Tech Net Notes May 13, 2009

Without much of a topic, the net began with a string of check-ins from Ron's, kb5vdb, group. There were storms looming around Oklahoma and Ron kept an eye on things for us with regular updates.

ke5yoo, Mike, started off with a question regarding a problem he was having with RFI. On 10 meters, Mike has been getting into his (and worse yet, his neighbors') wireless phones. Mike wanted to know if that was a common problem (on 10 meters) and if anyone had experience with fixes for that kind of problem. ke5omv, Don, stated that he had a similar problem on 10 meters, on with his computer, when he keyed up the computer locked up.

w2csl, Bob, asked what frequency the phones were on and mentioned that (older) 50 Mhz phones are near a harmonic of 10 meters. ke5yoo, Mike, responded that the phones were in the 2 Ghz range.

kb5vdb, Ron, suggested that K-COM makes a line of telephone filters that are sold through AES and can probably be found in AES's online catalog. In addition, the higher he could get his 10 meter antenna, the better for reducing chances of nearby RFI.

ae5mn, Hank, checked in and mentioned that his Fong Dual-Band Twin-Lead J-poles are doing well. He mentioned that he was surprised at how well his smaller Fong antenna was doing mounted in the attic. He said he enclosed it in a protective sleeve normally used around fluorescent tubes. It's a thin, clear tube of plastic with caps. Hank has it installed near a gable in the attic. Though he normally has problems getting into the 910 repeater, with that set-up, he seems to be doing fine.

ke5wga, Ray, checked in and gave a report on his GP9 look-alike, the Tram WP 1481. Ray just installed it last week and has it about 25 ft. in the air. Ray mentioned that he felt he did fairly well moderating the Saturday Night Simplex Net with it. He said he was able to talk to all that he heard.

ke5yoo, Mike, was asked what kind of antenna he was using that caused the RFI with wireless phones. Mike responded that it's a G5RV junior.

wb5uuw, Earl, cautioned to make sure that the coax, where you hook up to the balun is 35 ft. long. The ladder line should be about 17 ft. long with a 4:1 balun.

ke5uiu, James, said that he has a G5RV (full size) with 45 ft. of ladder line, a 1:1 balun, a 100 ft. of coax and can talk well on it. He would like to be more directional and is planning on a rotating dipole for sometime in the future. Being in Porum, he can hit the 910 repeater with his 4-element beam on low power. To get to Bartlesville on 2-meter he has to bump the power up to 25 watts.

kk5edd, Ed, questioned if anyone had built an NVIS, 4 radial, antenna. ae5pb, Paul, came back and mentioned some positive experience he had with it, through the military and that two legs are cut for 80 (moderator: I think!) and the other two are cut for 60 meters.

ke5icx, Tom, checked in from a Broken Arrow motel room. He is visiting the area and heard the net.

End of Tech Net

(Note: If you have any corrections or additions to these notes please leave them in the comments section. I did not take as good of notes as I would have liked, so if there are other cogent points that were made (or that you would like to now make)that I missed, please let me know.