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I earlier posted about building a home-brew Buddistick antenna from the instructions posted by Budd Drummond. I posted the link to his site and instructions in the previous post. Look in the sidebar to the right for a quick way to the last post.

I delayed working on the antenna as I did not have a power supply for my radio so I was in no hurry. Well the power supply showed up this last Friday so Saturday morning, I was determined to finish the antenna and get on the air. The first this I did was finish wrapping the coils and crimp the Radio Shack connectors to the ends of the wires.

Next came long nut coupler which the antenna whip will screw into. A bolt is screwed into the nut coupler and the inserted into a small piece of PVC pipe. The nut coupler was a bit small so I made up the difference with a few wraps of electrical tape as Budd suggested in his instructions.

Next came the short piece of wire with a clip and ring terminal on each end. This is used to connect the top of a coil with the base of the antenna.

I bought a nice piece of RG-8X coax that had PL-259’s on each end. The instructions call for dividing the coax into the shield and center section and attach a Radio Shack clip to each of those. Well I spent a fair amount of money on this cable and did not really want to cut one of the connectors off the cable. I thought it would be nice to have some sort of adapter so I could use different lengths of cable over time if needed.  This would allow me to have standard sections of cable with PL-259 connectors on the ends and be more versatile in the long run without having a cable dedicated to this antenna. To solve that problem, I came up with this little thing.

It is simply a chassis mount for a PL-259. I soldered two small wires to the center and outer portion of the mount and then added the blue clips. The center wire goes to the bottom of the vertical portion of the antenna, and the wire coming off the outer part of the chassis mount goes to the radial wire. I used different male/female connectors to avoid being able to connect it wrong so if I start making connections at the top near the whip and work down.   Now I can simply attach a PL-259 to this “adapter”. I do plan on putting this little thing in a little box or somehow protecting it somehow. I might post what I come up with later.

Here is the completed antenna without the broom stick that holds it up. I am going to get a painter’s pole from the local home store soon so I can get it up higher than the broom stick.

I also am planning on getting a few tent stakes and parachute cord so I can guy it and make it self-standing if there is nothing available to secure the painters pole to.

So far I have had good performance with the antenna. I don’t have an antenna analyzer so I used an SWR meter and got the SWR as low as I could by adjusting the radial that I tied off to my fence across the yard. On 20 meters, I heard stations from both the east and west coast of the US along with scattered stations in between. I also heard Mexico, Canada, and a station in Istanbul, Turkey! I made a few contacts around the country and in Mexico. The guy in Turkey had a huge pile up so I didn’t get to work him. Considering this was the first time I have ever been on HF, I am sure there will be other chances.  I then tried 40 meters. Again using the SWR meter I adjusted the radial to get the lowest reading and went to work. Again I had good results hearing stations around the country. I have yet to try any other bands yet but I will at some point in the future.

I may post a part 3 later if I learn something more about its use.  . . . I would like to post a picture of it setup but it’s raining today. Maybe I’ll add that in the near future.

I also need to get a real kite winder for the radial wire as I doubt the cardboard will last very long. I also am planning on getting liquid electrical tape to finish things off a little nicer. And the last thing is to try to mount the chassis adapter maybe in a little box or something better than just hanging it with zip ties.

NOTE: I have decided to add a 80 meter coil and lengthen the counter poise. I’ll add a post about those results when I am done.

K5UNX

Oliver is keeping an eye on things

I was on the radio this afternoon and not much was on the WARC bands   (CW contesting on the other bands) it was time to spin my chair 180 degrees to the project desk. I am in the process of building another Elecraft K2 that when done will be put up for sale. This was supposed to be a winter project but the bands were busy and I was on the radio and not the soldering iron. Now the K2 build has become a spring project. A few years ago if I was asked about kit building I would not ever considered it....BUT...I have been bitten by the bug!! Along with my QRP and QRPp operating I also find kit building to be a very relaxing way to spend time. There are some kits which I have sold such as my Elecraft KX1 and

Control board completed Some tricky lead forming

LP-Pan. Funny thing is after building something you attach a personal ownership to it that over the counter commercial equipment does not have. I have sold many items purchased but not built and thought nothing of it (other than it was money to get another kit with...maybe time for kit builders anonymous). As for the kits when it came time to say goodbye to make some coin it took some thought before they were put up for sale.
As was said I am in the process of building another Elecraft K2 and I have another blog that deals with the build. I wanted to blog the progress but also highlight other areas such as toroid winding, what was needed to be a kit builder and so on. There are specific posts about the K2 build it self making mention of tricky sections of the build and how it was handled. It's now time to see if the bands have come alive!!

