[MRCA] On Patrol Cuttyhunk Island

Sat Sep 24 21:55:23 EDT 2016

When working on the self propelled GRC-106 or other radios that I have used at Gilbert, Aberdeen and Dayton I always try setting up and operating nets from the back yard. It’s a great opportunity to test everything before you get in the field. If you’re doing low power VHF stuff you may need to be up the mountain but for HF SSB operations the back yard works just as well.

Ray F/KA3EKH
________________________________________
From: MRCA <mrca-bounces at mailman.qth.net> on behalf of Peter Gottlieb <kb2vtl at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 24, 2016 12:03 AM
To: mrca at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [MRCA] On Patrol Cuttyhunk Island

Great fun to get out in the field for some portable operations with mil radios.
I was out with a digital head PRC-515 as well as a Racal Syncal 2000.  The 515
has a H-189 handset, the racal a Clansman RA-250.  Both have lithium ion packs I
built out of A123 26650 M1B cells:  4.6 AH 26.4V for the 515 and 6.9 AH 13.2V
for the 2000.  They powered the radios flawlessly and were very light.

Interesting lesson learned:  no matter how much you think you've tested a setup,
it isn't truly tested until you've used it in actual field conditions.  I made a
nice dipole setup using 300 ohm twinlead and a home-made 4:1 balun.  Tested the
balun on the bench, not much can go wrong with the dipole itself, right?  On the
balun I put a couple of 3-way terminal posts and at the last minute thought it
would be neat to have a dual banana plug on the end of the twinlead.  Out to the
field it all went.

Unfortunately, both my pack sets seemed deaf, also they wouldn't get out
(although both autotuners tuned nicely).  Fortunately I was with others who had
set up another antenna and had other parts like a balun.  After some testing,
both radios worked on the other antenna and a different balun gave the same
results on my dipole.  We were all scratching our heads then I thought to
measure continuity of my setup.  Lo and behold, the dual banana plug was
shorted!  I had picked up a few at Dayton from someone in the flea area and
thought them to be standard dual plugs and they looked like them but in fact
they were shorting plugs!

In the field this was an easy fix; using my Leatherman I cut off the plug and
stripped the twinlead and connected to the binding posts on the balun.  All of a
sudden everything was different, I could hear distant stations rock solid and
they could hear me.  Both radios got good reports.

I also need a better spooling method to stow and deploy the dipole and lead-in,
so I'll work on that next.  I also didn't really like the ALICE packs I have for
the radios.  The straps are unwieldy and long when moving in and out of vehicles
and the packs are hard to carry when not on your back.  I'm open to other
ideas.  I have the special backpack for the PRC-515 which I find very
comfortable on my back but it's unwieldy to carry off-back as well.  I have a
Racal pack but it needs slight modification to carry the Syncal and I realized
that the night before the trip so didn't have time to do it.  That one is
smaller so might be decent.

Good things to have on this outing:
      Leatherman
      Multimeter
      Supply of 1/8" rope
      Ty-raps
      Coax adapters
      RF cables

I tried using a whip on one of the rigs.  Even with a 4 wire decent length
counterpoise the performance was nowhere near the dipole. Too weak for the
distances we were working.  Our dipoles weren't very high off the ground so we
got good results as could be expected in the NVIS distance ranges.

Living in a residential area it was nice to be remote and only have one source
of noise, the generator the others were using.  Much less noise than I am used to.

BTW, I didn't bring it but I have a few of those folding special forces solar
panels.  The print on them says 16V 0.8 amps.  I found that they do a pretty
decent job just directly connected with banana leads to the Racal batteries
(which both the panels and the batteries accept).  Over 600 mA charge, not at
all bad considering no MPPT controller.  Enough to be adding significant energy
to a spare battery, more than 50% charge in 6 hours of sunlight and the panel is
light and easily fits in with other gear.  Seems useful if out in the field for
an extended period.

Peter
KB2VTL

On 9/23/2016 3:12 PM, Radio Station KW1I wrote:
> 5357 USB until 4:00
>
>
> /Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Droid/
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Radio Station KW1I <kw1i at earthlink.net>
> Date: Sep 23, 2016 2:46 PM
> Subject: On Patrol Cuttyhunk Island
> To: mrca at mailman.qth.ner
> Cc:
>
>     5357 USB until about 4:00.
>
>
>     /Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Droid/
>     ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>     From: Radio Station KW1I <kw1i at earthlink.net>
>     Date: Sep 23, 2016 2:39 PM
>     Subject: On Patrol Cuttyhunk Island
>     To: Glenn Miller <cgmiller55 at verizon.net>,Douglas McFarren
>     <mcfarren610 at gmail.com>,Glenn Miller <cgmiller55 at verizon.net>,Jim Miller
>     <jhm49 at hotmail.com>,jeff messier <jeffw1aea at gmail.com>
>     Cc:
>
>         On 5357 USB until 4:00
>
>         /Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Droid/
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> MRCA mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/mrca
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:MRCA at mailman.qth.net
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

______________________________________________________________
MRCA mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/mrca
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:MRCA at mailman.qth.net

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html