Dawg House

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Bad Dawg !   


http://www.coutant.org/doghouse/index.html

Now that's funny.  No anchors?  At least the fence stopped them before they got too far!

[flintstone mop]

Hey Bill,
Instead of "quoting" your reply, I think your two centavos were worth a lot more than that.
It's when someone lets the secrets out, that it starts making sense and paramount to do it right in the first place. There's no free rides and no short cuts to the RF formulas.
There's folks like me who "ride along" and pick up the secrets from those who are in the know and take the time to use every day instruments to measure their progress and share the goodies.
Thanks.......next season I'll be a channel master.........haaaaa haaa

160M works during the Summer according to the true-blue radio folks

Fred

[K5UJ]

Don, hope you high and dry with all the flooding I hear going on down your way.

R.

[k4kyv]

No flooding here since we are on high ground, but many roads in our area are under water. They didn't do much building in swamps in the mid 1800's.  A lot of closings, and I haven't even tried to get into town.  Internet service went out Saturday and just got it back this morning. My kid lives in Nashville; his house wasn't damaged, but a lot of photos and videos of the city remind me of images of N. Orleans after Katrina.

Dawg house about finished, will post more photos as soon as I can take them.

Wind won't blow it away unless it tears it apart. It is anchored to the earth with 4 screw-ins.

We didn't lose power here, but needless to say, QRN and lightning threats have kept me off the air.

[K5UJ]

Same here.  There's been enough chance of storms plus being away all day to make it not worth the trouble to hook everything up and get on the air.

Glad U didn't get flooded out.  But a lot of Nashville classic spots under water:  Grand Ole Opry, Country Music Hall of Fame....I have not heard anything about Ryman Auditorium.  The Opry may have to move back there if it is above water.

R.

[k4kyv]

It's completed!  Now all I have to do is relocate the stuff inside.  That will be the real work, so the project is just beginning.

Plus, I have to do some finishing touches.  Since I painted the doors, they don't close well.  Looks like time for some filing, sanding and blasting (and of course touching up the paint at those spots afterwards).

I'm glad I got it painted before that 24 solid hours of pour-down rain this past weekend. If left unfinished, the flimsy plywood would have buckled and warped all over the place.

[K6IC]

WOW, Don,

Looks geat !  Better than most BC DHes.   And,  YES,  Masonite is still made,  and seems as good as always.  I have been buying mine @ Lowes -- it has always been in stock at the local store.

73,  and as others have said,  your signal is  almost always S9+20 or better here on the West  Coast.      Vic

[ka3zlr]

Well Done Don as I would expect  it looks good OM.

73

Jack.

[k4kyv]

Glad U didn't get flooded out.  But a lot of Nashville classic spots under water:  Grand Ole Opry, Country Music Hall of Fame....I have not heard anything about Ryman Auditorium.  The Opry may have to move back there if it is above water.

R.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyZD7eoHZT8

[N3DRB The Derb]

don,

that's a kick ass dawg house!    Maybe we should re name it , it looks too damn good to be a dawg house anymore.

how about "electron freedom way-station"?

or "radio wave launching motel"?

"160 meter wavelength tuning unit & expansion hut"?


I'm just sayin.   Also, wheres the callsign?

[k4kyv]

Also, wheres the callsign?

I prefer to maintain a low profile.  I'm sure a lot of locals in the area don't know what my tower and antenna system are for, and there are several other towers in the immediate area.  This is high ground, one of the highest spots in this part of the county, and three other communications towers about the same height as mine are visible from my tower site, plus a water tower, and a cellular tower about a half mile away is hidden behind the woods. Mine doesn't get a lot of attention any more because it blends in with the rest.  I think it best to keep it that way.

When I first built it in 1981 it did draw some attention because it was the only tall tower around here except for the water tank, but the local population density was a lot lower then.

[K5UJ]

That is a really nice looking DH.  Makes the whole feedpoint look like a commercial installation with the pier, insulator and genuine Rohn bottom section instead of some JS bottom.

