I went to the club near my second house, intention to retire to, down in Sierra Vista, AZ this weekend and picked up a couple of toys.. I should be selling... But no, I bought... I did manage to get a couple of decent deals. I joined the club too, lucky them...
Of course one of them was a Zerofive GP1040 antenna which is the smaller version... 27 ft radiator or 29 ft overall of the 43' vertical that I am building at the place, but with an elevated ground structure TIG welded to the base insulator. It will be interesting to compare it with the many ground radial (so far 71 and I do intend to get to 120) also non resonant 43' vertical I have been building from tubing from an unfinished project in Iowa. The difference from past HF ground mounted verticals with only 32 or less radials is pretty remarkable, honestly, so far and due to, I am not kidding, 40 MPH plus winds for the last 8 weekends or so, I only have 16.5' up for a 1/4 wave (resonant) on 20m. The higher bands were cooperative the last few weekends so I know at least on 20m and up the radial field is a winner so far. First and only contact so far on that and my Chinese Xiegu was of course Moscow because I do have that sort of dark sense of humor.
Yes--the Zerofive is built like a brick outhouse just like everyone claims. The sad thing is that the mounting pipe and concrete from the Home Despot will cost more than the antenna did at the 'fest.
I want to see if the six 100" radius elevated radials are as good as so many NEC modelers claim (they haven't been in the past in my experience especially compared to what I now have). And if not that thing will probably end up ground mounted and extended to 33' as a committed 40m antenna. So the impulse buy of that antenna that I probably really didn't need was a good one likely long term.
Anyway though, I am 53 years old now and am trying to buy toys in advance of retirement. I am starting to wonder if I will be the guy who turns off the lights with ham radio, and with many other good things in life. I still am one of the youngest people at these events. Radio to me is still black magic, and it's a lot like the railroads. The utility will always be there. So will the black magic...
I just don't know if the hobby still will be there. I don't know how to get younger people interested either. It doesn't even give you the slightest bit of advantage now in hiring as an engineer like it used to. It's probably a detriment now as that flags you as being old.
So you OMs out there need to hold on a bit longer so I still have someone to work in 5 to 10 years, record inflation notwithstanding, maybe longer until I do retire.
I love to build more than operate so that is largely what I have done in my limited free time. Hopefully that can change in the next few to hopefully not several years.
The hamfest was fun and good. The club down there is extremely well organized and has a great spread for emergency comms and a clubhouse and antennas that are enviable.
But I tell ya, it's no Peoria IL Superfest circa 1989... Not even Peoria IL was 15 years ago.
I can't imagine what they were like in the Golden days like the late 50s through early 70s.
Well, maybe I can. A lot of the same equipment is still for sale at today's hamfests.
I am starting to resurrect my amateur satellite equipment, and also not like the golden days which I did experience, I kinda miss it but there really isn't a lot of interesting stuff up there now. Enough to justify the project though.
So I am starting to build a K3NG rotator control to replace the FODTrack (dates me right? Not like the stuff YOU were selling at the hamfest, though!) that I had attached to the G-5500 control box. I will have more on that mañana... Nice software but the sheer amount of compilation options gave me the tics...
73 for now... Fred W0FMS/7
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