Get on 6m

That heading reminds me of Randy's (K7AGE's) "Get on 6" You Tube series, great videos by the way - and inspirational to many Hams world wide, me included - its always interesting to see how other folks build things and some of the ideas they come up with some of which I have to say are quite good.
The 6m thing started at the end of last year when some kind "Jumbo jet of a pigeon " decided to exercise on the ends of my 6m beam and joined by some pals broke the centre block in half and bent the element, it's hanging in my garage waiting for repair  -  in the meantime I built a new "Simple" rigid rotatable dipole out of old aluminium from a 10m beam of years ago -  Its basically made up of pvc pipe (plumbing) 20mm,  and 22mm electrical conduit,  x2 22mm to 15mm converters  and  the two elements, with the centre - a 22mm inspection cover - I wont go into construction, there are plenty of video clips that cover it but you 'll get the idea, here's a couple of pics.

CENTRE

So239 connected to elements with bolts/washers

Joints neat fit and glued and painted Matt Green

ELEMENTS

The tips (of the old 10m beam here cut to appropriate 

lengths, they're adjustable anyway

22mm-15mm converter

Conveniently steps down to 15mm same as diameter of

the elements - nice snug fit, the pvc pipe is about 15"

either side of the centre to give some strain relief

The hardest part of building this "Simple" dipole was sourcing the parts, for me I found B&Q and Wickes have most of what you need for a lot of these H/Brew antenna projects -     DOES IT WORK ?

Raising it to a workable height with an analyser connected adjust the ends for resonance at the desired frequency, I opted for 50.090 (app'x) I made three attempts for a 1.2:1  then connected up to my TS590 on the second antenna output - well yesterday proved profitable as there were openings into EU and I worked about 6 countries in half an hour CW

Conclusion:

I had not been a great fan of 6m (Even with my beam) until  at the end of last season when I worked USA

This "Simple" project cost me next to nothing and I had fun building it - I'm now realising too that 6m is a fun band  so why not "Knock one up" ? cu on 6 ?

Hacked

My XYL had a strange screen appear after having logged into one of her Bank Accounts the other week and I saw it (usual live  percentage Bargraph activity) at the time I thought it was a legitimate process, although she said it was NOT normal, about 20 mins later she received a confirmation text on her phone asking her to confirm having set up a new “Payee” to the tune of £8xxxx pounds – W H A T ???

A phone call revealed her account had been hacked although nothing had exchanged as the call was a security measure – BUT the fact her account details had been compromised was a bit shocking, and they even traced who the new “Payee was”  – the Anti Virus software was not activated so I tried to re-install new software to discover what was happening unfortunately several .dll files were either corrupt or missing preventing me installing updated or new virus programs, I had three different installs on the go but none would install – eventually I re-installed windows xp from scratch but still no go… the answer in the end was to scrap the machine and install a new one with W8 on, I find this impossible to work with . . .

So if YOU do online banking , and I suspect most of us do be extra vigilant when logging in especially if you see odd or strange looking screens.

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As a result I too became twitchy about my machine which   although now 9 years old   is still capable of holding it’s own although designed and installed originally with XP Pro now runs Win7  -  I decided it might be prudent to install Anti Virus software as thus far I had not bothered  (due to running Linux for 5 years) -  NOW  having installed and registered it we’ve seen a reduction in performance overall – it trips over itself on boot up,  Browsers frequently fall over with unresponsive pages AND the HDD is constantly churning in the background – the virus software has entwined itself onto my system and is tugging at every command – I am wishing I’d NOT bothered with it at all – I HAVE however sort of got it back on track by disabling W7 Aero effects and all its Bling and Eye Candy and (Who needs it anyway)?  so I’m geared for speed now – well, for the moment  - all the time I ran Linux it DID definitely run faster than Win XP, BUT I guess time moves on and the Brand new shiny machine I bought 9 years ago does now appear to be slowing down with the weight of all the new (Bloatware) and I include HRD…  and background processes of modern O/S’s are ALL hogging memory too, and the dreaded Virus checker is taking it slightly over the top… Pity!  No chance of running SDR then !

I could possibly add some memory but I dont think it’s worth it at this stage – a friend of mine has a new H/Brew Comp running an i7 with 12Gb Mem  and 1Tb HDD with back ups  COR !

I’m hanging by a thread methinks and it wont be too long before I decide to get a new one, I know one thing though it WONT have W8 on it  -  is this yet another Microslop disaster ?

Thoughts?

Still working on the new mast install here and have the base concreted in, offering the wooden mast up to the stub pole presented a possible weight issue - the way I had planned it (for stability) meant a considerable amount of timber swaying around and the base, which I had previously thought would be of ample dimensions suddenly looked rather frail - so there is a slight technical hitch sorting out another alternative - looks like I might have to install just one wooden mast to the stub pole, and attach a 20' aluminium mast to the top section - it will certainly be lighter in weight, and look a bit slimmer but will not have the the rigidity I was looking for - I think I'm going to try it anyway,  most of the time it will be erected and locked anyway and the raising and lowering of the mast will be done with care so it should'nt be a problem - also I am hoping to create a stand off at the top so I'll have 2m and 4m antennas up.
My latest creation (6m solid rotary dipole) is complete too and ready for testing ready for the new 6m season which should get under way soon, the whole thing cost about five pounds for some Pvc pipe and fittings - the element were made up from an old scrapped 10m beam - I'll post some piccies too at a later date - also some nice things been going on in the shack !

Back Later:

Misconduct and all that

Hi Folks:

Referring of course to the "On-Air" antics of a minority of  "Fellow Hams"  who persist in calling on a frequency when the DX station clearly states "Up", (whatever), worse - keying over the top of said "DX" station - it's not  a new phenomena, it's been with us for a while festering away.
This my friends is the "DX Pile-Up", and something to be avoided at all costs whatever power level - there was a time when I joined a DX Pile to work Alaska using something known as SSB ?! It was run by some East coast American stations and you had to get yourself logged in on a list, very simple and it worked, even my pipsqueak 90w/G5RV made the trip - but I had to wait for hours to get my man, sadly these days stumbling upon a "Pile", I might listen for a while, to establish whats going on, I might even make a call - perhaps even call again !  but without getting too excited I'll slink away and crawl back under my stone, to another frequency, Band, or even Mode?!  and quite often in these circumstances worked "Other" DX that was lurking on the side  -  It happens !
The DX code of conduct exists, its just people don't  read it.