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Rotor Mast 2-Meter J-PoleBy Bruce Randall, W1ZE

OH NO, not another J-Pole article! Ya’sir,another J-pole “how-to” article. As many of you know the J-Pole antenna is asimple and effective half-wave antenna and youhave seen them made out of CB whips, copperpipe, aluminum tubing, TV twin-lead etc. I justthought I would add one more to the mix. Thefollowing J-Pole design is super simple tofabricate and has an advantage over designs bybeing broad banded. Back in the late 70s I lived in HuntingtonBeach, California and had a nice small stationset-up in a small second floor room. I operatedmostly HF but like everyone else I had two-meters in the shack and in the car. Several of the hams in the area hung out on147.525 simplex which was also used as acommon inter-tie frequency for all the remotebase 440 MHz folks in the southern California.Many of us used J-Poles on our roofs becausemost of the repeaters were on hills andmountaintops and J-poles did the trick nicely. In an old VHF/UHF handbook there was ashort column on how to use your antenna mast asan effective J-pole. I was in the process ofinstalling a roof tripod tower to support my TA-33JR beam and thought this type of J-pole wouldwork for me and cost little to nothing. I was using a ten-foot length of 1¼” steel TVmast to support the small HF beam. I was justusing a TV antenna rotor for the Yagi which wasjust about all that rotor would turn. Using the info from the antenna handbook Iassembled a ¼-wave tuning stub (21.25”)attaches to a 2 x 3 inch of 1/8” thick aluminumplate, but any metal sheet-stock would do. Iattached it to a spot on the mast 57¾-inchesdown from the top of the mast.

W1ZE (then WA6MUP) & Ed Reinburg, W6JI installing HFYagi and 2-meter J-Pole March 1977

Originally I ran the RG-8 coax to the J-Poletaped to the mast but later drilled a small hole atthe J-pole feed-point and ran a RG-58 pigtailinside the mast. (See the following drawings) I tuned the J-Pole on the ground beforeinstalling it on the roof. I fabricated the tuningstub out of a 22-inch length of 3/8-inch copperpipe, but ¼-inch would have been OK. It did nottake long to find the feed-point sweet spot wherethe SWR was 1.1:1 at 146.5. The shield of thecoax was attached to the main mast with astainless sheet metal screw and the centerconductor was soldered to the copper pipematching-stub about 2 ¼”-inches above the crossconnecting mounting plate. On the ground the bandwidth was very broad.The SWR never got above 1.6:1 across the entireband, and that was at the low end of the band.This did not change when it went up on the roof.I was able to talk simplex all over the LA andOrange County area and hit all the two-meterrepeaters. Oh yes, I only run ten watts. (cont.)

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73, W1ZE

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FCC Seeks Comments forBlanket Waiver to AllowHam Radio in Hospital

Emergency Drills From ARRL HQ Newington CT. 3/12/2010

In February 2010, the American HospitalAssociation (AHA) filed a request with theFCC for a blanket waiver of Section97.113(a)(3) of the Commission's Rules "topermit hospitals seeking accreditation to useHam Radio operators who are hospitalemployees to transmit communications onbehalf of the hospital as part of emergencypreparedness drills." On March 3, the FCC issued a PublicNotice - WP Docket 10-54 - seekingcomments if the Commission "should grantAHA's request for a blanket waiver ofSection 97.113(a)(3) to permit amateuroperators who are hospital employees toparticipate in emergency drills that areconducted by hospitals for accreditationpurposes and that are not government-sponsored. "Section 97.113(a)(3)specifically prohibits amateur stations fromtransmitting communications "in which thestation licensee or control operator has apecuniary interest, includingcommunications on behalf of an employer." Given the public interest in facilitatinggovernment-sponsored emergency disasterdrills and preparedness, the WirelessTelecommunications Bureau and PublicSafety and Homeland Security Bureau haveprovided a process for requesting a waiverof Section 97.113(a)(3) to permit namedHam Radio operators to participate inspecified government-sponsored drills bytransmitting messages on behalf ofidentified employers. The waiver must berequested prior to the drill, and employeesmay not transmit amateur communications

