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Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 1:07 am: | 
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I live in a hole! 30 degrees to the horizon to the north and south. I have about a 15 degree horizon on my East West exposure. Im doomed. I would have to put the A99 on a 900ft tower. Any advice for the terrain challenged radio operator?
Steve
400 SE Kentucky |
Deadly Eyes
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 8:54 am: |
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Yes as a matter of fact....
You could put up a cloud warmer antenna. This is an antenna that shoots strate up. The signal bounces off the atmosphere in a downward and outward direction. This radio wave propagation method results in a radiated signal of up to a couple of hundred miles with some distance signal reception when said signals happen to fall on your general area.
If you would like to make one, all it takes is just some wire and coax, let me know and I will fill you in on all the details. |
bruce
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 10:53 am: |
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I lived in kentucky in the 60's and can remembrt the steep hills maby DE got a idea a 11 elm beam facing strate up bouncing off the E layer hey why not! |
Tech833
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 12:38 pm: |
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Simple problem with a very simple solution.
You need to increase the coupling between your antenna and ground. Much in the way an AM broadcast station uses the ground as half of its antenna system, you need to do the same. The terrain around you will actually 'help'! Your signal will 'hug' the ground instead of being absorbed by it.
Mount your antenna at ground level on a sturdy pipe. Around the base of the pipe, bury bare copper wire no less than #12 in straight lines away from the mounting pipe. The pattern should resemble an umbrella when viewed down the handle. Bury no less than 50 wires and make sure they are as long as possible (anything over 40 feet would be overkill though) and certainly NO less than 10 feet long each. Bury the wires at a depth of approximately 12 inches below the surface. Connect the center ends of the wires to the base of your antenna on the ground connection. It would also be helpful to route your coaxial cable from your shack to your antenna underground.
Look at your antenna system as a 'transducer' that must induce an electrical and magnetic field into the earth. Since you cannot remove the antenna vertically from the earth, you must instead use the earth to your advantage.
This same setup done properly has in the past OUTPERFORMED antennas mounted 60 feet above ground! For SW installations, we NEVER mount antenna high above the ground for this very reason. Ground mounted antennas with large counterpoises are a must in your situation. |
Scrapiron63
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 1:07 pm: |
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Steve, if you just wanta talk skip in or around the CB band, stick that A99 up on whatever length pipe you have and get with it, those hills want make much difference, now talking to a neighbor 20-30 miles away will be a different story, but even then it will surprise you the distance you can talk to another base. Been there and done that.
scrapiron |
bruce
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 2:40 pm: |
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very intresting tech 833 now at MW that is roteenly done and you seem to think that at the upper end of HF that it would work too well why not try... now where i lived in kentucky the ground was rocky so it may take a bunch of digging to get the wires down Hey its a thought !
Bruce |
DeadlyEyes
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 5:17 pm: |
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RE Bruce...
Actually Bruce I was thinking more along the lines of a lazy loop in a horizontal configuration close enough to the ground in order to use the earth as a reflector/or spaced so that a reflector loop could be placed just below the driven loop to shoot the signal strate up.
BUT I like the idea of putting a Lazer 500 shooting strate up. Ya can always tell the neighbors you are talking to the moon ey?
Best to all
DE |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 6:13 pm: |
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I came to the realization that my base setup was lacking last night. I was driving home from work about 9:30 when I decided to go up on top of a local mountain to see what I could hear, the band was quiet at my office when I got in the truck. Just as soon as I topped the hill I could hear a hundred stations or more, talked to several from California, New Mexico, and Up State New York. They were putting 9+ on the meter, they said I was doing well also. When I started off the hill everything left. Down on the road in the vally nothing. The base at the house 5 minutes away was quiet as well.
