The "Chatter Chatter Chatter" when contacting the repeater came from interference on the repeater side and the repeater was in degraded performance mode as a result. The GVARC has since moved the repeater. Awesome Club!
Wow, would have been great to know that you were here, I could have visited with you. My name is Mike (KL7KTP), I am a member of GVARC. Yes, that Discone is an awesome antenna. The club works pretty hard at maintaining it. The cable was recently just replaced. Anytime you are in the area, do call someone from GVARC and anyone of us will come out with you. Chances are the day you were here was when our repeater was having RFI issues from solar panels (I recognized the sounds on your radio). We have since moved the repeater to another location across town, but have not gotten it completely setup yet. BTW, love your videos, I have followed most of your travels, great vids. Safe travels, 73
Hey Mike! I'm trying to go out there for the OVARC meetup coming up. Please email at temporarilyoffline@gmail.com though, I'd like to talk to the club leadership (you?) about a hamshack offering down here in Benson.
Oh WOW!! I've always wanted to go see the Titan Missle Museum. I never had a clue the BIG Discone was available for amateur use! Makes me wanna go even more now!! Thanks for sharing!! 73 de N9RAN
Hi everyone. I was pulling alerts at the Titan II sites north of Little Rock in the early 1970’s. My crew position was called a BMAT, basically a missile technician. That disk cone antenna was hooked to a HF radio on level 3 of the control room. The word was that the radios were from army tanks. The purpose of this rig was to act as a backup to the Primary Alert System over which we received our Launch Orders. We checked those radios every day during what was called Daily Systems Verification or DSV. The Deputy Commander would sit at his console and run the radio. I would be at the radio on level 3 and position several switches at his command. As I remember one switch controlled the Gain function. That disk cone is approximately 70 feet high snd made by Collins if I remember correctly. We also checked the HF net used by the Air Force by being a Master on a rotating basis. You would become a Master by taking control using a security word from a one time pad to authenticate that you were who you said you are. You would spend the rest of you 24 hour alert monitoring the Air Force HF channel. Oh boy big fun, NOT, boring! Then you would pass control to some other AF location so they can carry on with this task. If a launch message did get sent from SAC head quarters it would be the duty of the Master to rebroadcast it over the HF radio. And no you could not play with that rig when not in official use. Strictly official business only. Bummer! We also had a UHF radio that we could talk to aircraft if needed. It wad occasionally used to talk to helicopters that would deliver missile crews and others to Titan sites. The antenna was a small conical shaped device located inside the security fence and was only about 2 feet tall. I am very pleased that one of the Titan sites has been save for posterity. They carried the big punch of the missile systems with a 9 mega ton war head and very fast reaction time to launch. They were on alert from 1963 to 1987. Their targets were always critical military installations in the Soviet Union. I am very proud to have have been a part of it for four years. Peace Was My Profession! Now I am a retired Senior Manufacturing Engineer of Lockheed with 25 years of service in the Space Shuttle Program primarily doing automation design work to manufacture shuttle fuel tanks. My Titan training played a large part in my obtaining that position. Currently I am restoring a Heathkit HW-101 and hope to have it up and running soon. Happy New Year TO ALL! KF5MAG 73 BMAT MIKE
Back in the late 70's and early '80's we used 3 synchronized 100 Watt transmitters with discones on about 25 MHz to establish a radio grid over a several square mile area for our autonomous army tanks that were used as target vehicles for advanced weapons testing. The only real value of a discone design is that they are a very broadband vertical antenna, yet we ran everything on a single frequency. Nothing was even tunable, all rockbound and soldered in. So I asked my boss why we went to the trouble and expense to get these antenna's components machined, and why we used an antenna that took 2 or 3 hours for us to set up, when we could just use a $20 vertical whip antenna, and it would do the job just fine. My boss laughed and replied that it was to impress the military brass with radio magic so they would sign off on the expensive projects. They couldn't see the real technology of the system, the software that guided the tanks, so we made the antennas look very high-tech. It seemed to work.
