why I’ll never choose to buy a home governed by a homeowners’ association

This afternoon I was greeted by an email from the manager of the local homeowners’ association in the neighborhood where we are renting our townhome.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx Xxxx X - Antenna
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2009 14:41:51 -0500
From: Xxx Xxxxxxx <xxx@xxxxxxx.org>

Hi Xxxxxxxx and John and Board,

John, I'm not sure if you are still the resident at Xxxx X but we've had complaints regarding the large antenna and two green posts that are in the backyard. These items should be removed immediately, as they are in violation of the Xxxx Xxxxxxxxx Declarations attached, page 14, section 8.4. Also, the bikes should be stored on your back patio area or on a bike rack provided in the front of the units. If the screens are yours, please remove them, or I will contact your neighbor in Xxxx X to see if the screens belong to them.

Attached is a picture of the large items in question, please contact me or the Board if you have any questions.

/Xxx Xxxxxxx, Association Manager/

Here’s a copy of the photo which followed the email.

rear view of our townhome

I’ll admit that the bicycles probably shouldn’t be there. The window screens in question don’t belong to us and are actually behind our next-door neighbors. The television antenna on the 20′ mast can be taken down now that we have cable television; however, if I had not decided to pay for cable television and wanted to receive OTA broadcasts it seems quite ridiculous that I should have to obtain written permission to erect such an antenna. For example, we cannot receive the local NBC station as well as a few other “major networks” without the use of this external antenna due to the distance of our home from the transmitter.

The two fiberglass telescoping poles are 32′ long and hold the edges of my delta loop (the other edge is attached to an eye-bolt below the roof line of the house). I’m not sure who would see these poles unless they were walking in the back yard area of the townhomes. Given the fact that the green space behind our home is less than 20′ from the fence which borders the property, I can’t imagine why anyone would walk back there.

It completely infuriates me that these rules may cause me decreased quality of life and decreased enjoyment of my hobby. I don’t mind using some ham ingenuity to determine an alternate solution to this problem, but the rules still make me reaffirm my vow to never purchase a home which is governed by a CC&R or HOA rule-making board.

For those of you who are wondering how the folks living in the far field of the photo got away with the erection of their DirecTV antenna, here’s the reply from the property manager:

Hi John,

Xxxx X was approved by the Board on August 12th, 2009 with a formal request from the renters at Xxxx X.

Xxx Xxxxxxx, Association Manager

Anyone have any suggestions on my next actions? My only idea now is to figure out a way to make the 20m delta loop temporary–which will require me to erect it each time I want to operate. I could always move to another antenna situation; however, my investment in this one seems too great already (expensive 32′ fiberglass poles, time/energy spent building the loop, etc.). This loop helped me make QRP PSK31 contacts with Poland, Italy, Spain, and the Caribbean. <sigh>

Field Day at the beach

The second in a series of previously published articles from the OCRA (Orange Co. Radio Amateurs) newsletter. This appeared in the July 2009 issue.

Surf City, NC

My Beach Vacation: A way to earn ARRL awards and make QRP contacts
By John Shadle, W4PAH

Participation in OCRA’s Field Day activities has been a tall order for me the past few years. Last year I was with my wife at UNC Hospitals welcoming our first child into the world, and this year we were headed to the beach for our first family vacation to celebrate our anniversary and his first birthday.

Thankfully, since it was “my vacation” too, my wife was okay with me bringing along some radio gear to take advantage of the near-legendary effects of saltwater ground on antennas!
Planning for the trip began with considerations of antenna options. I began chatting over the repeaters and email with Bruce N1LN and Steve KZ1X about possibilities. They both highly recommended loop antennas. Given the house’s layout (3 stories high, 450-500 foot pier into the sound off Topsail Island) the loop made a lot of sense. I could’ve probably used a single long wire from the house to the pier, but the loop offered quieter reception and more gain.

In my antenna junk box I had a 500 foot roll of #14 AWG stranded insulated wire (the kind you can pick up at Lowe’s or Home Depot for pennies by the foot) and some of those white plastic insulators that are ubiquitous at hamfests. One evening, I headed over to Bruce’s house to create the loop. Bruce had offered up the use of a balun he had created which was currently not being used. It was either 4:1 or 6:1, but we were unsure of its properties beyond that. We measured out 140+ feet of wire, threaded the insulators on the wire, and soldered each end to the balun to complete the project. After coiling it up, I was ready to pack it in my bags for the beach.

