Seriously…I got up at 5:30 this morning so I could get out to the Indy Hamfest before the locusts descended on the flea market. (OK, mixed metaphor. Sorry.)
It was fun, though. I bought a tuner to go with my FT-450D and some accoutrements for a dipole antenna.
And a hat. Maybe a picture later.
I’d had enough by 9:30 though so I came home and cleared a bunch of old junk electronics out of the garage and took them over to the electronics recycle at the church. Then I went outside and measured the actual distance between the two trees I mentioned in this post. (The ones that run roughly north to south.) Turns out it’s almost exactly 120 feet! With the halfway mark (thus with any luck, the feed point) right at the peak of the house roof!
So I may be able to get an acceptable dipole up without having to worry about the power lines. I think I can at least get one up that will tune down to 40 meters, and that would be sufficient for now.
And I checked stock. I have at least a thousand (maybe 1500) feet of #12 THHN stranded in the shed…
Is there a reason for #12, or is it just handy?
That’s roughly #120 worth of wire as you may know, and I can’t imagine a dipole carrying 20 amps 🙂
Hi Ed! I just realized I had comments sitting around waiting for approval, sorry about that.
It’s because I have it sitting around. I thought I had a bunch of #14 stranded but I don’t; it’s all #12 and #10.
I assure you it was not purchased at today’s prices 🙂 It was probably bought back in about 2000 or 2001. Dad bought it before he passed away in January 2002, at any rate.