I always wanted to build a Discone for my scanner. My thoughts were to use suspended radials. This video confirms I wasn’t crazy and convinced me to do it.
Did you also choke the power line to the '705. When I drive an external amplifier (XPA-125 or Neptune 100W) from mine, the choking on the power lines going into the radio /and/ the PA was the ones that seemed to have the largest impact...
I haven't tried choking the power line, but in this case it was a battery and there shouldn't be anything there but power... I'll try that next. Icom does mention "external DC power source" as a potential issue... but that's gotta be about 90% how people use the radio.
@ I think the theory is that RFI is picked up by the power leads, and finds its way into the ‘705 that way! Anyway; hope it helps! And I realise I forgot to say; great video!
I'll bet that the good SWR on 70cm is coax loss. IIRC, it's hard to get much more than a 10 to 1 frequency range out of a discone, especially an antenna designed for power. I think that the cone tip diameter and separation from the disc needs to be really small for 70cm. It may no really be doing well at 2m either, but you did manage to open the repeater squelch. The original users needed it to work between ham bands as well. There's a Mitre owned antenna test range that you can see from MA rte 2 in Concord MA that includes some enormous log periodics.
Would be awesome to visit that antenna test range. I have no designs on this thing working outside of low 3MHz - which appears to be what it was designed for... but I figured somebody would give me grief if I didn't at least try it... you know FOR SCIENCE!
RFI comes into the radio and it can't handle it. The radio locks in transmit mode and needs a power down to resolve the issue. More info here: ua-cam.com/video/gwdEZlHSmjg/v-deo.html and here: ua-cam.com/video/mv-FjgSh_Oo/v-deo.html
@ The usb cable I have has a ferrite installed close to the radio. I don’t have an amp but when I do, I’ll have to try your solution of wrapping the cable around a ferrite toroid.
There are a bunch in that price range, some are even a good form factor to compete with the 705's size... Just nothing "new" until early next year from Yaesu. I'm loving my FT-100D and I just got an FT-857D to replace it... so more fun to come.
@@temporarilyoffline In my experience the 705 (and 7300) front end is easily overloaded by nearby transmitters, so not the best radio for Field Day. What made me curious is why 10 watts was OK but adding an amp was problematic. Might involve PTT cable, CMC issue, or other. Thanks for the interesting video.
That the biggest discone antenna I have seen . That would be fun on 11 meters as well . may even work GMRS . That a fun antenna we get to play with ! 73
No worries @mjerpe I had a fun time and thanks to you and the club for your hard work on maintaining the repeater and the Discone itself. Will you be at the OVARC meetup coming up? I'm going to try and make that one. Please email me at temporarilyoffline@gmail.com, I'm working on a ham shack project in Benson and would like some input. Thanks!
The way they've left that util box and picnic table for hams is beyond cool!!!! Never seen anything like that before. When the local military base deactivated here, (west coast), back in the 90's there was a mars/military hf station and they left one of those behind along with a birdcage antenna, a massive beam with crows-nest platform and other assorted antennas. All of them huge and built with giant wooden power poles for masts to military spec. There was even a radio operator's building left behind trimmed in army green. A local ham group quickly formed, petitioned the city and took it over. Over the years, they've put up other wire antennas but look to have let the big ones go. Not the beam tower though. They're so high up and complicated that I'm not sure the club has the money to deal with their upkeep? Maybe the wood is no longer stable or safe to climb as it'd be at least forty/fifty years old or more? Or the cell phone tower the stupid cell phone company shoe-horned in right within a hundred feet negates their use. I'm not a member and don't really know. Very cool visit here. Cheers. 👍👍
@@temporarilyoffline It's the receiving on hf near cell sites that may be the problem. I'm now living within two hundred feet of yet another cell site, (several more within a couple blocks), and background noise here continues to skyrocket. It goes up and down timed with rush hour traffic it seems. Maybe I'm imagining things? But yes, things can be done. Still, putting such cell facilities fifty feet from a ham hf antenna farm seems rather unfair at times. I failed to mention that the ham club's days at that location are likely numbered anyway as the supposed, "low-cost housing" that's hitting the west and other places, (massive housing tracks), has grown right to the edge of the ham club facility, (more background noise),. Developers have moved in on three sides of what was sand and chaparral and no doubt are drooling at more acreage to develop. Environmentalists want to claim it as well. No fighting progress as they say. LOL. Cheers again.
