Monthly Archives: July 2012

House and tower work

Now my vacation is over and I am back in Luleå at the work QTH. We managed to get some stuff done though. Three sides of the house is not very far from done, a couple of more weekends and then that should be fine. I also started to do work on the base for the 40m military tower project. I basically just cut the H-beam in half and planned how to construct it plus took lots of measurements. I took the H-beam and some other parts with me up to Luleå where I have tools to drill the big holes.

I am in need of a 300mm long 60mm thick round bar, if anybody has got one lying around. Thicker is fine too since I still need to machine it.

Donate page added

SM2IUF thought I should add a page on the web where I list stuff that we need at the station. There is probably plenty of stuff not listed that is also needed, so if you have some stuff lying around that you don’t need and feel can be useful for us, please ask because we really appreciate all contributions.

Here is the donation page

SJ2W QRP

Yes, today our only fully working amplifier broke, its a Granger Model 180-1 HF transmitter which we use the amplifier part of and has got a 4CX1500B tube. If you have any details on this amplifier, like a manual I would really appricitate it. I have been looking but can neither find what happened to the Granger company or any manual of the amplifier.

It seems like the bias voltage on the control grid which is the problem causing the tube to draw maximum anode current, and that makes the protective circuits to trip. However, its hard to find what is actually for the bias in the ratsnest of wires. So a manual would be really helpful, since santa seem to reject my wishes of a new amplifier.

This got me in a very bad mood…

Here is a quite bad picture of the amplifier,

My resting day

Since the weekend was so much work for me and SM2XJP, I decided to take it easy on Monday. So I started building a little house at the new cable entrance at the barn which I think turned out really good. I will need to buy some more material for grounding and I need to make some parts so I can attach it nice to the coaxes. I also added gas discharge tubes (GDT) to the control wires and got us QRV on three bands, since SM2LIY came here and not having the possibility to be QRV would be quite tough on him 😉

SM2LIY did burn the old paneling from the house while I worked on the cable entrance.

Now when the grounding is improved I am comfortable to leave all antenna switches etc connected during thunderstorms. However, I can disconnect all the coaxial cables leading to the house, so that only the control cables is what is connecting the barn to the house, and all those are very well protected with both GDTs and Metal Oxide Varistors (MOVs).

SE2T also arrived to day and helped us at the QTH, mainly painting.