K1EL Winkeyer ready for action

For some time now I have wanted a stand alone keyer as well as one that integrated with my PC allowing me to change and update messages.  The Winkeyer USB is the perfect match as I am able to add 3 AAA batteries and take the keyer with me on outings or keep it at the desk hooked up to the PC via a provided USB cable. The unit comes as a kit with all SMD components already on the board so there is no worry about having to deal with super small parts and the soldering headache that goes along with it. The kit was shipped out and delivered very fast and very safely boxed for the ridge to my QTH. 

The first day of assembly

 The only thing that has to be downloaded is the instructions. I find this to be a fantastic way of doing things. If there are updates to the build then it's a simple update on the website and you are downloading the current assembly instructions. Take the time to print off the instructions that way you can check components off as you do the inventory.  Do yourself a favor and print the instructions in color as there are some great pictures to assist you. The kit went together very smoothly and KE1EL put thought into the order of  assembly. Follow the order and the kit

Battery holder

 building will be a smooth experience. Take your time building the unit, it's not a race as certain components such as USB connector, 1/8 jack and 4 way RCA jack should be mounted with care. This makes the final assembly of the two metal covers fit without any surprises.

Kit complete

Once the kit is done there are some checks to be done to make sure all is working well. Once that is done you are on your way to hooking up to your PC. Easy to follow documentation is provided instructing you how to have your PC recognize the keyer and what to do if things don't go as planned. The kit also comes with a CD containing programs that will allow you to program the keyer from your PC and download the messages to your keyer. Not to mention all the settings one could imagine for setting up a key as well. The only 2 issues I had with the kit and by no means are they show stoppers.
1. There is a 10k potentiometer and the shaft was just a bit to long and I had to trim it. This was only for looks as I did not like the knob extended away from the keyer.
 2. No hookup wire was provided to go from the potentiometer to the board. This is no big deal either as I did have the wire...but.....it would had been nice to include it in the kit.

Pot before mod

Pot after mod

This is the first post about my project to build W3FF’s Homebrew Buddistick antenna. This is Budd Drummond’s design which is documented on his homepage. The plans for this antenna are on his web site.

I am a new Ham Radio Operator and am just getting my feet wet with HF. I have a Yaesu FT-857 sitting in a box waiting for a power supply and an antenna to get me on the air. I wanted to build an antenna that would be fairly easy to make as well as not very costly.  After a fair amount of research, I settled on this for my first HF antenna. It looks like it’ll be easy to set up and take down as needed as I intend to use it for Field Day, and any other times I am out in the field. I really don’t intend on being tied down to a home station. I am going to build up a portable station of some sort.

My first step was to collect the parts. I spent a few weeks picking up bits and pieces. This first picture is what I bought in terms of hardware components. I did not find the 1 1/4″ bolts that Budd specified, so I bought 1″ and 1 1/2″ versions and will figure out which to use as I make that part of the antenna.

The PVC components are pictures below already cut and drilled per the instructions.

The next step that I am going to tackle is cutting the wire for the coils and wrapping them.

In the following picture, I have started wrapping the coils. A couple are done and I still have a couple more to do.

While doing this, I found that it’s important to wrap the coils close together tightly as the longer coils were pretty tight getting all all the wraps in between the holes that were drilled for the tag ends to go through. The easiest one was the 20m coil. The toughest was the 60m coil with 82 wraps. After wrapping the 60m coil, I had to work the wire wraps down again to get all the wraps to fit.

I’ll post more as I go . . .