@@temporarilyoffline Yes. Filters do help a lot but I just use online sdr for receive these days. The thing is, the background noise changes throughout the day. I like to listen to old fashioned am radio with my ge super radio, (remember those?),. and it's gotten so bad that I can only use fm anymore. The GE radio has been re-capped and aligned - it's in great shape. You can literally hear pulsing and bleeping, (hahaha), coming through the speaker at certain times of day. Even away from the house. Not my cell phone as I turned it off as a test. I grew up with am radio. Never heard that stuff on am before. Until they put the new tower up in a chruch's bell tower two years ago, (about 300 ft), I didn't hear any of that. Could be a neighbor but I didn't hear it before. Just increased background noise, (a lot),. I suspect with people now getting their tv over 5g, background rf is only going to get worse with all the devices using processors and talking back and forth over rf to cell towers. You can only filter so much in an urban setting! Thanks for passing that on though. And cheers again.
Steve, that was a Totally AWESOME video!!!!! I didn’t know you could use their antenna. I’m putting that on my list when I’m out there next. When will you be returning to your QTH? I’d like to send a little care package as a small thank you for all the cool infotainment you’ve provided to us happy hams on your channel, and of course for being super Awesome!!!! 73, Bill KC2KNA
To get rid of the RFI on the usb, why not using Wifi Hotspot from the IC-705? Im getting the same issues with the usb but with Wifi its running like a champ.
@temporarilyoffline sounds like a good one. I'd love to hear Jeems dream antenna, too. I know if money weren't a factor, I'd make use of my property a bit better. The noise floor from the solar array across the street still kills my current setup. 🤷🏽♂️🤙🏾
I’ve been plagued with RF problems on the IC-705 as well. Would be of interest to use the club’s provided ground to see if the results are favorable. According to Icom, “[w]hen connecting an external DC power source, ground the transceiver using the ground terminal . . . to prevent electrical shock . . ., and other problems.” Good topic, Steve.
I wish I had seen the ground connection at the beginning of all the work. I have a solution for about 90% of the IC-705's RFI issues. - "when connected to a DC powe source" - ok... next time I see that I'll try running on battery only for a video. I think I've had that problem before.
Cool video TO, I am definitely going to stop in there when I am in the area. I too have experienced intermittent issues with the IC-705 and XPA-125 combo. Most of the time it is fine, but then sometimes I get RFI, even on SSB. I think the Icom has a detection circuit that knows it's connected to a cheap partner 🙂.
@@temporarilyoffline I'm off on my way to see them now. I also find that very interesting. I also wonder how many time that antenna elicited some phrase to be heard like: Skyking Skyking Do Not Answer...
Got my new solar panel in 2 days ago!! Of course up here in the Great White North it snowed From early morning Christmas eve until late on Christmas day. 1 day of sunshine, got the panel the next day and it's been gloomy out ever sense! Tempted to hang on the wall and point all the bright led flashlights at it just to see it produce power!!!!!
Yes, Chuck and I started prototyping it right after I finished this video. I'm thinking cargo-shorts-pocket-portable is the perfect deployment strategy.
@ 1000 carbon fiber 6” rods for both pockets?!? 2000 total🤣 with 3rolls of DX10 wire to be sourced by the kit maker? Am I on the right track? Seriously though how big is that antenna?
Way too cool, know she doesn't have any real gain over a very good vertical but sure is flat. Out in the middle of nowhere so noise level looked low as well. Guess the next thing up would be a bi-cone. Been nice if we could have seen the feed point at the base oh that's right it's up at the disk on top. How come you didn't climb up there for us, you know I would have.
