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Hobbies
Ham Radio Station KGØZP

Thanks for sliding down the Coax into my Ham Shack!

Now you can see what's powering that Antenna Farm displayed under Amateur Radio in the Index on the Home Page of my web site.
Although building antenna's and sharing them with fellow Ham's is a part of the hobby, I reserved this area for simple ratchetjawing about my Shack.

Amateur Radio Station

KGØZP

Formerly: KØVCH - KAØCDE - KBØLMW - NØZOI

From-To: 1959-1968 = 1972-1993 = 1993-1993 = 1993-1995

My current Amateur Radio Station is located in my home office directly behind my desk (the desk with the monitor built in under smoked glass, like on TV News) and me in my swivel chair, unneatley stowed in a 4 foot wide alcove.
In the process of moving south to Knoxville, while dismantling the station, I passed on some of my older equipment to fellow Ham's. a few are avid collectors of Heathkit products.
My layout here in Knoxville will be nearly identical to how it was set up back home in St. Louis and as shown in the photograph, hopefully with some new equipment added.

There's nothing like being able to enjoy your hobby while working is there!

This page was initially created because many an OM found it unbelievable I had amassed so much gear, and many fellow Ham's actually wondered what my shack would look like with so much equipment stowed in such a small space.
By snapping a photo and placing it here, I could send the curious here to have an eyeball for themselves.
I wasn't fibbing, I had simply amassed a Lot of Gear over the years, hi hi......

Ham Radio Shack

Top Shelf:  Heathkit RF Signal Generator; 40/80-meter home brew transmitter & power supply, rockbound w/Blyley Xtal; white faced unit is a multi-tap bench power supply; switching power supply and a very old Hallicrafters Receiver (that still works!).
Second Shelf:  Mostly junk & notes stashed here; RS 2-meter amp under cassette recorder; nicad rejuvinator; audio output meters; few HTs and a Benton Harbor Lunchbox (Sixer)
Third Shelf:  Micronta 500 watt Power meter, Modulation meter, SWR meter; 300 watt, MFJ Versa Tuner II; Yaesu FT2400 2-meter; Realistic HTX100 10-meter; RF monitor (on edge); Speech Compressor Pre-Amp; Yes! It's an old TRC-46 sideband chickenband, however, it's retuned to 10-meters; a 75 watt amp sat where the battery packs are sitting.
Fourth Shelf:  Power supply; Heathkit code oscillator; pair of 2-meter Ramsey Amps; MFJ Super Menu Driven Memory Keyer; ERA Microreader (CW & RTTY reader); Heathkit HW-101; RS 440 MHz HT; Alinco 220 MHz HT; Yaesu FT-620B 6-meter; Kenwood speaker.
Fifth Shelf:  Power Supply; MFH HF/VHF Packet Controller; Hy-Gain (remember them?) Receiver Pre-amp and On The Air light; RS DSP unit behind mike; Kenwood mike; Kenwood TS830S HF; Sony shortwave receiver; Very old Archer 6 position coax switch.
On desk are Yaesu FT706R HTs, Rubber Duckies and  nicad chargers, etc.  There are tons of things under the desk (A Pyramid 52 Amp Power Supply - PS-52KX for one) and on another desk in the office.  A Heathkit Grid Dip meter; Heathkit HR-10B receiver; various VTVMs and other test equipment.

An overall picture of the office is not included as it is in a worse mess than the station, Hi Hi.....

Butternut HF9VX w/160 Kit Vertical

Butternut Vertical Ham Radio Antenna

The large coil at the bottom is the 160-meter add-on kit!

Surrounding the antenna base is a round vinyl cylinder (keeps puppies, squirrels, etc. from dining on coax.  Also keeps the weed whacker at bay!)

Butternut Vertical Antenna Base

View of base of HF9VX showing bottomless vinyl bucket and one of my coax eating puppies Nehmen a longhaired doxie.  The bucket will be filled with topsoil to 1 inch below the top!

It may be interesting to note that the antenna feedpoint is 14 inches above groundlevel and SWR is 1.1-1 on most bands 1.5-1 is the highest SWR with the exception of 17-meters which is slightly higher since adding the 160-meter coil.

Bandwidth on 160 is too narrow to get a word in edgewise, hi hi.....

I had placed about 3 cups of salt into the bucket to kill the grass inside. The PVC pipe is a 3 foot long section of 1-1/4 inch diameter schedule 80. I purposely left three turns of coax at the base of the antenna to form sort of an RF choke.


Butternut Vertical Antenna Ground Radials

Hard to believe, but there are 64 radials tied to this point and a set of 22 more radials extended from a circular radial 52 feet out from the base.  Four of the radials are over 250 feet long passing through two neighbors yards and catching the corner of a third neighbors lot.

Not visible due to solder, an 8 foot ground rod was driven down almost flush with the ground and a braided cable was clamped to that.  The 3/4 inch copper pipe was cleaned and driven into the ground and welded to the ground rod both above and below the clamp using copper-phosphorus-bronze brazing rods.

Most of the ground radials are continuous with one turn around the pipe and then soldered.  Well for the first 48 or so radials anyhow, then it became necessary to terminate each radial at the pipe.

TTUL - 73+ de Gary - KGØZP

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