It's very early in the morning on December 25th. I've already been up for a couple of hours. And no, I'm not up in anticipation of Christmas morning. The last few mornings I've been up in the middle of the night thinking about projects. Seems I do my best thinking when I'm asleep.
What's on my mind? Several things really.
I mentioned in my first post that I live in an apartment complex that doesn't permit outdoor antennas of any kind. Television, or otherwise. I live on the ground floor of my building, which except for my apartment is at least 4 feet below grade. The building itself rather than being a normal stick-built unit, is constructed of structural concrete panels for the outside walls and the ceiling, and covered with a very nice brick fascade. So getting a signal out of here is a challenge. My apartment has one south-southwest facing sliding door and window, and one west-southwest facing window. The building itself is surrounded on 3 sides by other very close by structures two of which are the same construction as this building. The challenge? The repeater for the local club (WØGQ) is in the opposite direction from my apartment.
I've tried various antennas and locations in my apartment. I've tried a roll-up j-pole taped to the fixed part of the sliding glass door. I've tried the mag-mount vertical that I use on my car sitting outside on my barbecue grill (in the dark of course). And I built a 3 element yagi-uda based on an Instructable that I found. It's composed of sections of 1 inch wide measuring tape and 1/2 inch PVC pipe and fittings. This last one seems to work the best. It's the location for best signal that's the issue. Rather than up next to a window, the antenna has to sit in between my livingroom and kitchen and pointed roughly 180 degrees from the repeater. Why is this a problem? Well, putting it up and taking it down when I'd like to have the radio on is, in a word, inconvenient. If it was just me, I'd probably leave it up. But I do share my space with my wife. And while she is very kind and tolerates a lot from me, I sincerely doubt that she'd consent to having this "work of art" in that spot all the time.
So what I'd like to do is get a run of coax out of here somehow and either put up some sort of stealth antenna with a better line of sight to the repeater, or maybe even up three floors into the attic space so I could put a small omni up there. I know there are ways to go out through windows and possibly doors without drilling. The only place that would be viable is the sliding glass door since the lower half of the part that opens does sit below grade and is mostly protected from view.
Why is any of this important? For one thing, I'd like to set up a dedicated echolink system so I can monitor the repeater while I'm at work. I'm allowed to listen to whatever I want while I'm working as long as I keep the volume down and don't put on headphones. Reception in the building I work in is poor, so echolink seems like the solution. I could set the radio up here, and link in from my computer at work. Then the radio traffic would be mixed in with the music I regularly stream.
Which brings us to why I'm up in the middle of the night. Echolink. It would be nice to be able to purchase a unit to do the linking. But alas there's that limited budget thing again. So being in DIY mode, I found a nice schematic for something that will let me build an echolink interface that will double as a packet radio interface when it's coupled with a computer and sound card. Computers I've got. Parts for the build will be a minor challenge. I'll need to scavenge the larger ones off some old computer motherboards and cards. Specifically I need relay(s), 600 ohm isolation transformers, and 3.5 mm jacks, and at least one board mount RJ-45 jack. Fortunately, after scrounging through my computer junk pile, I came up with boards that have all those parts on them. The rest that I need I can come up with from my parts kit (something I put together long ago for another project), or was able to pick up a the local electronics shop yesterday. But of course, it's the middle of the night. And my lovely wife is sound asleep. So firing up the heatgun to depopulate those computer boards is not an option.
I have several projects in mind that I'd like to tackle. The echolink interface with a dedicated radio. A portable, self-contained event/emergency low power repeater. An APRS setup for my car. And some additional antenna experimentation.
Time to make some breakfast.
73
Steve
KDØWSW
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