@temporarilyoffline teasing about the climbing I am luckily I can walk. Should be using a walking but I refused. Having spine issues has definitely changed retirement plans like selling the boat for one but more time for radio, but I can't even make it to the other side of my proprietary to work on my antenna. I'm ok though not giving up that's for sure.
I almost got a huge discone off ebay; guy built it for HF and it was 8ft tall standing on the radials. I won the auction ($150) then the woman seller said her huband has too much money in it. No kidding dummy!!
The "Chatter Chatter Chatter" when contacting the repeater came from interference on the repeater side and the repeater was in degraded performance mode as a result. The GVARC has since moved the repeater. Awesome Club!
Wow, would have been great to know that you were here, I could have visited with you. My name is Mike (KL7KTP), I am a member of GVARC. Yes, that Discone is an awesome antenna. The club works pretty hard at maintaining it. The cable was recently just replaced. Anytime you are in the area, do call someone from GVARC and anyone of us will come out with you. Chances are the day you were here was when our repeater was having RFI issues from solar panels (I recognized the sounds on your radio). We have since moved the repeater to another location across town, but have not gotten it completely setup yet. BTW, love your videos, I have followed most of your travels, great vids. Safe travels, 73
Hey Mike! I'm trying to go out there for the OVARC meetup coming up. Please email at temporarilyoffline@gmail.com though, I'd like to talk to the club leadership (you?) about a hamshack offering down here in Benson.
Oh WOW!! I've always wanted to go see the Titan Missle Museum. I never had a clue the BIG Discone was available for amateur use! Makes me wanna go even more now!! Thanks for sharing!! 73 de N9RAN
See ya when ya get here
@@temporarilyoffline Hey Steve what is your RV channel? Thanks!
@@randyhavener1851 Here ya go: www.youtube.com/@livingforalivingrv
Hi everyone. I was pulling alerts at the Titan II sites north of Little Rock in the early 1970’s. My crew position was called a BMAT, basically a missile technician. That disk cone antenna was hooked to a HF radio on level 3 of the control room. The word was that the radios were from army tanks. The purpose of this rig was to act as a backup to the Primary Alert System over which we received our Launch Orders. We checked those radios every day during what was called Daily Systems Verification or DSV. The Deputy Commander would sit at his console and run the radio. I would be at the radio on level 3 and position several switches at his command. As I remember one switch controlled the Gain function. That disk cone is approximately 70 feet high snd made by Collins if I remember correctly. We also checked the HF net used by the Air Force by being a Master on a rotating basis. You would become a Master by taking control using a security word from a one time pad to authenticate that you were who you said you are. You would spend the rest of you 24 hour alert monitoring the Air Force HF channel. Oh boy big fun, NOT, boring! Then you would pass control to some other AF location so they can carry on with this task. If a launch message did get sent from SAC head quarters it would be the duty of the Master to rebroadcast it over the HF radio. And no you could not play with that rig when not in official use. Strictly official business only. Bummer! We also had a UHF radio that we could talk to aircraft if needed. It wad occasionally used to talk to helicopters that would deliver missile crews and others to Titan sites. The antenna was a small conical shaped device located inside the security fence and was only about 2 feet tall. I am very pleased that one of the Titan sites has been save for posterity. They carried the big punch of the missile systems with a 9 mega ton war head and very fast reaction time to launch. They were on alert from 1963 to 1987. Their targets were always critical military installations in the Soviet Union. I am very proud to have have been a part of it for four years. Peace Was My Profession! Now I am a retired Senior Manufacturing Engineer of Lockheed with 25 years of service in the Space Shuttle Program primarily doing automation design work to manufacture shuttle fuel tanks. My Titan training played a large part in my obtaining that position. Currently I am restoring a Heathkit HW-101 and hope to have it up and running soon.
Happy New Year TO ALL!
KF5MAG
73
BMAT MIKE
Thanks for sharing Mike, great story!
