CAKE bakings Sept 13

Much topical variety of CAKE was consumed as usual at Gigi's on Sept

13th. Jeff KG6YPS reports great progress on his 2 element Yagi for 20

meters using software design tools and an antenna analyzer. We responded

to some questions on construction.

The most curious item was provided by our President W1WUH. Our

guessing champion Eric K6EP was right on target (pun intended) in

claiming it to be a proximity fuse for a warhead. Richard gave us

great detail on how this amazing device used Doppler shift at VHF and

hedescribed its important role in WWII. Other curious items were

provided by Don K6GHA our VP. These include some 1930 vintage items of

Western instruments. See if you can determine the from the image in

the next issue of Short Skip how zeroing the direct reading Ohmeter

was done.

Ron W6WO congratulated Reed N1WC on his discovery of a new rare element

he calls Unobtanium ! Ron showed a beautiful homebrew dummy load on loan

by Rene K6XW. Eric suggested that power dissipated in a dummy load could

be used to run a fan. The punitive price of printer ink was bemoaned and

while less expensive black may be OK the same is probably not true for

colors.

A well-known personality Gordon West will be here on October19 and he

intends to visit the HF station at the Vets building. Watch for more

details on his plans.

Ron mentioned a type of hearing aid that can be tuned to a persons

actual needs via on-line software. According to Cap KE6AFE there is an

implant designed to relieve back pain in much the same way. I wondered

what other physiological short comings might be enhanced in this way.

Are we likely to become "Software Defined "people ?

How to decide what can be removed from a cluttered hard drive brought

out some novel ideas. Marc W6ZZZ finds it helpful to use Google to dig

out info on mysterious items

We discussed the work TBD on the beam, dipole and coax systems at the

K6BJ HF station. The September 27 CAKE session will be devoted to this

but in addition we plan to make a survey of the required efforts and

resources by meeting on-site on Sept 20th at 10:00. Come join us on

one or both of these dates as we need both brain and brawn

Unless you have nothing to say please consider writing up something for

Short Skip

73 your scribe Ron W6WO

CAKE and Donuts September 27th

The morning of this unusual CAKE meeting for me began 8AM with the cultural experience of a first visit to a donut shop. Hey I arrived here only 33 years ago and these things take time! Arriving soon after at the Club shack I found Mike W6YDG with his BIGGGG bucket truck. A few minutes later Tom WB9VXY arrived complete with climbing gear and a hard hat. Allan AF6BO then showed up with the details of the modification to add 30 meters to the 10,15 and 20 meter bands covered by the beam. By the appointed hour of 9:30 we had the beam on the ground just as many others arrived. After a brief overview two teams were formed; one to dismantle the beam and the other to construct the new multi-band dipole.

Work progressed so rapidly it seemed at one point that we may be finished by noon. Not So - nothing is as easy as it looks and everything takes longer than you expect is as true as ever. The beam was in remarkably good condition but it is quite complicated so dismantling, cleaning and de-oxidizing all the connections required a lot of time and effort. Similarly the modification to add the 30meter band took a lot of care and time. At one stage 6 team players were busy re-assembling and measuring under the watchful eye of Allan who had the detailed drawings to follow

By mid afternoon we were ready to see how it was behaving and Mike lifted it up about 10ft above ground so that Ron could make a sanity check using an Autek analyzer. As the results came in I felt spirits sagging as clearly all wasnπt well. We deduced that most likely something may be wrong with the driven element. We tried a few times to see the effects of minor adjustments before concluding these were not at the root of the problem. Allan then proceeded to examine the way the critical traps were installed. It turned out that those for 20and15 meter had been interchanged. With renewed confidence up she went again and immediately we saw good numbers and with a few more ups and downs we had it nicely trimmed on all bands. All this time poor Mike was sitting aloft in his bucket.

Off to the side we had Jeff KG6YPS wiring up the T2X rotator, donated by W6YDG. George W3AB was busy putting coax connectors on the 100ft of brand new LMR400 so generously donated by Tom AE6XQ who also donated the 8ft extension mast. The beam team included Don K6GHA, Chris KG6DOZ, yet another Dave KD6CYC,Greta KI6NTL. Roy KF6KVD, Rich W1WUH and Kerry soon to become K6RRY

While all this was going on the other team was busy constructing the wire dipole to cover 10,17, 40 and 80 meters. The alumoweld wire of this antenna has a distinct aversion to being straight but this challenge was overcome by the combined efforts of David WS2I, Rich KI6LQL, Dave KE6HQZ and Roy KF6KVD. When aloft, measurements showed that on all ands it was OK except on 80 where it resonated in the band but the VSWR was 3.0:1. This calls for some more experimentation and anticipating this we had put pulleys in place at each end and in the center. I used the coax from the previous 80meter dipole but it really needs replacing.

We must recognize the contributions of other items from David WA6NMF and Jim WB6YAM- thanks to you both. Several others donated sufficient cash to cover the light duty refreshments and I personally enjoyed my sandwich lunch provided by the club

It had been a very long but rewarding day and as it was wrapping up at 5:00 PM I selfishly left others to deal with the trash.

In closing if I have overlooked anyone please accept my apologies and once again we can express our sincere appreciation to the key actors in this drama W6YDG, AC6BO and WB9VXY

Watch the next Short Skip for pictures and diagram of the resulting antenna arrangements

I have already been asked what projects come next hereπs what come to mind.

Fix the Club coffee pot that let us down so badly

Deal with the entry coax in a pro-amateur manner

Once and for all clear out ALL extraneous items

Provide remote control of antenna switching and rotation

Sincere thanks to all of you

73 Ron W6WO