Monthly Archives: August 2015

Inband progress, fun story

This was a fun weekend. Me and Hicco went down to SJ2W already on Thursday evening since I had worked a few hours extra during the week. Tobbe from GTL was going to come on Friday morning and dig holes for me for the inband tower project. He showed up and after a few hours of struggling with rocks we were done.

On Saturday I built the forms and got most of them installed. SA2CHQ also came by to help out a bit which was nice. I spent Sunday welding a re-bar cage to go into the form and got a fixture done for the threaded rods that were going to be used to fix the tower base to the concrete. After I was done with getting the re-bar cage into place I went by my neighbor and sat talking with him for a while when SM2XLL sent me a text asking if he could come for a visit. While he was driving towards SJ2W (40km) I decided to go to the store to buy something when I stopped by at GTL garage since I saw the gate being open. When I stepped in Tobbe (who did the digging on Friday) asked me if I was ready for concrete. The funny thing was that there were also another guy in the garage (Roland) who is the guy who drives the concrete truck. So he said it was just as well to get it done now and not wait until next weekend. So just like that under an hour from driving there until being back at the garage we had poured the concrete, vibrated it and cleaned everything, on a Sunday evening at like 19:30!

The GTL guys are awesome 🙂

Info mainly for the Swedes

This is meant mainly for the Swedish viewers of this website but there might be other who could be interested too. I do not only update the posts on this webpage but also a thread on a Swedish forum called e. I think it might be more fun to Swedish viewers to follow that thread (maybe along with the website) but I’ve noticed lots of Swedes do not know about this. I normally might write a bit more on elektronikforumet since I write in Swedish which comes more naturally than I do on the website. The pictures occur at both places though.

So check the thread, http://elektronikforumet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=29184

Inband progress

Lots of work has been done the last two weeks. Most of it is something that has got to do with the inband tower. We have cut down trees for this and also I’ve welded on cross braces for the tower. I got a tip from SA2FDR and SA2KNG who came by to help me out to get flux core wire for the MIG welder and use that to weld them. It worked great, I am now a bit fan of flux core MIG welding compared to using the stick welder for this type of stuff. I calculated it to about 1000 welds to get it all done so I am happy I did not need to use the stick welder. The slag of the flux core is a lot easier to remove as well, I just used the drill with a metal brush attachment. SM2LIY spent a few days at the station too and helped me out mainly when we did forest work and he did also run a bunch of QSOs in the very lousy propagation’s in the WAE contest. SM2UVU spent a bunch of hours too at the station this weekend were we got a lot of stuff done, both on the inband tower and the WARC beam.

I have gotten a lot of help and visitors this summer which is fun. If I remember correctly SA2CHQ, SA2CLC, SA2BRJ, SA2BLV, SA2KNG, SA2FDR, SM2UVU, SM2LIY, SM2XJP, SM2NOG, SE2T, SM2JDU, SM2XLL, SM5EPO, SM3JBO, SM3SGP has shown up. Forgive me if I have forgotten anybody.

Now I am hoping to get the excavator to dig some holes this weekend so I can prepare to fill some concrete.

Stay tuned…

SK3W, SJ2W and a trip to Seskarö

After a few days at SJ2W I went down to SK3W to help Gunnar (SG3P) out a few days to take down all but one antenna in one of his towers to fix them and put them up again. The 6el for 10m in the top was all OK but the 5/5/5el stack was missing some tips of the elements (one on each antenna) and there was water damage in the 5el for 20m. We had pretty good luck with the weather and lots of people came by to help, SM5TXT, SM0SVX and SM5IMO. Teemu, SM0W also came by to drink some beer the evening before we headed north again.

It all went well and we managed to take them all down, repair them and get them up again before we got some major rainy weather. The trip back up to SJ2W was interesting considering the huge thunderstorms and the rain that followed on the way up. We made a pit stop at SM3EVR and I got to meet him for the first time and he showed us his shack where all those QSOs have been worked from. We also made a stop at SM2UVU for a cup of coffee before driving the last 90km to SJ2W.

Up at SJ2W the plan was that we would repair the top 6el for 20m that the reflector broke on during the winter. We spent Monday building the new elements (changing all of them) and on Tuesday I climbed up and we hoisted the tram line and got stuff prepared to lower the 20m yagi. I also put some hose clamps around the 50mm tubing of the 40m yagi that had cracked. It hadn’t spread any longer in two years but just to be safe I put 6 clamps around it to make it stronger. I also straightened it out so now it looks pretty again. Later in the evening SM2XJP came by and helped so Gus went up the tower to release the beam and me and SM2XJP as ground crew lowered it safely to the ground.

On Wednesday we got lots of visitors. SM5EPO and SM3JBO showed up on their way up to Seskarö fieldday and spent a couple of nights @SJ2W and helped us out. It is always a blast to hang out with these guys, we have a lot of fun. Also later during the day some pretty “fresh” hams came by, SA2KNG, SA2BLV and SA2FDR. They helped out the whole day and we got the 20m yagi tuned and ready to be hoisted.

On Thursday the weather was bad and it was not until the evening we were able to hoist the beam and Gus went up the tower and attached it to the tower. He was too tired though after a couple of weeks of intensive climbing so I will need to go up later this week and take the tram line down. It turned out great though and now I hope the beam will last many more years.

On Friday we all went up to Seskarö fieldday where we met a bunch of other hams (over 70 people on the dinner) and I also had a presentation about SJ2W. SM2LIY had a presentation about propagation’s as well. The whole weekend was a blast!

Now I am spending a couple of days in Luleå gathering some motivation to go down and work on the station again. I have not decided yet what to do, but I might start building on the WARC beam, if the weather allows it.