Back in the late 70's and early '80's we used 3 synchronized 100 Watt transmitters with discones on about 25 MHz to establish a radio grid over a several square mile area for our autonomous army tanks that were used as target vehicles for advanced weapons testing. The only real value of a discone design is that they are a very broadband vertical antenna, yet we ran everything on a single frequency. Nothing was even tunable, all rockbound and soldered in. So I asked my boss why we went to the trouble and expense to get these antenna's components machined, and why we used an antenna that took 2 or 3 hours for us to set up, when we could just use a $20 vertical whip antenna, and it would do the job just fine. My boss laughed and replied that it was to impress the military brass with radio magic so they would sign off on the expensive projects. They couldn't see the real technology of the system, the software that guided the tanks, so we made the antennas look very high-tech. It seemed to work.
Thanks for sharing... sounds like typical gov't behavior!
Thanks for showing that antenna. Pretty cool.
Its pretty neat!
So cool to see a demo of that antenna, saw it featured in a nice documentary about the silo.
Nice! I learned about that antenna just a few days after my last pass through in 2021. I don't know when I'll be back. Thanks for sharing!
BUCKET LIST!
WOW!! This is exactly how I've envisioned the perfect antenna! Kind of mad it's already built.
Now you need to make a bigger one!
I always wanted to build a Discone for my scanner. My thoughts were to use suspended radials. This video confirms I wasn’t crazy and convinced me to do it.
Nah, you're still crazy... just for other reasons ;-) Thanks for watching!
@@temporarilyoffline Let’s see Chuck build one 40m - 70cm🤣
Have put around 100 hours on this antenna and have always had great fun. My wish is that I could get access in the evening after the museum closes.
You don't run across antennae like that every day. Thanks for sharing it with us.
It was worth the trip for sure!
That antenna looks amazing!
It is pretty amazing!
Did you also choke the power line to the '705. When I drive an external amplifier (XPA-125 or Neptune 100W) from mine, the choking on the power lines going into the radio /and/ the PA was the ones that seemed to have the largest impact...
I haven't tried choking the power line, but in this case it was a battery and there shouldn't be anything there but power... I'll try that next. Icom does mention "external DC power source" as a potential issue... but that's gotta be about 90% how people use the radio.
@ I think the theory is that RFI is picked up by the power leads, and finds its way into the ‘705 that way! Anyway; hope it helps! And I realise I forgot to say; great video!
@@LB5JJ Thanks!
I'll bet that the good SWR on 70cm is coax loss. IIRC, it's hard to get much more than a 10 to 1 frequency range out of a discone, especially an antenna designed for power. I think that the cone tip diameter and separation from the disc needs to be really small for 70cm. It may no really be doing well at 2m either, but you did manage to open the repeater squelch.
The original users needed it to work between ham bands as well. There's a Mitre owned antenna test range that you can see from MA rte 2 in Concord MA that includes some enormous log periodics.
Would be awesome to visit that antenna test range. I have no designs on this thing working outside of low 3MHz - which appears to be what it was designed for... but I figured somebody would give me grief if I didn't at least try it... you know FOR SCIENCE!
Specs/blueprint?
You can find them on the websites listed in the description.
Very cool Cold War stuff right there! What’s the issue with the 705 and amplifiers?
RFI comes into the radio and it can't handle it. The radio locks in transmit mode and needs a power down to resolve the issue. More info here: ua-cam.com/video/gwdEZlHSmjg/v-deo.html and here: ua-cam.com/video/mv-FjgSh_Oo/v-deo.html
@ The usb cable I have has a ferrite installed close to the radio. I don’t have an amp but when I do, I’ll have to try your solution of wrapping the cable around a ferrite toroid.
You video looks very nice and professional. I was wondering what camera you were using?
Thanks, this is the DJI Pocket 3, more info: amzn.to/4iZFeNz
Pretty sad about the 705 performance. I really want to like that radio. Wish we had more all band all mode options
There are a bunch in that price range, some are even a good form factor to compete with the 705's size... Just nothing "new" until early next year from Yaesu. I'm loving my FT-100D and I just got an FT-857D to replace it... so more fun to come.
