Sabina QRP Station and Astronomical Observatory

This year, in an effort to get the kids out of Rome, we rented a summer house out in the Sabine Hills, a beautiful area just one hour north of the city. The picture shows a typical scene from the region. I brought out my HW-8, a gel-cell battery, my VW solar panel, the pi-network antenna tuner I picked up at the Trastevere flea market last winter, and about 50 feet of AC zip cord. I threw the wire into a tree and was able to tune up on 20 and 40. First station worked was near Catania, in Sicily (close to where we stayed last month). Also worked Germany and Bulgaria. I hope to use one of the tall Roman pines (like the one in the picture above) to support a vertical wire.

I also have my telescope out at the summer place, and we used it last weekend to look at Jupiter. I couldn't see the recently discovered scar, but we got great views of the clouds, and the four Galilean moons. More to follow...

Check out our neighborhood and flea market

Go to Google Earth, or even just to Google Maps (available without download from the Google home page) and search for this: Piazza di San Cosimato, 00153 Rome, Italy. Look for the "Street View" button and click on it. Now you can explore our Piazza.

GM8EUG sent me this great link for a 360 degree shot of the neighborhood flea market. Let the picture fully download, then click on it and you will be able to look around (and up and down!) Click on this:

http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/worldwidepanorama/wwp305/html/ToniGarbasso.html

Flea Market Find -- Pi Net Tuner -- With a Mystery

Last Sunday's "Flea at Trastevere" (I'm the only one who calls it that) was a huge success for me. Minutes after arriving, amidst all the junk, Billy and I found this homebrew Pi network antenna tuner. The guy who sold it to me told me he had built it himself. The workmanship is top-notch. The quality of the parts is superb. There's a built in SWR meter and a 10 db attenuator.

When I started drawing out the schematic I noticed something weird: As the front panel indicates, it is a Pi -network, but for some reason the builder has the input variable cap floating. The physical connection to the chassis is via insulators. The other variable cap has the standard mechanical and electrical connection to chassis ground. That input cap needs to be grounded too, correct? Why would this builder -- who obviously knows his way around a soldering iron -- go to the trouble of allowing that input cap to float?