W2LJ's Blog - QRP - Do More With Less.

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More magnetic loop antenna work

Posted: 24 Jul 2016 03:05 PM PDT
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On Thursday the plastic enclosures from Poly Case arrived via the friendy
neighborhood UPS Man. I mowed the lawn Thursday after dinner in
anticipation of the simmering, sweltering weekend heat, so I didn't begin
work until Friday evening. All I did Friday evening was cut the main hole
for the capacitor shaft to stick though.


Saturday was way too busy with house chores and nabbing a few NPOTA
stations, so the rest of the "hard" work was left to today. I was
listening for NPOTA stations, which were either:

A) Ones I could hear; but have worked in the past, or
B) Ones I have not worked in the past, but could not hear.

Sigh.

In between bouts of dial twiddling, I mounted the reduction drive:


And mounted the super expensive 25 cent knob I bought at the SCARC Hamfest
last Sunday.


Then I drilled holes for and mounted the two SO-239 connectors:


I haven't mounted the capacitor permanently yet, as I want to make up
the "wiring" beforehand. This is how it will all come together, though:


For me, the scariest part was trmming down the length of the capacitor
shaft with my Dremel, as it was about 1/4 " (6 mm) too long. Last night,
talking with Bob W3BBO, he reminded me to "measure twice, cut once." I
ended up meauring about four times and holding my breath while cutting!

Not the biggest homebrew project in the world, aside form the shaft
modification it was mostly just simple hole cutting and drilling. A simple
task for most, but somehow it seems whenever I try something like this, I
screw something up. Royally. It hasn't spontaneously combusted, so I guess
I'm doing OK.

In the end, this is going to look SO much better than this:


And it will be much beefier and sturdier, too.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!