With the antenna up, we finally got coax and rotor cables run, and an Icon-746 transmitter set up Saturday morning October 29. After admiring the SWR from 10 to 30 MHz. (it was low), we rotated the beam and noted that it was directive as hoped.
The phone bands were alive with a contest. We were surprised to hear significant activity as high in frequency as the 10 meter band. There had been a coronal mass ejection from the sun a couple of days earlier, and perhaps that affected the ionospheric propagation.
Our first contact was with Dave Kerns’ dad in Illinois. Dave had alerted his dad via telephone that we were set up to operate on a particular frequency, and contact was immediately established by Dave. Then everyone got to say hello. Dave’s dad, a long-time ham, was apparently using a metal drain pipe as an antenna.
The morning concluded with a cookout on our new grill with hamburgers and hot dogs.
Later in the day Eric Gustason stopped by and explained some of the more obscure controls on my Icom-746 transceiver. In the process, I measured the transmitter’s output power to be only 2 watts! This was the power level we were using in the morning. After turning a tiny knob on the transmitter’s front panel, the peak power read 100 watts. THEN stations started to answer my calls and we worked a contest station on an island off the coast of Brazil.
Dave Kerns made a video of the antenna being raised from telescoped to extended position but so far it has been “too big” for me to insert into this blog. Below are several pictures taken by Anu Condon.
Here are (left to right) Bob Condon, Dave Kerns and Mike Parker watching Lyle Johnson explain how to run the Icon-746 transceiver.
Ready to raise the antenna.
Pushing the UP button
and hoping nothing drops on top of us.