[SFDXA] Tales of a Scrounger

[Bill]

http://www.eham.net/articles/27755


      Tales of a Scrounger

from Frederick R. Vobbe, W8HDU on March 16, 2012
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We all know people who are scroungers. There are some who look for 
useful things, such as decommissioned radios from business and public 
service users that can be turned into ham repeaters and bases. Then 
there are those who fall into the insane category, such as the folks 
that collect catsup packets from fast food joints, and electronics that 
end up in piles in the basement or garage. These folks have Intend 
Disease. They intend to do something with the discarded junk but never 
get around to it. (I'm waiting to see if they show up on the TV show 
"Hoarders").

I fall somewhere in the seventy percentile of sane with my scrounging. 
At breakfast this morning, a couple of local hams and I were commenting 
on some of the things we have found and reused for the good of ham 
radio. Note, all these things are being used, and not laying around 
collecting dust.

After a party in 1997, a Coke bottle served a wonderful purpose as an 
insulator. I wanted a 40 meter vertical. I found some aluminum tube with 
the largest piece being 1.250". The large piece of tube fit over the 
neck of the bottle, and smaller tubes then made up the 34' tall 
radiator. Small non-conductive guys hold it erect, and with the bottle 
sunk into the dirt some 3" and the downward momentum, the antenna has 
stayed in place for years. The 6" glass gap from ground is more than 
enough for even legal limit power. One hint... tub caulk the opening so 
the bottle doesn't fill with water and shatter in the cold when the 
water turns to ice.

At work, we have a plotter machine that runs 24" wide paper. The HP 
paper comes on a plastic tube, 2-3/16" round. Normally these tubes and 
the end pieces that go in the boxes are tossed out. But these have 
served wonderfully for coil forms. I've had no problem with using this 
stuff for coils handling some pretty impressive power and wattage.

My friend Bill found an old VHF antenna next to the curb on trash day. 
All the stations in the area are transitioned to UHF, so the old antenna 
had no purpose. Bill grabbed it, and with some re-engineering, and 
modified feed point, the antenna made a dandy 2-meter beam. As far as we 
can figure from plotting it out in EZNEC and with field measurement, the 
antenna yields about 7.8 dB gain.

Speaking of antennas, I found an old pair of rabbit ear antennas sitting 
at the curb. Those have been remounted on the end of a broomstick and 
have been repurposed for D.F. work, and once correctly lengthened to the 
appropriate distance, can handle up to 50 watts of power from a 2-meter 
rig while camping in the wilderness.

Know an electrician? Many times these guys have wads of THHN wire in the 
back of their truck after redoing someone's commercial electrical 
service. This was just the case when I noticed my friend Vince had a 
pile in his truck. Normally he takes this back to a special dumpster at 
work, and when they fill the dumpster it goes to salvage. These 10' and 
40' ends of wire made great radials for my Butternut antenna. And it 
cost me $8 meal at the local watering hole to get enough to do about 60 
radials for the antenna.

A nice touch to the WiFi world was an antenna my friend Ken made. He has 
a WiFi antenna on his router so he can pick up the weather station in 
his barn some 180 yards from the house. The signal was always coming and 
going, and was mostly gone. I made him up a cable with SMA connectors on 
it, and we took the antenna at the barn end and placed it in front of 
his old DirecTV antenna he don't use, and pointed it back to the house. 
Through trial and error we found the "sweet spot" when the apex of the 
DirecTV antenna focused the RF on his home for 100% signal. Taking a 
laptop around the property we found the signal was very directional. The 
little "rubber duck" antenna is supported in the apex of the antenna by 
(3) 1/8" threaded rods, which were then heavily painted to keep from 
rusting.

At a recent hamfest I found a guy trying to sell un-etched PC board. A 
12" x 12" piece of double-sided board was 50-cents. This was too good to 
pass up. With some calculations of the spacing between the board, and 
using a capacitance meter while cutting, I came up with some 1.375" by 
3" strips. These fit nicely inside a PVC tube. With a coil across one 
side of the board to the other, you have a nice trap you can make for 
about $5 in parts. Hint: Sand back the copper on the edges to keep 
voltages from arcing over the side. You don't need much, just .1875 or 
so will do it.

I'm sure there are plenty of stories from those of you on eHam of things 
you've salvaged and repurposed for ham activities. How about sharing 
some of your experiences. What have made from a discarded item?