Look behind my truck in the first picture.
http://www.ahccomputers.com/11meter/11meter.htm
Steve |
Taz
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 7:21 pm: |
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Looks like water, maybe a groundplane? |
bruce
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 7:46 pm: |
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cool photo fall leaves hills after 30+ years on a sand bar the higest point on this county is 65 foot and im at 60 that photo shure looks nice now to solve your problem try the ground mounted antenna or ( jokenly ) a long coax to a a-99 up on that hill! |
Bigbob
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 8:02 pm: |
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Man,look for some hill-top property,and I thought I had some vally problems,hoooboy! |
Taz
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 8:44 pm: |
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or altitude |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 9:23 pm: |
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I need the 900ft tower, or maybe a repeater for 11 meter. Hummm sounds like a project! |
Taz
| | Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2002 - 9:33 pm: |
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try a repeater, with an a99 up on the hill. that would be cool. |
deadlyeyes
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 30, 2002 - 7:58 pm: |
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Re Ap...
Actually you would probably benefit from a repeater, a 2 meter repeater located on top of the hill.
Signals are essentially line of sight, travel in strate lines. Ground signals do bend a little bit but not that much. Any signals that are traveling strate over the top of the hill will not be following down the curve of the hill into the valley. The signals that you will hear will be those comming down after bouncing off the atmosphere. Or perhaps extremely strong local signals.
If you live on a hill and you want to talk to the East coast the best place to put your antenna is just below the peak on the side facing the direction you want to talk The mountain will act as a barrier to signals comming from the opposite direction. The next best place is at the very top of the mountain where the drawback is that you hear too dang much. The very worse, sucking pond scum place is on the opposite side of the mountain, below the peak, and as you noted in a valley.
On the bright side, it must be nice and quiet in the valley.
DE |
Bigbob
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 30, 2002 - 9:45 pm: |
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how 'bout a repeeter that recieves from you on 2-meters using sel-call and txs on 11-meters then recieves 11-meters then txs back to you on your rx freq. on 2-meters,hows that,probly illegal as hek,huh? |
de
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 30, 2002 - 10:16 pm: |
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Re Big....
You are correct. Under the current rules and regs if you transmit on a band you must be legally licensed for that band. An amateur might qualify to qualify for transmissions on both bands but a CB person would not qualify for use of the 2 meter band thus making the link not quite legal.
In the ham world there is a thing called a reverse patch in which a person can use the telephone to dial up the repeater phone patch and transmit using the 2 meter repeater output. However, for this to be legal the person making the call must be licensed to transmit on 2 meters. Thus the catch 22 of "Security". How do you keep non licensed people screened out? There are very few reverse patch machines. |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 30, 2002 - 10:20 pm: |
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Ok how bout the physics of this. Build a beam antenna with a narrow transmit width. Build a parabolic dish for 11 meters link it to a say A99 for simplicity, position that on top of the mountain. Point the beam at the parabolic dish ontop of the hill. Wouldn't there be a way to bring the a99 into phase with the transmit frequency? This seems possible to me, kind of like a microwave reflector? I think im spending to much time on this! |
ryan
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 30, 2002 - 10:35 pm: |
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i saw set up a FRS or MURS to CB repeater. since you cant operate a cb from wireless remote control, yes, a repeater would be illegal |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Saturday, November 02, 2002 - 9:44 pm: |
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Deadlyeyes,
I would be happy if I could atleast hear someone at night. How about this. I could buy more coax, move the antenna as far up on the mountain as I can. The antenna point would be on the mountain blocking the North, I would give up the north for the East, West exposure. The question is, how much forest do I clear and which coax to get?
Thanks,
Steve |
ryan
| | Posted on Monday, November 04, 2002 - 4:11 pm: |
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you dont have to clear any forest, just run the cable up between the trees and nail it up high so no one can pin the coax or anything |
707
| | Posted on Monday, November 04, 2002 - 6:11 pm: |
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OK, here's what you need...
First, it is legal for anybody to operate R/C and wireless mic devices on 49Mhz FM. I once owned a 49Mhz wireless CB mic. Anybody remember those? I wish I still had it.
Anyway, assuming you will be happy transmitting on one channel, you could get two baby monitors sets, one for uplink and one for downlink. These things have quite a range, and if you needed to build a little yagi for the link, it's pretty small. One transmitter and receiver, on different 49Mhz frequencies, would be at the hilltop site, and one set at your home. You would also need one of those Ramsey VOX kits or perhaps just design something cheap to trip a key relay when the hilltop baby monitor receiver squelch breaks. You hook the hilltop receiver output to your CB radio mic input. Then hook the CB radio speaker out to the baby monitor transmitter input.