I’ve had good results with 705 and HR50 amp. Any idea why the setup shown was problematic?
@@petersichel9934 I didn't have enough time to research it there. The 705 does have known RFI issues
@@temporarilyoffline In my experience the 705 (and 7300) front end is easily overloaded by nearby transmitters, so not the best radio for Field Day. What made me curious is why 10 watts was OK but adding an amp was problematic. Might involve PTT cable, CMC issue, or other. Thanks for the interesting video.
That the biggest discone antenna I have seen . That would be fun on 11 meters as well . may even work GMRS . That a fun antenna we get to play with ! 73
I never would have thought of making one that big!
I plan to be there in February! I'm planning on bringing my 705.
I'm pretty sure I'll still be in the area, let me know when you land!
That's one cool looking antenna, tnx Man!
Thanks for watching!
Holy crap, That's a big antenna.
Why thank you
Sorry that you couldn’t reach anyone on the 29 repeater it’s currently not online. we’re moving it. Thanks for the video.
No worries @mjerpe I had a fun time and thanks to you and the club for your hard work on maintaining the repeater and the Discone itself. Will you be at the OVARC meetup coming up? I'm going to try and make that one. Please email me at temporarilyoffline@gmail.com, I'm working on a ham shack project in Benson and would like some input. Thanks!
The way they've left that util box and picnic table for hams is beyond cool!!!! Never seen anything like that before.
When the local military base deactivated here, (west coast), back in the 90's there was a mars/military hf station and they left one of those behind along with a birdcage antenna, a massive beam with crows-nest platform and other assorted antennas. All of them huge and built with giant wooden power poles for masts to military spec. There was even a radio operator's building left behind trimmed in army green. A local ham group quickly formed, petitioned the city and took it over. Over the years, they've put up other wire antennas but look to have let the big ones go. Not the beam tower though. They're so high up and complicated that I'm not sure the club has the money to deal with their upkeep? Maybe the wood is no longer stable or safe to climb as it'd be at least forty/fifty years old or more? Or the cell phone tower the stupid cell phone company shoe-horned in right within a hundred feet negates their use. I'm not a member and don't really know. Very cool visit here. Cheers. 👍👍
I've seen people operate near cell towers and a buddy of mine owns repeaters at cell sites. It can be done, but you're right that it is expensive.
@@temporarilyoffline 👍👍
@@temporarilyoffline It's the receiving on hf near cell sites that may be the problem. I'm now living within two hundred feet of yet another cell site, (several more within a couple blocks), and background noise here continues to skyrocket. It goes up and down timed with rush hour traffic it seems. Maybe I'm imagining things? But yes, things can be done. Still, putting such cell facilities fifty feet from a ham hf antenna farm seems rather unfair at times. I failed to mention that the ham club's days at that location are likely numbered anyway as the supposed, "low-cost housing" that's hitting the west and other places, (massive housing tracks), has grown right to the edge of the ham club facility, (more background noise),. Developers have moved in on three sides of what was sand and chaparral and no doubt are drooling at more acreage to develop. Environmentalists want to claim it as well. No fighting progress as they say. LOL. Cheers again.
@jimp.7286 agree on all points! Have you tried a band pass filter to weed out unwanted signals?
@@temporarilyoffline Yes. Filters do help a lot but I just use online sdr for receive these days. The thing is, the background noise changes throughout the day. I like to listen to old fashioned am radio with my ge super radio, (remember those?),. and it's gotten so bad that I can only use fm anymore. The GE radio has been re-capped and aligned - it's in great shape. You can literally hear pulsing and bleeping, (hahaha), coming through the speaker at certain times of day. Even away from the house. Not my cell phone as I turned it off as a test. I grew up with am radio. Never heard that stuff on am before. Until they put the new tower up in a chruch's bell tower two years ago, (about 300 ft), I didn't hear any of that. Could be a neighbor but I didn't hear it before. Just increased background noise, (a lot),. I suspect with people now getting their tv over 5g, background rf is only going to get worse with all the devices using processors and talking back and forth over rf to cell towers. You can only filter so much in an urban setting! Thanks for passing that on though. And cheers again.
