Ham Station WB7ELY
   Maricopa Vacation Home
 



Your run-of-the-mill Maricopa, Arizona tract house.
HOA rules forbid any visible antennas other than satellite TV antennas.

 

 So it was that Dave wanted to make ham radio shortwave contacts on 20 and 40 meters during winter vacation.

HOA rules dictate that this HF antenna needed to be an invisible antenna

The roof is made of concrete tiles so that precluded any attic antennas.

 
Here's the HF Antenna that we built

We rigged up a 50 ft test antenna using an Autotuner and about 50 ft of wire strung along the east and south eaves of the house.
 
                      Wife says it all comes back down ....later

3/4 PVC coupling insulator



Now it is spray-painted  brown
 



Auto-tuner and ground system.
 The house uses "pex" plastic piping so the water faucet was no good as a ground.
The next best thing was to use the #10 gauge ground wire in the A/C outdoor unit power box and a tent stake directly underneath for a ground stake.



Shot of the wire around the SE corner of the house.
Again using 14 Ga insulated wire and 3/4 PVC couplings as insulators
 


Here's the VHF antenna.
Larson 144 Mhz Kulrod. Probably needs a ground plane but performance seems good as it is.
Note the Ace Hardware mount: 3/4" flange with threaded 90PVC fitting and short chunk of 3/4 PVC pipe. .



Outside coax run (temp)
RG-58 (2) and 4 cond coupler control
Runs through existing CATV penetration

 


The Station
 



     Desk had to be used as a home office and shared  amateur station
The PC is a recycled Win 7 OEM desktop.
Dave uses only digital modes so the PC was central to the station
Here's the 2015 setup:
Radio: Icom 706 100 watt radio
HF Antenna: 50 Ft wire hung from eaves of house E&S sides @12 ft
Tuner: Icom AT-4 autotune coupler. coax: RG-58 (30ft)
VHF Antenna: Larsen 144 mhz base loaded vehicle antenna @ 12 ft coax: RG-58 (25ft)
 

Here's the  Icom 706 control head run remotely to radio on floor.

Box on right is a rigblaster advantage external sound card/digital interface.
Note also the Bearcat BC890 scanning receiver
Using it it check local repeaters and city/county activity using the VHF antenna.
 



Here's Dave operating PSK31 on 20 meters in
Maricopa Arizona.

Another shot of the woodshop project DIY control head mount.

It keeps desktop clutter and cabling to a minimum. Gives a nice updated look to the desktop and radio head.
         

        Station Performance:

To date :  Running PSK31 mode and about 50 Watts show satisfactory
HF Contacts to only about 1500 miles on 14Mhz (20m band) late afternoon MST.

This includes contacts in CA, ID, TX, AL and MO.

Noise levels on 80m and 40m are still too high.

                   Link to WB7ELY Washington State Home QTH website
    
     New Projects for 2015
I		 dave's evaluation of the rig-blaster interface: 2.5
dave's evaluation of the ICOM 706 HF Transceiver: 8
He's a fan of the 706! Dave owns two..
FSK Converter board kit. Features optoisolators between the serial port lines and the ICOM 706 direct fsk and keyline.
 		  
IP Security camera upgrade

144 Mhz Troposcatter using the IC-706

Oscar Satellites
 

  
 

 

1/18/15