WØRDO

MY ORIGINAL CALL IN 1978 WDØHCX

AMATEUR RADIO DONE MY WAY

THE ANTENNA FARM

MEET THE ANTENNA FARM SHOWN ABOVE:

The tower on the left is a short Rohn 25G, just under 30'. On the side of the tower about 10 foot up is a home made 6 meter omni-directional vertical. The home made vertical connects to a Ameritron RCS-10 located on the north side of the tower about 5 foot up. One coax from the RCS-10 feeds all of the HF antennas into the shack. Just above that is a Davis Instruments weather station. In the center of the tower is a Hy-Gain CD-45-II turning a Cushcraft MA-5 beam for 10, 12, 15, 17 & 20 meters, rated for 1.2KW PEP. The MA-5 connects to the Ameritron RCS-10. Above the MA-5 is an old Diamond CP-22E that was given to me by John (KØGH). The Diamond antenna is connected to the old GE Ericsson modified police radio. The Ericsson radio puts out about 110 watts.

Way back in the distance behind the man cave shack you can see the top of a Hustler 6BTV, 6 band ground mounted vertical HF antenna. The coax is routed to the tower on the left and connects to the Ameritron RCS-10.  On the west side of shack in about the middle is a Comet GP-15 tri-band vertical for 6 meters, 2 meters and 70 centimeters. I have a duplexer in the shack and the 2 meter & 70 centimeter frequencies are routed to a TYT MD-9600 mobile while the 6 meter side is routed to my Yaesu FTdx1200 on antenna 2 input for monitoring the 6 meter band.

On the southwest corner of the shack is a 25' class 4 wooden pole buried 5.5 foot in the ground. The pole hole was hand dug and the pole set using my little John Deere 2520 utility tractor. It took me a while but I finally got it stood up and tamped in. The pole is used to raise and lower another fold over 30' rohn 25G tower a couple of foot north of it. I use a double pulley system powered by an ATV 4,000 pound winch. During predicted high winds or thunderstorms I lower the tower to rest on a fixture built on the west side of the shack. The following antenna's are located on that tower and turned by a Yaesu G450 rotator:

  • Cushcraft  A27010 dual band beam (2 meters & 70 centimeters) connected to the Icom IC-706MKiiG for 2 meter horizontal.

  • Cushcraft A6270-13 tri-band beam (6 meters, 2 meters & 70 centimeters) connected to the Yaesu FT-991A

  • Diamond X300A dual band (2 meters & 70 centimeters) Omni directional connected to the Alinco DR-735T.

Located on the south side of the shack is another 15' Rohn 25G tower on a folder over base. I am using an old Hy-Gain Ham 3 rotor mounted at the bottom. I raise and lower the tower by walking it up and down. Currently there are no antennas on the tower. I will address that in April of 2024. The M Squared 220 mHz beam did not appear to be working as I could no longer hear traffic from 25 miles away. I tried 2 different radios on the antenna and neither one would receive signals.

Just in case you noticed the wires coming off the top of the west tower, they are dipoles for 160 meters, 80 meters and 40 meters. The three coaxes connect to the Ameritron RCS-10 to be fed into the shack with one coax. The RCS-10 has a total of 8 inputs and is controlled by a 4 conductor control line. The tower is guyed in 3 directions after a 135 mph wind blew for over 20 minutes back in 2011. The tower wasn't installed yet and that prompted the use of guy wires. That is also why I decided to make the other two towers fold over.

The Radio Shack HTX-242 is connected to a home made vertical antenna inside the shack to monitor the police band.

I use an Ameritron RCS-4 to allow me to connect any one of the three radios (Icom IC-706, Yaesu FT-991A or Yaesu FTdx1200) to the Ten-Tec Centaur amplifier. The output of the amplifier is then connected to the Ten-Tec 238A tuner. Output from the 238A is fed into a Dentron MFJ-989D tuner. By utilizing the two tuners in series I can quickly go to multiple antenna's by arranging the selection of direct or tuned settings on two different tuners. For instance I tune the 238A to feed the 80 meter dipole on frequency 3.897500 MHz, the dipole is tuned for 3.970 MHz. By selecting direct on both tuners I can talk on 3.970 and with the flip of the selector switch on the 238A I can talk on 3.987500 using the amp for both. By putting the 238A in direct and setting the 989D I can talk on 160 meters direct to the tuned length or set a pre-tuned coax 1 setting for another portion of the 160 meter band. What can I say, I'm lazy and I had two tuners so I thought I would make use of them. I actually have a total of three tuners, the third one being a Vectronics VC300DLP rated for only 300 watts. I use it for mobile operation in south Texas into a Hustler mobile antenna that has tuned coils for 6 different bands. The bandwidth is narrow on the mobile antennas so the 300DLP helps take care of that.

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