Steve, that was a Totally AWESOME video!!!!! I didn’t know you could use their antenna. I’m putting that on my list when I’m out there next. When will you be returning to your QTH? I’d like to send a little care package as a small thank you for all the cool infotainment you’ve provided to us happy hams on your channel, and of course for being super Awesome!!!! 73, Bill KC2KNA
Hello Bill! Thanks for the kind words and the offer. Please email me: temporarilyoffline@gmail.com for shipping info.
To get rid of the RFI on the usb, why not using Wifi Hotspot from the IC-705? Im getting the same issues with the usb but with Wifi its running like a champ.
Soon
Good stuff. That's one big discone. Thanks for showing it to us. I'd never think one that big was out there. 🤙🏾
if you gave me $5,000,000 dollars to build an antenna... "world's largest discone" wouldn't come to mind.
@temporarilyoffline you'd build one hell of an antenna. What would you go build, Steve?
@@TheGeekiestGuy That's a good question. I'll make it into a Coffee and Ham Radios Stream!
@temporarilyoffline sounds like a good one. I'd love to hear Jeems dream antenna, too. I know if money weren't a factor, I'd make use of my property a bit better. The noise floor from the solar array across the street still kills my current setup. 🤷🏽♂️🤙🏾
That is definitely one of the coolest antennas I've ever seen! LUCKYYYYUY
It's a quick Uber from the airport 😎😎
I’ve been plagued with RF problems on the IC-705 as well. Would be of interest to use the club’s provided ground to see if the results are favorable.
According to Icom, “[w]hen connecting an external DC power source, ground the transceiver using the ground terminal . . . to prevent electrical shock . . ., and other problems.” Good topic, Steve.
I wish I had seen the ground connection at the beginning of all the work. I have a solution for about 90% of the IC-705's RFI issues. - "when connected to a DC powe source" - ok... next time I see that I'll try running on battery only for a video. I think I've had that problem before.
Another great video, thanks TO.
Thanks Paddy!
Liking me some T-shirt Weather too 👋
It was really hot that day... got me a sunburn!
i think im gona go and use my cb lol
That would be pretty awesome! They do ask for a ham license, but you prolly already have that too.
That is huge. It doesn’t look like 80 feet but I will take their word for it. Thanks for the video!
Thanks for watching!
Very awesome to see this! Thanks for sharing this video from your visit to the museum! ~ 73 ~ AC7WH
I will have a museum tour vid on my RV channel soon as well. It's a cool piece of history.
@temporarilyoffline Very nice! 👍
Cool video TO, I am definitely going to stop in there when I am in the area. I too have experienced intermittent issues with the IC-705 and XPA-125 combo. Most of the time it is fine, but then sometimes I get RFI, even on SSB. I think the Icom has a detection circuit that knows it's connected to a cheap partner 🙂.
and that circuit logic says: "If connected to cheap counterparts, BURN THE WORLD DOWN!"
I dont know when you filmed this, but welcome to AZ.
Thanks Larry! Good to be here!
@ My club does an annual trek to the discone.
Thanks for sharing !
Glad you liked it!
Steve, welcome to Arizona! Super interesting video you created here, thanks for sharing! Love it. 73, K7KS
Thanks, I'm really enjoying the Arizona desert!
Steve is using a Doom-Ze-Day aerial!
I felt pretty safe though.
Interesting! I've read about this before in QST.
Check out the VNA plots in the description links too, pretty cool antenna!
@@temporarilyoffline I'm off on my way to see them now. I also find that very interesting.
I also wonder how many time that antenna elicited some phrase to be heard like: Skyking Skyking Do Not Answer...
@@W8RIT1 we'll never know...
That’s a cool antenna !!
Sure is. Thanks for watching.
That was cool. Thanks for sharing
Glad you liked it.
