It is always good to be reminded that someone out there is listening and reading, especially when it is nice folks like Hamilton and his family. These are the people who built the TouCans rig that was (is?) suspended above San Francisco at the center of a dipole antenna.
Following posts on the SolderSmoke blog, Hamilton has been monitoring the CW activites of a German ham who sends UHF CW signals through the sunroof of his car to the QO-100 satellite in geostationary orbit. See above. Very cool. Listen live to the satellite here:
https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/
Also cool is Hamilton's analysis of Agent Sonya's ability to homebrew a 1930s era CW station that could be used to communiate with Moscow Center. Hamilton believes she could do it. I have my doubts. But the discussion is a lot of fun.
Check our their blog:
https://copaseticflow.blogspot.com/
Thanks to Hamilton and his kids!
Hi Bill!
ReplyDeleteWhile TouCans definitely can still fly, we were getting to camp less last year, so KO6BTY and I started doing urban POTA around San Francisco by developing a vertical antenna for the rig. When used in town, the rig is called TouCans and a Stick.
The quarter wave vertical on 20 meters, (it's just one half of TouCans original dipole), is electrical taped to a carbon fiber fishing rod that we then electrical tape onto a short tree, a signpost, a fence post, or whatever's handy. We use the other half of the original horizontal dipole as the counterpoise. Sometimes the counterpoise is dipped into the Bay, others it's coiled near the rig, and in still other times it's draped down the side of a hill. It all depends on where the rig is set up and how much rain we've had recently.
From the house, we're a kitchen window station these days. We prop the fising pole in the runner channel of the horizontally sliding window, and then slide the top of the fishing pole, (with the wire attached), through the Irwin clamp that the then 11 year old Mota (internet alias) and I propped onto the lip of the roof last year to get the dipole a bit higher. The propping involved me leaning out the window with the clamp on the end of a broom and Mota providing tension on the loose end of the clamp with a piece of rope from well inside the kitchen behind me. (Don't try this at home as they say.)
The antenna isn't supposed to work because carbon-fiber-pole, but it actually works kind of amazingly well! We've made QRP QSOs to Sweden from SF and New Mexico, although that might say more about the incredible antenna setup in Sweden, but still :)