The 49Mhz FM allocation is very broadbanded, audio wise, so you will get excellent audio up to your rig.
It might be fun to just set this up using a cheapo AM CB and Antron 99, just for proof of concept. |
yapper
| | Posted on Monday, November 04, 2002 - 6:14 pm: |
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Hardline dude hardline!!!! |
bruce
| | Posted on Monday, November 04, 2002 - 8:26 pm: |
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707 i like that for 20 years i monitored 49.86 and your right the baby monitors which can be 49.86 or 49.83 can be heard for at least a mile. It would be possible to do just what you said and as far as 49 mhz that part would be part 15 and could use fm ( my reciver had both ). The link reciver could use a directional antenna but to remain under part 15 you would be very restricted transmitter wise. The band in the 70's was alive with experimenters but with FRS is now compleatly deserted. |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Monday, November 04, 2002 - 8:35 pm: |
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Thanks guys, Great ideas
1. I have no power at the top of the mountain. No way to EVER get it there.
2. I have a antron 99 I would like to move up on the hill, but could build a dipole.
3. I would need over 1000ft of cable to run to the top of the mountain.
4. Realisticaly I could move a couple hundred feet up the mountain, but what I am worried about is would that be enough. I have surveyed the spot and would get me to about 5 degrees to the horizon on the East, West, and South exposure. I dont have a handheld SSB rig so I have no way to know if it will help me or not.
Im pulling my hair out.
Thanks again
Steve |
bruce
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 05, 2002 - 7:55 am: |
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Steve you could always move to SEMINOLE the higest point in this county ( pinellas ) is 70 foot and i might know some one willing to sell you a house!.... kidding aside you have a problem I lived in kentucky in the 60's i remember the steep hills and dead spots where you could not hear anything maby your only hope is a tall tower and do the best you can with it.
Bruce |
Tech833
| | Posted on Tuesday, November 05, 2002 - 11:30 am: |
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Steve,
Could you install 1000 feet of cable? (i.e. is it your property?) If so, using 1000 feet or more of Heliax is certainly not out of the question. I just built an FM station that uses over 600 feet in an underground trench from the transmitter building to the hill behind it. Even at 103 MHz., the loss of capable sized Heliax is negligible.
For CB, you could use 1000 feet of 7/8" Heliax and still have less loss than 100 feet of RG-8 Radio Shack cable. Your A99 on top of a hill will certainly work better than a setup in the valley. The other alternative is the ground system I mentioned in a previous post. |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 06, 2002 - 11:21 am: |
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Whew, running 1000ft of cable up that mountain would be alot of work. I suppose I could do it, what is this Heliax and how much does it cost? Also would I require a matching device to get my ohms right? The cable would also have to have a messenger on it so I could hang it to the trees.
Tech833, the ground mounted system sounds good, I pasted your post into a text document for future refernce. I have two problems with it..
1. I dont have 100ft of flat ground on which to run the radials out.
2. Trenching through our rocky, clay soil would be more work than orbiting a satellite.
Thanks for all the input. I would consider runing the cable up the mountain, MAN THATS A LOT OF WORK!!!!!!!!!!!
Steve |
Tech833
| | Posted on Thursday, November 07, 2002 - 12:10 am: |
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Heliax is a very common cable around professional radio shops. It is not available at Copper, but can be obtained from Talley or Tessco. There's nothing 'magic' about it, regardless of what your common local CBer believes to be true. Heliax is simply very high quality, very low loss 50 ohm coaxial cable that is much, much more common than the RG types of cables in the 'real world' of professional radio.
You would not have to use a 'matching device'. You could run miles of Heliax and it doesn't change your match at all. The loss (attenuation) would add up though.
I would be happy to send you a small sample to play with. Email if interested. |
Znut
| | Posted on Thursday, November 07, 2002 - 6:45 pm: |
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Apocalypse,
LMR 400 might be usable at 1000' of length, 6 1/2db attenuation. So use an amp with a pre-amp. I don't think you'd need the preamp that often, though. It would run you somewhere around $725-$750 for 1000 feet after shipping, then whatever extra the amp and power supply would cost.
