On 4/22/2012 7:29 PM, Irv Finkleman wrote:
1. Is there wire with camoflage insulation? (just kidding!)
I plan on using wire with beige or tan colored insulation. I
think sky blue or grey would provide the wrong contract.
Any ideas on this?

Dunno.. From what I notice, lighter colors may blend with the
sky at times, but they also reflect light more, which can cause
the wire to stand out more at certain times of the day.


2. The far end of the antenna will be hanging from and in
the branches of a tree. I will only be running 5W (if I'm lucky)
and wonder about the voltage at the end of the wire. Will some
heat shrink provide suitable insulation to prevent corona from
starting the bush on fire? Is there a better idea? I will be
using PTFE (Teflon) insulated wire.

No problem with that.. 5 watts is not enough power to start
anything on fire.. Even 100w will have trouble doing that in
most cases. Only when I was running high power have I noticed
arcing and burning of tree branches touching the ends of antennas.
You can use almost anything as an insulator and should have no
problems with QRP.


3. I'll be running the wire from inside my suite through
a 1/4 inch hole in the aluminum window frame. I was going
to feed it through a plastic straw to prevent chafing and
possible short circuiting. Any suggestions on the best way
through the hole to prevent any problems?

I suppose that would work ok.. or maybe run and melt some thin
heat shrink tubing at that point..


4. Is there a way to tell if the glass in my windows
has some property that greatly attenuates signals?
I'd ask the management but I don't want to trigger them
into realization that future QRM will probably be
emanating from my 'shack'! I plan to work the world
while remaining invisible to those around me. If asked,
I'll just explain that the wire is an antenna for my short wave
receiver!!!!

Glass is fairly RF invisible I think.. Should be no issue.


This is the first time I've had to use a store bought rig!
Until now I've either had modified surplus or burned out
rigs which I rebuilt. I've always been an advocate of
low power, but real QRP is new to me too -- and I equate
it to the difference between dynamiting ponds and fly fishing!
Time will tell! :-) When I became ill I gave away all my
50+ years accumulation of valuable ham radio equipment,
tools, test equipment, and books -- collectively A.K.A.
"Junk". It's fun starting from scratch -- at least my shack
is not a terrible mess -- YET!

Low power can do fine if the antenna is decent.


Do folks still mail QSL cards? Or can I settle for emailing
a graphic equivalent of my own design? I've been off the air
for a couple years now and think that things may have changed
while I was out of the picture. This is not a big problem as
printing and using the local buro shouldn't be too much of
a problem. The hundreds of rare QSL's coming into my
mailbox my invite unanticipated curiosity from the
management.

I don't do QSL cards myself.. In fact, I've never sent anyone a
QSL card ever.. And I don't need any to send me one, but of course
still many do.. The CW contacts are much more likely to generate
QSL cards than the typical phone jabber..
The way I look at it, is I know I worked the people.. I don't
need paper proof of it.. :/
Maybe you could get a PO box, and assign it as your new mail
address, and have someone check the mail every once in a while.

"NM5K" wrote in message
...
On 4/22/2012 7:29 PM, Irv Finkleman wrote:
1. Is there wire with camoflage insulation? (just kidding!)
I plan on using wire with beige or tan colored insulation. I
think sky blue or grey would provide the wrong contract.
Any ideas on this?

Dunno.. From what I notice, lighter colors may blend with the
sky at times, but they also reflect light more, which can cause
the wire to stand out more at certain times of the day.

I've considered that. The stretch from my window to where the
wire will enter the tree is such that there will be no one below, and
anyone walking in the area and looking up will be looking mainly
toward the building which is various shades of brown. The chance
of anyone seeing the wire against the sky is very small if at all. I'll try
that
light brown or beige first but it will be easy to change. The only
real time involved has been in planning what to do.


2. The far end of the antenna will be hanging from and in
the branches of a tree. I will only be running 5W (if I'm lucky)
and wonder about the voltage at the end of the wire. Will some
heat shrink provide suitable insulation to prevent corona from
starting the bush on fire? Is there a better idea? I will be
using PTFE (Teflon) insulated wire.

No problem with that.. 5 watts is not enough power to start
anything on fire.. Even 100w will have trouble doing that in
most cases. Only when I was running high power have I noticed
arcing and burning of tree branches touching the ends of antennas.
You can use almost anything as an insulator and should have no
problems with QRP.

I sort of figured that, but your confirmation is indeed welcome. In
fact, Mark, I'm really pleased to see your reply because I've always
enjoyed your opinions and advice on antennas.


3. I'll be running the wire from inside my suite through
a 1/4 inch hole in the aluminum window frame. I was going
to feed it through a plastic straw to prevent chafing and
possible short circuiting. Any suggestions on the best way
through the hole to prevent any problems?

I suppose that would work ok.. or maybe run and melt some thin
heat shrink tubing at that point..


