[MRCA] Today's 40 meter Net

[mstangelo at comcast.net]

Enjoyed the net today.

I've had the RF-5000 for some time now along with the 125Watt Amp but no cables. I picked up the MS connectors form William Perry. I have lots of Teflon wire but no braid. In discussion with Ray the braid shield may not be necessary if working with short cables and my antennas are 40 feet away so I make a connector cable and a power cable. The setup is working well. I have a low current 24 volt power supply co I connected two 12 volt LiFePo4 batteries in series and it works like a charm.

I pick up my batteries form Battery Hookup. They sell LiFePo4 batteries removed form medical equipment and work well. Some of the batteries have handy carrying handles.

Sixty was noisy today and I could barely hear the net controller who is in northern New England. Since the 5000 does not have noise reduction I switch to balanced dipole and loop antennas for reception. The signal is lower but the noise is much lower. You may try this out even if the receive antenna is not resonant.

Mike N2MS




> On 04/11/2026 2:10 PM EDT Ray Fantini via MRCA <mrca at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Good forty-meter net today, had about ten stations with N2MS kicking things off with his Harris 5000 Falcon that he just put on the air, K4NYW and the mighty URC-32, WF2U and K3TZJ running Harris hardware along with KB4HG on a Sunair. W1ZFB and N2RJB checking in along with W1NZR on his Collins ARC-102 set up. KE8ULR finished the list on another Sunair transceiver.
> I was running the usual Harris Falcon, RF-5020 with 125-watt amplifier and 382 autotune.
> 
> Not a bad group for forty in the morning, propagation was good considering it sucked the first half of the RTTY net just before.
> I listened to the M&S Net at noon and did hear N2MS well was having difficulty copying NCS so did not try.
> Remember, a bad day on the air is better than a good day on the computer.
> 
> 
> Ray F/KA3EKH