Thread: Gun owners and Ham Radio operators

I mainly use the old fashioned pen & paper logbook lol. I do have one program that was donated several years ago, but I forget what the name is. It was some guy that wrote his own program and was distributing it himself. I’ll look and see what it is. I’ve not been on the air since it was donated.

What antennas do you fellows use? I’m looking at going to a ground mounted vertical, more than likely a Hustler 5BTV. My old system was a home brew tri-band dipole (20-40-80 meters) that a friend made out of solid 12 gauge copper wire.

I'm ashamed to say what antenna I'm using, HA.

When I set up my shack I wanted the best setup I could afford plus a grand or two! Made a bedroom into a Radio Room. Feed-thru of all control and feedlines come thru the wall with quick disconnects, a dedicated power source to the room, Grounding system and Lightning protection from tower to shack, plus every 10ft and including the house, RF Filtering on everything to keep the wife and neighbors happy, custom Oak table top from wall to wall, ETC... You get the picture.

My antenna is a 3 element SteppIR so I'm resonant without a tuner anywhere from 6M to 40M. It is up 45ft. You can look me up on QRZ (K1ING) and see a couple pics. I haven't updated them in a while so I'm not really sure what's there but you can see my station.

So, if conditions are working as they should, there are not many places I can't reach out and touch with the help of a restored Drake L-4B.

So what is this Vertical thing I keep hearing people talk about?

We all do the best we can with what we can, I just couldn't settle for less when I got to understand what a shack could be.

I've always done a computer log plus my radio system is attached to the computer. Rotator and SteppIR control included. I see a spot on the web that someone worked and posted, then I mouse click on it and everything changes bands, modes, directions, and the antenna adjusts for the freq. Spoiled I know. I know HAM's that have an old Icom and a wire in the attic. Its all fun no matter what you set up!

My Elmer used to use a slinky antenna in his attic, until he had a metal roof put on his house. Now he doesn’t get our so good.