on their employer's behalf unless the waiverrequest has been granted by the FCC.According to AHA, waiver relief should beavailable for these non-government-sponsored exercises "because it is in thepublic interest to ensure that hospitalcommunications operate effectively duringemergencies." The FCC noted that in itsblanket waiver request, the AHA also statedthat requiring separate waiver requestswould be administratively burdensome onhospitals and the Commission. "AHA thusrequests a blanket waiver for hospitalsseeking Joint Commission accreditation,until such time as the Commission adopts afinal order in response to a forthcomingNotice of Proposed Rulemaking that willseek comment on potential changes toSection 97.113(a)(3)," the FCC said. "AHA states that hospitals seekingaccreditation from the Joint Commission(formerly the Joint Commission onAccreditation of Healthcare Organizations)must prepare an emergency operations plansetting forth how the hospital willcommunicate during emergencies, andestablish back-up communications links(which, among other means ofcommunications, may include amateur radiostations) to communicate essentialinformation if primary communicationssystems fail," the FCC pointed out in itsPublic Notice. "AHA states that hospitalsseeking accreditation also are required totest their emergency operations plans twiceannually." As such, the FCC has opened up thematter for public comment. Not only arecomments in favor of or against the issue ofamateur operators -- who are hospitalemployees -- to participate in emergencydrills conducted by hospitals foraccreditation purposes that are notgovernment-sponsored welcomed, theCommission is also seeking commentsaddressing "whether, if blanket relief were

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to be granted, there would be some benefitfrom requiring hospitals to provide notice tothe Commission concerning emergencydrills they perform, and what such noticeshould entail." Comments are due by Friday, April 2;reply comments are due no later thanMonday, April 19. All filings shouldreference the docket number of thisproceeding, WP Docket No 10-54. In thePublic Notice, the FCC noted that thisproceeding has been designated as a"permit-but-disclose" proceeding inaccordance with the Commission's ex parterules: "Parties making oral ex partepresentations in this proceeding arereminded that memoranda summarizing thepresentation must contain the presentation'ssubstance and not merely list the subjectsdiscussed. More than a one- or two-sentencedescription of the views and argumentspresented is generally required." Instructionson how to paper file or file electronically arelisted in the Public Notice.

Radio equipment repair stationfound in MaineBy Bruce Randall, W1ZE

Last October I was chatting with John,K2LOT and told him I was going to get myold workhorse IC-736 transceiver fixedbecause the 15 to 22 MHz band segment

would transmit or receive. He said he hadused a fellow ham in Fairfield, Maine thathad done some equipment repairs for himand was quick, knowledgeable and honest,and I should give Mike Nadeau, N1EQ acall and see if he could fix my Icom. A few days later I attempted to find atelephone number for Mike without success.I checked his call sign on QRZ.COM and itsaid his email address wasmike@n1eq.com. I sent Mike an email andwithin an hour I got an email back from himadvising that yes, he did equipment repairand all his communications and paymentswere done online. I explained the problem Iwas having with my Icom and he said hehad a pretty good idea what the problemwas. He advise that it was OK to ship it tohim early the next week and he would get onit. He further advised that pricing; shippinginstructions were on his web site,http://www.n1eq.com.

Mike, N1EQ in his shack The following Monday I shipped the radioto him via UPS and the next day he sent mean email stating he had received thetransceiver and would get on it. Two dayslater he emailed again and said he got iffixed and sent me a breakdown what he haddone and the parts he replaced. He includedwhat the fee was for parts and labor, which Iconsider to be very fair and reasonable. Imade payment via Pay Pal the same day.

