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Fall 2009 Issue |
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Beginner’s Guide Try Your Local Hardware Store! By Rich Arland, K7SZ |
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Summer in the Atlanta metro area is hot, HOT, H-O-T!! Now I finally understand why they call it “Hot-Lanta”! Thankfully, as I write this in mid-September, so far our ancient heat pump/air conditioner is still purring away keeping us at a cool 77° F. Any hotter and I can’t think! Well, by now my new shack is starting to really take shape. With the re-acquisition of my old Ikea operating table/console I now have more than enough room to start setting up the HF and VHF+ stations. Having sold off the majority of my gear prior to moving to Georgia, I was in immediate need of a good HF transceiver that could also be pressed into VHF+ service using it as a tunable IF for outboard transverters. Even though I had my old faithful Yaesu FT-726 for VHF+ use, I felt that shopping around for a quality HF transceiver with a contest-grade receiving section would not be a bad idea. That way, should something happen to the 726, I could procure some 6-meter, 2-meter, and 70-cm transverters and still maintain a presence on both the HF and VHF bands.
In January each year the Gwinnett Amateur
Radio Society (GARS) holds a “Tech Fest,” which strives to showcase
various operating modes and equipment to the general public and possibly
recruit new hams into the hobby. Tech Fest ’09 found me ensconced in a
booth next to the South East DX Club (SEDXC) folks. I was showing off some
of my military gear and soon found myself talking DX with the SEDXC
members at the adjacent table. One thing led to another, and I soon parted
with a year’s membership dues to the club. That was just the start of
things. Via the SEDXC I became acquainted with K1ZZI, Ralph, who just
happened to have a near-mint-condition Kenwood TS-940SAT HF transceiver
(loaded with crystal filters) and a matching SP-940 station speaker. The
price was definitely “right,” and soon that cute little (?) TS-940
followed me home and now sits proudly on the operating bench next to the
FT-726. Mission accomplished. Don’t get me wrong, as the 940SAT cost me a
few bucks, but only about 25% of what it originally sold for in the late
1980s. This 20-year-old DX machine has a great receiver and, with the
addition of a new IF board from a company called Piexx (<www.piexx.com>)
and a computer running Ham Radio Deluxe, you have an instant
computer-controlled radio for either HF or VHF+ operations (via
transverters). Arland done good! Without a doubt, the “Big-Box” stores are great places to shop. I know that between Home Depot and Lowe’s, I have spent thousands of dollars remodeling my home, not to mention picking up much needed tools, accessories, and “must have” items at great prices. With all the convenience of these “Big-Box” stores, it is very easy to forget the local hardware emporium, many of which have been in business for half a century or more and are mom-and-pop operations that have remained in the family for several generations.
Often these smaller hardware outlets have
things that their bigger counterparts don’t offer or fail to stock. Case
in point: washers—not the type that you wash clothes in or the things you
put on the ends of bolts. I am talking about large rubber washers that I
have found very useful for sealing the ingress points of coaxial cables
coming into my home. Having scoured the big outlets, I was on a trip back
to northeast Pennsylvania and had the chance to drop into the local
hardware store on the main street in my former home town of Wilkes-Barre.
Good ole “Main Hardware” helped me erect my 55-foot tower about 16 years
ago, along with countless other ham-radio-oriented and home-improvement
projects over the 20 years I lived here. Going in there was like stepping
back in time to my early days in Palouse, Washington, and the Ankorn
Hardware store. You could quite literally find the solution to almost any
construction project just by cruising the aisles of the store. |
This is
a photo of my VHF/UHF stack on the end of the house. In ascending order:
KU4AB square Halos for 6 meters, 2 meters, and 70 cm; and a BlueStar
2-meter J-pole on the top for local FM work. Although these antennas are
relatively close to the ground (only about 20 feet up), they will be moved
to the peak of the roof soon to achieve a total height |
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