It came with all this

 Julie has lots AA batteries she uses and most if not all are rechargeable and she has been up to this point just using a cheap wall charger. There has been many times when these AA batteries have let her down with regard to her flashes. I was online and found some nice chargers the one I decided to purchase was the LA Crosse BC 1000 . This sure is a gem of a charger and for the price 60.00 shipping included at Amazon.ca as well it came in 2 days via UPS. From the picture above you can see the unit came with a carry case, wall adapter, 4 AA 2600mAh, 4 AA 1000mAh, provision to charge D and C cell batteries and finally the
unit....not bad for 60.00 and 2 day shipping to boot.
So what is so great about this charger, each cell can be charged, discharged/charged, refresh/charge or finally test/charge. Each cell can have it's own custom type of charge done to it. The charging rates can chosen from 200mA to 1800mA and again each cell can have it's own charge rate. The unit will let you

Charge and test mod results

TEST/CHARGE complete

know if the cell is defective and will not charge or allow the batteries to overheat. Once the charging is complete it goes to trickle charge. At this time you have access to the voltage of each cell, the capacity of the cell in mAh's, how long the charge time was and depending on the charge mod you chose other info as well. You can also charge different battery sizes at the same time and again program what type of charge you wold like for each cell. So I put Julies AA cells to the TEST!! As they were charging I could see at least one cell that was getting a failing grade at only 120mAh for a 2600mAh battery not good. I am running all her batteries through the test/charge and will dispose of the cells that don't cut it. I have my Elecraft KX3 with the Ansmann AA batteries and will be using this charger too look after those batteries. Now speaking of Elecraft I did purchase there internal battery charger. I have to admit I was disappointed that up to this point the software has not been introduced to trickle charge the AA cells, offer selectable mAh charge rates and so on. Think I may just use the LA Crosse and if I do then end up selling the internal charger. Live and learn I guess......anyway back to the subject at hand......up to this point many of Julies batteries have not met with a passing mark and have been tossed.
With this charger you are able to get the most out of your not so cheap rechargeable batteries and make your hard earned money go as far as it can.

And the testing goes on

I made my first antenna. It’s a 2 meter yagi using the recipe on this web page: http://www.ccars.org/Projects/TapeYagi/index.htm

It works but not quite as well as I expected. After my first test, I found a stray strand of wire shorting the center and shield conductors where I separated them. I fixed that and am waiting to re-test. I’ll follow up with the results from that test.

After fixing my stray wire, I got much better performance and it works great!

My first K2 serial 6613

This week I posted a question on the Elecraft reflector "I'm building a bare bones Elecraft K2 radio and later will be putting it up for sale what kind of options would a buyer be looking for?" I had received many replies and all were very good but also got me thinking. I had always thought of the K2 as a CW radio (selfish me as I am a CW op) but one of the first suggestions was to make the radio both CW and SSB friendly by adding the SSB option. To me that should had a been a no brainier as that opens the market much wider to more potential buyers. I was then also reminded of the invaluable add on that I put in my K2 radio (which is still in my shack and goes out on park and car expeditions) the rework eliminators by unpcbs. These folks have
developed a kit that allows the K2 to be setup and ready for any add on you want to put in the K2. Let me clear the waters a bit......if you build a bare bones K2 with no options but later you want to add some options,  it my require you to  remove some components from the K2 in order to add the option.

NB rework board top view

With the unpcb kit  there is no de-soldering on the K2. In a nut shell you unplug the unpcb board and plug in the K2 option. There is another great advantage to this, if you think you have a defective DSP filter (or any other option) board you simply unplug the DSP filter and plug in the unpcb board and see if the problem is fixed. Its time for me get off my soapbox for the unpcbs folks.......but if you ever are thinking about an Elecraft K2 build this add-on is well than worth the money!!! I just have to jump on the soap box  for a short time again.....On the top of the noise blanker rework board you see some resistors. These resistor (or other components) would normally be on the K2 board and have to be de-soldered to instal the NB board option from Elecraft. With the rework board you unplug the rework board and plug in the NB board. If there ever is a problem with the noise blanker (or any other option the rework kit looks after) you unplug it and plug in the rework board. You K2 will now work but without the NB option. Without the rework board you would have to re-solder in the components you removed for the rig to function properly.

From the post I received great suggestions on options that should be added while building the kit. The one idea I am leaning toward is to just leave the radio "option free" and

NB rework bottom view showing header

when the kit is done ask potential buyers what they want in the rig. So it becomes a radio that is "made to order" The buyer will pay for the options they want and a small fee for assembly, setup and installation but in the end they will have a radio that is customized to their radio needs. It's the way I have always wanted a car purchase to be!! At this point the kit is going through the parts inventory.