plus My old original headphones. My Elmer had given Me these headphones ,but its time to pass them along--I have My Heil setup now! It's a little sad seeing this radio go- had lots of fun with it and quite often received great audio reports during a QSO. This is also the first "HF contact" radio- heck its the "first" for many Ham related milestones!

I'm also including a dipole antenna! Good-bye ol buddy-enjoy your new home!--LOL

73--Tim

5 New DXCC's Confirmed!

Noticed in ARRL LOTW I have 5 new DXCC's confirmed-Dominica,Haiti,Saba & St Eustatius,Sint Maarten and Surinam. Several should have been easy but as always I needed the other station to be LOTW members and not QSL direct or Bureau which I still don't participate in unless a direct card is sent to Me. I always reply to direct! 73---Tim