Until something better comes along, reinforcing the wire with some
heat shrink tubing, and running it through a heavy soda straw should
do the trick -- in fact now that I think of it, you can buy heavy straws
for kids and I'll pick one up tomorrow.


4. Is there a way to tell if the glass in my windows
has some property that greatly attenuates signals?
I'd ask the management but I don't want to trigger them
into realization that future QRM will probably be
emanating from my 'shack'! I plan to work the world
while remaining invisible to those around me. If asked,
I'll just explain that the wire is an antenna for my short wave
receiver!!!!

Glass is fairly RF invisible I think.. Should be no issue.

I'm still not sure on that either -- I've heard that leaded glass
can be a problem, but I'm not even sure what kind of glass is
in these windows. As it is, I'm not pushing RF through the
windows, but have considered a small magnetic loop located
inside, in which case I'd like to know.

This is the first time I've had to use a store bought rig!
Until now I've either had modified surplus or burned out
rigs which I rebuilt. I've always been an advocate of
low power, but real QRP is new to me too -- and I equate
it to the difference between dynamiting ponds and fly fishing!
Time will tell! :-) When I became ill I gave away all my
50+ years accumulation of valuable ham radio equipment,
tools, test equipment, and books -- collectively A.K.A.
"Junk". It's fun starting from scratch -- at least my shack
is not a terrible mess -- YET!

Low power can do fine if the antenna is decent.

I have a chum who was running an FT-101 here in town
through a G5RV 3 feet or so above his roof. He was one of
the top DXers in town. One day he suggested that things weren't
quite right so I went over to have a look. I told him to tune up
whilie I watched. He went through the correct tuneup procedure
as per the book, but never readjusted the Carrier Level adjustment
when he began operating. I had him repeat the procedure and
the same thing again! It turned out that the Manual doesn't really
tell you what to do beyone the tuning point so he left things as
is, and worked mucho countries running only 15 watts! It
goes to show what lower power can do, and also that what you
don't know won't hurt you!!! Once, in my shack, I set my rig
on 20m with about 5 watts of output. I made a call, and got
an immediate answer from a fellow who I had elmered back
in the early 70's!!!! We'd lost touch for all those years and had
been looking for each other. I was here in Calgary, he was down
in Silicon Valley!!


Do folks still mail QSL cards? Or can I settle for emailing
a graphic equivalent of my own design? I've been off the air
for a couple years now and think that things may have changed
while I was out of the picture. This is not a big problem as
printing and using the local buro shouldn't be too much of
a problem. The hundreds of rare QSL's coming into my
mailbox my invite unanticipated curiosity from the
management.

I don't do QSL cards myself.. In fact, I've never sent anyone a
QSL card ever.. And I don't need any to send me one, but of course
still many do.. The CW contacts are much more likely to generate
QSL cards than the typical phone jabber..
The way I look at it, is I know I worked the people.. I don't
need paper proof of it.. :/
Maybe you could get a PO box, and assign it as your new mail
address, and have someone check the mail every once in a while.

I seldom QSL'ed unless requested, but I do a lot of CW work
(almost as much as phone) I'll play it by ear in the meantime.
One sad thing about QSLing -- when I got ill, my brother and
sister had a big sale and sold a lot of ham stuff (the rest I donated
to the local ham club). Some stuff that I would like to have kept
disappeared -- whether sold or not I don't know and never will,
but my collection of QSL cards going back to 1958 and over
four callsigns went somewhere -- my logbooks too! Such is
life, but I'm just lucky to be able to start life over again and have
the fun of doing it! This is really net -- back to basics and
climbing the ladder again! At least I never had DXCC to lose!

Thanks again for your thought provoking and sage
reply.Much appreciated!

Irv VE6BP

On 4/22/2012 8:27 PM, Irv Finkleman wrote:
It turned out that the Manual doesn't really
tell you what to do beyone the tuning point so he left things as
is, and worked mucho countries running only 15 watts!

I used to use a little FT-7 transceiver portable quite often,
and it was about a 20w input radio, and did about 10 watts out
on most bands.
Using any decent antenna, I never had any trouble working the
people I wanted to, and this was usually on 40 and 80 meters
using NVIS paths.
I remember one time I was camping out at Lake Amistad near Del Rio,TX.
I rigged up a dipole for 80m, and had it hanging between two short
trees. The antenna was only about 5 ft off the ground it's whole
length. Even with that low antenna, and the appx 10w output on SSB,
I was still in the S9+ range to most of the various people I was
talking to in say San Antonio, Dallas, etc..
For those type conditions, I would generally prefer 100w, but 10w
will usually get it done if need be. Only on the noisier nights
might it be a real issue where the extra power is needed.
These days my portable rig is the 100w Icom 706mk2g. And of course,
I can adjust the output power level to whatever I want.. I think the
minimum it will do is around 5 watts or so.. maybe slightly less..
But unless I'm worried about my battery, I let it rip at 100w..
The battery is rarely an issue as I usually can charge it off the
vehicle every once in a while.