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The dates for ComFest 2014 have been changed to Sunday Oct 5. Make a note in your calendars about the change. Tables are still available. All the details including reserving a table can be found at: https://deltaamateurradio.com/wp/?page_id=94
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Speaking of Radio Swap Meets:
Hi everyone,
Ham Happenings is happening THIS Saturday. This year will be bigger and better than 2012… I have contacting a number of vendors and there will be some amazing door prizes, raffle items, etc courtesy of Icom, Kenwood, RadioWorld, Durham Radio and HRO. Please spread the word on your local nets and to your club members. Contact Ron Gibson VE7GOA if you would like to rent a table for the event 250-714-6819.
Event at Cedar Community Hall, 2388 Cedar Road, Nanaimo. 10am – 3pm (Vendors set up 9am)
We are looking forward to hosting this year and we hope that you will be able to attend.
73 de VA7YSF
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Here’s and idea for a club project….
Ham Radio + Insanity + Infinite Wealth = http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~kan1/newmonsterantenna2.html
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From Clay’s (K7CR) corner:
Meanwhile down in Portland, Oregon…They have had a huge mess at what’s called the Stonehenge tower. My sincere thanks to Kent Randles of Entercom Portland for much of the following.
For those of you that are familiar with the towers on the West-Hill of Portland, you have likely seen this structure, looking much like Seattle’s Space Needle, without the saucer –
That pointy thing on top is a Jampro, spiral, master FM antenna, very much like the one at the Ratelco Site on Cougar Mt. near Seattle (Home of 93.3, 95.7 and 105.3). In Portland’s case, this antenna, first put on the air in 1991, is fed with a big Shively Combiner which is connected a considerable number of high powered FM station transmitters.
Despite having a lightning bolt catcher on the top…The antenna became the ‘connection point’ for a sky-bolt back in July. There is a lot of hardware that connects that big combiner to the antenna. Now quoting Kent:
It’s fed with 9” line, inside the tower’s 6’ diameter center tube there’s a 3-way power divider with 4” outputs and two “trombone” phase-matching sections. 4” Heliax feeds 3 power dividers inside the antenna, one at the top of each bay. There are 2 more, smaller, “trombone” matching sections for two of the three spirals. The spirals are grounded at the bottom end. Lots of parts, but no exposed flexible lines.
It got hit by lightning on Sunday July 13th. After sweeping it they replaced damaged parts feeding the bottom section of the antenna, which took almost 2 weeks.
It was back on the air the 25th and it worked for about 36 hours and then all the high-power users VSWR’d off.
More sweeping, some disassembly then complete disassembly and cleaning of all transmission lines and power-dividers. They replaced almost all of the bullets and the center 4” in 3” out 3-way power-divider.
They have been pulling in almost every available tower worker in the Northwest, and have been working 6 or 7 days a week on the tower and 7 days a week on the ground cleaning parts.
When it gets completely back together and sweeps OK they will replace two of the spirals that have become damaged through the years. The spirals have de-icing heater elements inside of them.
They hope to have it back on the air by the middle of next week, about 9/3.
Here’s a picture showing a closer view of the antenna with a number of workers on it. Note the lightning dissipation array on the top (looking like flowers). The antenna on the left is a single bay antenna used by one of the stations at the site not connected to Combiner or Master Antenna.
During this time all the stations connected to the Master Antenna have been forced to use side-mounted antennas mounted lower on the structure. Due to the large size of the tower, their coverage has been considerably compromised.
Kent sent along a picture of one of the sections of transmission line that was damaged. UGLY! Takes a lot of power and heat to do that.
