The Washington Island QTH station is in the basement of our island home, an area which should be safe, mostly vermin-free and warm.
I’ve documented how mice came in to nest in my Collins station, but hadn’t mentioned that the ad hoc door let the cold in and provided close to zero security.
Original door – top
My trusted Tashjian Towers LM-354HD tower with its Tennadyne T-8 and T-28 log periodic antennas came down September 2018 when we moved our home QTH.
I’ve written about the replacement home QTH’s TM-370 Skyneedle and the new T-12 larger HF log periodic.
This former main setup uses an AlfaSpid RAK rotator and also had a W9INN half-sloper for 160/80/40m action.
In 2019 the setup was transported to our Washington Island QTH, to be stored in the woods waiting for the base to be put in and the tower erected.
Between usual Island-delays and our focus on the main QTH, progress was slow. Adding the virus-game lockdowns to the mix greatly lengthened the transport to erection time frame.
Tower and erection-fixture as stored
Amazing what a checkbook can get done while you are laid up with the virus.
New Base installed
Think the hole is next to the pile of removed rocks
A few weeks back I walked the layout with my island contractor, who said his team would squeeze my project in.
Seems the time was now, which of course conflicted with my home quarantine and sleeping 20 out of 24 hours virus isolation.
The pour will take several weeks before I can erect the tower. First the tip-up/fold-over attachment goes on.
Then the rest is easy.
Even though I have a taller Skyneedle that could have gone up, I settled on my proven crank-up tip-up/fold-over antenna to avoid needing a lift for any rotator/antenna servicing.
Why the concrete cures I will have plenty of time to get the antennas ready. Uncertain if I will dig in the cables before all the heavy work is complete.
Progress!
73
Steve
K9ZW
Memorial Day 2022 I drove the Pinzgauer 710M up to Washington Island to participated in an Island charity event.
The ride out to the island was on Washington Island Ferry Line’s Madonna, their newest, fastest, biggest and “bestest” ferry!
K9ZW’s Pinzgauer 710M on the Island Ferry (Madonna) leaving the mainland
During the weekend drove over to Jackson Harbor, which is truly the “End of the Road” in Door County Wisconsin, but first needed to stop my the K9ZW Island retreat.
The 710M at K9ZW’s weekend retreat on Washington Island
The official roads end at the Rock Island ferry, which is a passenger-only ferry as vehicles are not allowed in the Rock Island State Park.
The 710M at Jackson Harbor, which truly is the “End of the Road” in Door County. The Island in the Distance is Rock Island, State Park, where no private cars are allowed.
Rock Island is also the end of Wisconsin, as the much further distant islands are part of Michigan.
So I can now say “I have been to the end of the road and back, with my Pinzgauer!”
73
Steve
K9ZW
Spending the long Memorial Day weekend on Washington Island (WI-001L) Wisconsin, I learned that Emmett W9EMY had taking his Tech & General tests together, applied for a vanity call as he was sequentially assigned a tongue-twister call, BUT hadn’t made an Amateur Radio contact!
One of his Elmers, George W9EVT seemed to have presumed that Emmett W9EMY had his station on the air, and like true gentlemen they “talked around” what could have been a question of “Hey W9EMY, how about knocking out some QSOs?”
Emmett had asked to look at my ZeroFive Flagpole Vertical Antenna, and when I asked him if he had his station running and how did he like making contacts, I learned he hadn’t been on the air.
Well that sure needed to be fixed! So tuning the Island QTH Flex-6700 across 20 meters, we heard Rick VE6CQ holding court, working stations at a good pace. So we listened and talked about the parts of the QSOs until a nice opportunity came up to have W9EMY call VE6CQ.
Turns out I had the microphone gain too hot, as I had switched to a Neuman mic on a boom for Emmett to us, but left the settings for another mic. Rick VE6CQ came back with additional information that our settings were messed up. My mistake fixed in less time that it takes to type about it.
Emmett W9EMY and Rick VE6CQ had a great classic QSO with VE6CQ throwing in an on-air pep-talk about amateur radio, HF and I think he may have worked in an appreciation of life itself in there somewhere. I was inspired by Rick VE6CQ’s pep-talk even though I was the Elmer rather than the new guy that day!!
Time restraints kept Emmett’s first foray limited to that first QSO, but I did do a quick FT8 demo as Emmett wanted to see that in operation.
Then we arranged a Sked (scheduled contact) for the following day, and Emmett W9EMY from his home Flex-6400 station had a roundtable discussion with myself on my Flex-6700 and George W9EVT who was on his Kenwood TS-990S.
Now that we were all within a small local circle kind of made it easy,! Actually W9EVT and I are a fifteen minute walk apart, and Emmett is another twenty minutes or so further west than George W9EVT is from my QTH.
Was fantastic to get another new ham on HF for their first contact!
And to hear Rick VE6CQ’s pep talk was icing on the cake.
73
Steve
K9ZW
It has taken quite a while to assemble an all-FlexRadio setup.
FlexRadio took longer than expected to introduce the Amplifier (PGXL) and Tuner (TGXL) components. To FlexRadio’s credit the general releases were held until the units were sorted out to some pretty exacting standards, and just like the radios the PGXL & TGXL continue to be worked on for improvements.
Here is my basic system at the Home-QTH:
Flex-6700 — PGXL Amp — TGXL Tuner — Antennas
At the Home-QTH Antenna 1 is a Zero-Five Flagpole Vertical and Antenna 2 is a T-12 12 element Log Periodic
Here is my basic system at the Island-QTH:
Flex-6700 — PGXL Amp — TGXL Tuner — PowerMaster SWR Meter — Antennas
At the Island-QTH Antenna 1 is a Zero-Five Flagpole Vertical
For reference the Work-QTH setup is:
Flex-6600M — Vertical Antenna
In all cases an Array Solutions AS302 arrestor is in-line before the antenna.
Main software is SmartSDR (Windows) either by LAN or WAN using SmartLink. I do have SmartSDR (iOS) and SmartSDR (Maestro) to fall back on, but mostly am using the Windows version. (Also have DogparkSDR available on my MacOS machines.)
For a while I am going to run everything in this simple configuration. Actually rather frustrated with myself in the implementation of antenna switches and various additional sensor/software packages.
The Home-QTH and Work-QTH are able to be kept on standby 24/7, but island infrastructure being unreliable leaves the Island-QTH able to be up only when someone is in attendance.
73
Steve
K9ZW
With Varying Frequency - Amateur Radio Ponderings 