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Early the next day Mike emailed me andsaid he had received payment and wasshipping the Icom back to me via UPS andgave me the tracking number. The following afternoon my friendly UPSdriver rang my doorbell and handed me myIcom. I wasted no time hooking it back upand I was very pleased to see it was workingas well as it did when I first purchased itback in 1994. I highly recommend Mike’s service. Theadvantage of a faster turn-around time thansome of the other repair stations on the EastCoast and mid west with Mikes excellentservice is a plus for me. Check out the Hamequipment repair shop reviews onQRZ.COM and you will see that Mike gets a5 out of 5 average from dozens of reviewers. 73, Bruce, W1ZE

Maine Packetsystem notesDuring the 2nd week inMarch the W1EMA folksup the Maine coastrelocated the ABORN, W1EMA-2 Kanode’s antenna up to 100-feet. Thisrelocation has now facilitates those of us onthe mid-coast to access packets up intodowneast Maine. Prior to the ABORNrelocation, connects to packet stations up inBar Harbor area and places north required adouble-hop relay from BRUNS to AUG andthen on to ABORN. Now all you need to dois connect to BRUNS then to ABORN. Thismakes data packets transfer much faster.KUDOS to the W1EMA folks for a job welldone. Plans are to move the BRUNS nodeantenna up to the 40 to 50 feet level on therepeater tower. That will improve coastalcoverage in Lincoln, Sagadahoc andCumberland counties.

Photo taken by Donnie Dauphin , WD1F of XYLLouise, KB1IEF, son Devin and Bill “from the hill”,K1MNW standing on the south rim of the Grand

Canyon Saturday morning March 13th

Snowbird FeedbackBy Peter Russell, K1MJPIndian Harbor Beach, FL

Hi to all in springtime Maine, The wordI get from some Maine fishermen, i.e.lobstermen, that this may be an early spring.We can only hope

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Finally after 4 months, I was able torepair the Gates BSA 250 transmitter(previous photo). This unit was made as abackup for broadcast stations and ran 250watts perfect for conversion to 160, 75 or 40meters. It uses two 812A's in the final andtwo 811A's in the modulator, with a 6146RF driver and a 6L6GB audio driver, alltubes in the rig are still available.Documentation is available albeit, hard toget the some hams to follow through on theircommitment. All the tubes were replacedwith new. The low voltage worked but nohigh voltage. Once the schematic diagramwas obtained, the problem was traced downto a spade lug/wire non-connection. There are three chassis's, with a braidedwiring harness between the three, so withoutthe road map, it would have been verydifficult to tell the route each took. What isneat with this transmitter is the two primarywindings of the H.V. transformer are wiredin parallel (at 115 volts) for 250 watts.Putting in a relay that will connect the twowindings in series, will give you 125 wattsout. Speaking of AM transmitters, if someonewould like to purchase a 1 KW AM unit(they were setup to run 500 and 250 watts aswell), there is one for sale. I am told it wouldgo for less than $500 and is located inMaine. It is a CCA 1000D, uses two 4-400'sin the final, two 4-400's in the modulator,driven by a 6146 in the RF, and two12BY7's in the audio. The size is that of arefrigerator, with a switching arrangement,you can replace the 6146 and drive it with atransceiver. The older ARRL handbooks have many4-400 amplifier circuits so conversion isstraight forward. To see what the transmitterlooks like, noting if you remove thetransformers in the bottom of the cabinet,the unit fits nicely into the bed of a pickuptruck. Go to:www.qsl.net/VE7KHZ/CCA.html and see

the rig. If you are interested, e mail me andI'll give you the contact information. Speaking of email addresses, if you areregistered on QRZ, and have a listed emailaddress, please go and check it to make surethat it is current and not a old, deleted one.Last week I sent two emails that werebounced back, as the addresses were nolonger valid. Are you looking forequipment? Try QRZ.com and QTH.comfor items you are interested in. Log in andyou are allowed to do a search for specificitems.

P.S. There is a ham in Maine that has aGates BSA 250, not sure if he would sell,but it is in storage. email me(k1mjp@arrl.net) and I'll give you the info.

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