[v7arcssbnet] my last message bounced - 'cuz I attached a photo?

[Steve Schaarschmidt]

 Antenna Mast of Evening Last - more than you wanted to know, hi hi

Sidebanders,

Doug D. asked me to send a picture of the mast that I assembled for
portable operations, such as the one I went on yesterday evening at Russell
Middle School.
The time of this shot is one minute before net time, so it was pretty dark
already.

The horizontal white members are scraps of manufactured facia board that
came from the "cull bin" at Home Depot.
The vertical white member is a 10-foot-long PVC pipe that I borrowed from
my sump pump drain.
The round white object is my hard hat covering the sharp edges and corners
that would have been about face-high for pedestrians on the sidewalk or
curb.
The blue-white light is a small magnetic LED flashlight illuminating the
mast and fixture.
The yellow-orange light in the background is a streetlight.

My car was facing south on the west edge of Saddlewood Drive, half a block
south of Montebello.
My "AMATEUR RADIO COMMUNICATIONS" signs were on all four sides of the car.
I kept the cabin light and a small lantern on inside the car for the whole
hour that I was operating, just to be visible to anybody curious enough to
approach my open window (like that truck driver at the Fountain Walmart a
few months ago).

You can *almost* see the antenna, a four-element aluminum Yagi mounted
vertically-polarized with its boom at the top of the mast, pointed at Pikes
Peak.
The Kenwood TR-9130 with the MC-46 DTMF microphone (any stray touch-tone
sounds were me) was pushing 20 Watts on voice peaks as measured with a
Micronta power/SWR meter at the antenna connector.
Even with a cell tower only 200 feet away, I had a VERY low noise level!
My external speaker is a pawn-shop-find "rear speaker" from a Kenwood
surround-sound system (I rarely use the internal speaker on any of my rigs).

I almost made myself late: halfway to the site (which is a 2.2-mile drive
from my house), I was mentally running down my list... I pulled over to the
curb and ransacked the back seat to find that I'd forgotten the coax!
Even I don't know "where in the world" I will be (thanks, Dave KB0KQI for
the "brand name"!) next week - maybe even at home!

73,

 = Steve Schaar... K0CI