I’ve QSO’ed a few operators on that thing. Someday I’ll get there.
You'll have fun!
The stuff you find. What a cool experiment!
I'm always looking for stuff to play with.
@@temporarilyoffline Well this is really cool, so much so I am already making plans to get there this year.
Thanks for sharing!! Great video!!! 73
Thanks for watching!
I have lived a few miles away for 50 years, and never tried the big D! The testing plots look like my 80 meter Full Wave Loop.
circumstantial evidence from being inside the silo control room says this antenna was built for 3mhz... makes sense.
I would have come down to road to join you since I spend my days at the Tucson Airport. It is a beautiful day in Tucson.
Hey J! I'm trying to head out for the OVARC meet up there. Are you going?
Got my new solar panel in 2 days ago!! Of course up here in the Great White North it snowed From early morning Christmas eve until late on Christmas day. 1 day of sunshine, got the panel the next day and it's been gloomy out ever sense! Tempted to hang on the wall and point all the bright led flashlights at it just to see it produce power!!!!!
Nothing else to do... Let me know!
Will that be in the CaHR kit list soon? 😂
Yes, Chuck and I started prototyping it right after I finished this video. I'm thinking cargo-shorts-pocket-portable is the perfect deployment strategy.
@ 1000 carbon fiber 6” rods for both pockets?!? 2000 total🤣 with 3rolls of DX10 wire to be sourced by the kit maker? Am I on the right track? Seriously though how big is that antenna?
@jameski5oeb668 she's massive! 80ft tall and at least as wide. Can't miss it. You can even see it in google maps!
I Love that museum. Unfortunately, I did not have any gear with me. Next time!
Next Time!
Very cool!
Thanks Doug!
Computers talking to computers. ? QSO? What's the point? nice discone !
There was a voice QSO in there, guess you didn't stick around?
Radios talking to radios....? Qso? ... Oh man.... Go and talk with no machine.. Go to the bar😂😂😂
human to human contacts wasn't the point of this video. I have other videos with human to human contacts.
I've wanted to go here for long time
How far away are ya?
Our OVARC ham radio club in Tucson is having a meetup there on January 11, 2025
What time? I'll try and make it!
@ 10a-2p
Have a good new year cheers from u k
Cheers Sir Winston! Thanks for stopping by!
I want one in my back yard! I have the room :)
aluminum pipe and some cheap wire... Let me see some pics when you're done!
Wow
That's what I said!
Way too cool, know she doesn't have any real gain over a very good vertical but sure is flat. Out in the middle of nowhere so noise level looked low as well. Guess the next thing up would be a bi-cone. Been nice if we could have seen the feed point at the base oh that's right it's up at the disk on top. How come you didn't climb up there for us, you know I would have.
I think they have photos on their website, and if you join the GVARC, you can have your chance at climbing the antenna.
@temporarilyoffline teasing about the climbing I am luckily I can walk. Should be using a walking but I refused. Having spine issues has definitely changed retirement plans like selling the boat for one but more time for radio, but I can't even make it to the other side of my proprietary to work on my antenna. I'm ok though not giving up that's for sure.
@@P.SeanCoady Never Give Up! Love it!
Dont take much for FT8
I also did some SSB from AZ to FL.
@ keep ssb alive gentlemen
@@Knarf14 Agreed, but that wasn't the point of this video.
Hello neighbor, can I borrow a cup of antenna
It kinda went a little like that
I almost got a huge discone off ebay; guy built it for HF and it was 8ft tall standing on the radials. I won the auction ($150) then the woman seller said her huband has too much money in it. No kidding dummy!!
Typical arizona repeater 😂 but if you and a buddy try and use a local repeater they will have a fit lol .
ua-cam.com/video/tt4cR9szMS8/v-deo.html
Sure can! Was a fun outing.
Fantastic video Sir! N1LRF, 73's
Thanks for watching!
How long will you be in Sahuarita? I'm only 15 Minutes from the Titan!! DE K7SXN
I'll be here until the 19th and then heading to Quartzsite.