RG 8 or RG213 would be cheaper, but that would push you over 10db of loss. That wouldn't work too well. You'd get less than a watt out for every 10 in.
Good Luck,
Znut |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Thursday, November 07, 2002 - 10:39 pm: |
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Well, I broke out the quad maps and measured the slope distance to the top bench. 2300ft!!!! Well, I can rule out running 1/2 mile of coax.
So.. I think I will move the A99 more tword the center of the Valley and get it as HIGH as I can. Would another type antenna or ANYTHING help?
Thanks for all the suggestions
Steve |
Znut
| | Posted on Friday, November 08, 2002 - 10:14 am: |
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I think some folks who've had the opportunity to review some antennae could help here. Maybe a Maco V 5/8 or one of those starduster things has a higher angle of radiation, good for DX. I believe the distance from ground effects that also, but I wouldn't get carried away, you just need to get over the horizon, maybe a tall tower so the antenna "sees" a lower horizon combined with an antenna with a pattern that suits your needs.
Znut |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Friday, November 08, 2002 - 12:45 pm: |
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Znut,
thats what the Ham guys around here tell me. I need at least 5 degrees or less to the horizon. He also said, the take off angle will be affected by the distance of the antenna to the ground. He said that would need to be at least 1 wavelength. It sucks living in a hole!!
Steve |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Sunday, November 10, 2002 - 9:33 pm: |
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Ok guys how about this.
Where I am placing the antenna to get the best degrees to the horizon, is next to a sharp 30ft drop. The surrounding ground will be level and flat up to the drop off. The antenna should be about 30ft off the ground. This makes 60ft off the drop side. How will this effect my antenna system?
Thanks,
Steve |
bullet
| | Posted on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 5:01 am: |
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probably not much at all,altough it does see its self as being somewhat higher than it really is.
loops/quads have better take off angles for lower tarrain and can work quite well even at 30ft.
if i did run feedline up that mountain it wouldnt be hardline or times cable unless your donald trump.
id use a good quality HD twinlead or ladderline
witch matches easy to the loop/quad and other antennas and would have less loss and cost a fraction of hardline.
just my 2 cents |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 8:23 pm: |
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Finally!!!!!!! with the skip tonight, I get my FIRST contact on the base! No amp, No mods to the VR9000, and I havent moved the antenna. If the rain stops tomorrow, it will be moved.
Thanks for all the help! |
Bigbob
| | Posted on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 10:12 pm: |
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Apocolypse400,my father-in-law has an idea a helium weather balloon,using weights to keep your antron vertical and 500 feet of low-loss coax and oh yes a tank of helium,a hand-crank reel,and a lightening arrestor attached to a ground rod at the base of coax,hows that?cheapest and best,huh? |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Saturday, November 16, 2002 - 11:46 pm: |
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I like the ballon idea. Instead of the antron I would use a curtain array, and a couple of kilowatts! |
Spacecadet
| | Posted on Sunday, November 17, 2002 - 8:06 am: |
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Dont try the ballon idea!! I tried it once when I was in the army!!. The wire made so much static that I couldnt hear a guy a block away. even with proper grounding!! I had that old Rad Shak 1/2 wave at better than 1000feet up!!I made coax out of solid copper wire(easy to do) and up the eight foot balloon went!!! When it got to the end of the reel of wire I keyed up the old Lafayette telsat 100 base and made a call, unkeyed and heard 50lbs of static!! I also got a good "bite" from the radio!!
If you need more of this story just ask!! |
Znut
| | Posted on Sunday, November 17, 2002 - 12:29 pm: |
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Right on bullet,
How practical would it be for apocalypse to run twin lead with a balun at each end so he could use the A-99? Way less expensive than coax, and like you said, very low loss! If he runs it elevated off the ground most of the way, how much noise will it cause on his recieve? Or he could just run it over the obstacles and keep it close to ground most of the way.
Znut |
Apocolypse400
| | Posted on Sunday, November 17, 2002 - 7:52 pm: |
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I have given up on the 1/2 mile of cable up the mountain idea. No matter what cable I use, it would be a constant hassel to keep it working. So, I have to do something else. Thanks for all the ideas
Steve |
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