[N3DRB The Derb]

theres a hell of a lot of BC stations that dont have as good a ATU installation.

[k4kyv]

At the time I built it, in 1980, the bottom section cost about twice that of a regular 25G section. I think it cost me about $90.  A couple of years ago I checked, and the cost had become almost prohibitive, 4 or 5 that of a regular section, something like $400-$500.

The base insulator came from a defunct broadcast tower.  I had an adaptor plate made because the mounting holes in the Rohn base plate didn't match those in the insulator.

The matching base insulator sold by Rohn was priced at $510 in 1980.  I now have one as a spare in case something happens to mine.  Got it at a hamfest for $25.

AM tower hardware may become more available to hams in years to come as more little mom and pop AMs go dark.

[k4kyv]

I can report some long overdue work on the antenna project; I finally started work on the new above-ground feed line.  The wooden tripod is used to hold the metal poles in a vertical position while pounding them into the ground.  Got the first pole in the ground yesterday.  5 more to go, plus guys and anchors.  It has been so dry this summer that the ground is like concrete, but we just had a good rain, plus I soaked the spot using a 5-gallon plastic pail with a tiny hole in the bottom.  I set the pail with the hole right over the spot and fill it with water, and the water seeps into the soil as it slowly drips. Probably dumped 20 gallons into the spot, which is too far away to run a hose pipe from the water source.

The tuner is partially constructed, but I am still using remnants of the old tuner in the old dog-house.  Right now, only have 80 and 40m capability using the dipole.  Both 160m tuners are dismantled.

[Opcom]

He just needs to add a lighted ON THE AIR sign along with a barking dog noise maker

Heck just use a lexan panel with the lettering and glue a florescent tube to the inside.. one clip lead from a lamp pin to the right place in there may well light it up nicely. The CBers use to tape florescent lamps to their antennas until they figured out that was a dead giveaway for their leenyars.

[KL7OF]

Don...Nice Job!...Hell for stout....Hope to work you this winter...Good Luck   Steve

[W2PFY]

Nice Dawg house Don. Are you going to build one of those 5 wire open coax feeders? I think you said you'd like to try it.

Over.

[k4kyv]

No, just a 2-wire balanced open wire line.  Those 10' long tee posts are probably too flimsy to hold something as cumbersome as a 5-wire unbalanced open wire line. They sway almost like a chickenband whip even with nothing attached.  I had originally intended to use 1 1/2" galvanised water pipe for the poles, until I was hit with sticker shock, and couldn't find any used pipe at the salvage yard.  Wooden posts would be too difficult to plant without damaging the buried radials.

But first stage will be to re-locate my existing tuners into the new dawg-house, with the tuning caps all ganged together and driven by a reversible motor so I will at least be able to QSY within a band without a trip to the tower.  In the interim, I will run a piece of coax above ground on the poles, which will also carry the control cable to the motor.  I am tired of having to replace the underground coax every few years because the rodents chew holes in the jacket.  The present line is designed for "direct burial" but they went after that one just as quickly as they did the previous ones that were not so rated.

I will need to redesign the transmitter output matching unit in the shack before I run the open wire  line.  I hope to get that down to one unit instead of a separate unit for each transmitter. A winter project.

[w1vtp]

hmmm Don's world view is compressed and on end.  

As his official photographer, we have to make sure all pic are shipshape even if I didnt take them.

It should look mo like this I think. Might need a slight height/width adjustment.

I corrected the damned thing, but it keeps coming back rotated on end.  <snip>

Use Irfanview.  It's free (really!). Very easy to use once you know a few tricks.  Very intuitive

Al

http://www.irfanview.com/

[k4kyv]

I got it straightened out using my viewer.  But that looks interesting.  Might try it out.

[k4kyv]

Posts for above-ground feed line and control cable all set.

[k4kyv]

I probably shouldn't have  located it directly beneath a set of guy wires.

[k3zrf]

Plant some flowers under the drainage from the roof...it will self fertilize when it rains.

I like the peek-a-boo window with the ceramic insulators.

[KB2WIG]

some see eyes, some see b