My wife, son, and I had planned to leave on Saturday afternoon and head down east, but my son had a low-grade fever that morning so we ended up leaving closer to dinnertime instead. Field Day was already in full swing by the time I was able to set up my antenna during my son’s morning nap Sunday, June 28th. I attached two of the insulators with 1/8” rope to the balcony of our third floor bedroom and the remaining wire of the antenna was stretched to a point and tied to the side of the pier over the saltwater marsh below. The feed point was at one of the corners of the balcony and a stretch of RG-58 connected my station in the screened-in porch below to the antenna above. The high end of the antenna was at least 25’ and the low end wasprobably 8’ above sea level in a sloping inverted delta configuration.

After connecting the coax to my SWR meter, antenna tuner, and rig (a Yaesu FT-817D), I was ready to go!

Despite the fact that I had a full-wave on 40m, I operated exclusively on 20m SSB for the duration of my participation in Field Day. My first contact was with W1QI in Connecticut at 14:35 UTC and my 25th and final contact was with K4F in Florida right before 18:00 UTC. I was surprised that my 5w and simple antenna were able to net 14 states and Canadian provinces over the two and a half hour period I operated. Hunt and pounce were the words of the day, and I had a great time with the quick “contest” exchange of Field Day.

A map of the contacts I managed to make can be seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shadle/3669789986/in/set-72157620687360544/

After Field Day had concluded, I decided to add PSK31 to my operating modes, but not before making one last SSB contact on 20m. Right before bed on Sunday night my meager 5w was able to get my voice all the way to N6JW’s station in Riverside, California (near Los Angeles). Perhaps it was the salt water, or perhaps it was the fact that he was running an Elecraft K3, but the contact was made and logged.

1000 Miles Per Watt from QRP-ARCI!

During the rest of the week, on 14.070MHz, I had QSOs with operators in 22 states and 5 DXCC entities (outside of the USA) including Canada, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, and Alaska (yes, Alaska is a DXCC entity). The QSL cards and Logbook of the World confirmations have finally started coming in, and I’m proud to state that my 2.5w PSK31 contact to KL8DX in Denali National Park in Alaska qualified me for the QRP Amateur Radio ClInternational’s “1000 miles per watt” award. The strange fact about this contact is that it was made as my battery power was beginning to drain. I had to QRP to 2.5w from 5w for the last few QSOs of that particular day. Amazingly enough, KL8DX still heard me loud and clear—up until the radio shut off!

All in all, it was a wonderful trip to the beach. I’m hoping to make it back to this location for future vacations and eventually earn the ARRL’s Worked All States award with the endorsement for QRP. The QRP-ARCI also offers an “All States” award for QRP contacts with 20, 30, 40 and 50 states.

More photos of my adventure may be seen at Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shadle/sets/72157620687360544/

Information about the QRP-ARCI and their awards may be found at their web site.
http://www.qrparci.org/
http://www.qrparci.org/content/blogsection/4/116/

my mobile installation

Before I get into some current projects, I will add a few posts related to past projects I have completed. This was originally printed in my club’s May 2009 newsletter.

FT-7800R control head

Yaesu FT-7800R installation in a 2000 Honda Civic EX
By John Shadle, W4PAH

This past September I began a job in RTP which led to more time spent in my car on a daily basis than my previous status as a bus-riding student—and potentially more time to “play radio” on a regular basis. This began an evolution of my reality of mobile operations, as well.

My first mobile station consisted of a Yaesu VX-7R handie-talkie and its rubber-duck antenna. The frustrations of a poor radiating antenna led to the installation of an Austin 500C dual-band (2m, 70cm) antenna on a Comet CP-5NMO mount on the lip of my trunk. Then, I added the earpiece mic (VC-27) to the mix, to keep from having to hold the radio while driving. This worked well for a while, but I soon realized that I wanted to place a higher power radio in my car “permanently”.

Since I had already solved the antenna side of things, I began my search for the perfect radio for mobile operations.

My car is a 2000 Honda Civic EX with a manual transmission. Because most of my travel would be short trips to work from my house and back, and because of the need to shift gears, I decided against an all-mode, all-band transceiver and for an FM dual-bander, instead. After reading the reviews on eHam.net, and based on my own positive experience with Yaesu rigs, I purchased a FT-7800R on special from one of the online dealers which included the head separation unit. I knew that I would not have room for the full transceiver in my dashboard, so having the ability to place the bulk of the rig elsewhere was very attractive to me.

Now that I had almost all the pieces in place, I began sketching out plans of how I could run wires in my car to get power from the battery to wherever I placed the transceiver, from the transceiver to the control unit, from the transceiver to the speaker, and from the antenna to the transceiver. Lots of wires going different places in this installation!

DC, control head cable, and speaker output under passenger-side of dashboard

Running wires from your battery to your transceiver through the firewall of the car is not the easiest task. This, above all else, caused the most trepidation because I didn’t want to destroy any wiring currently in my car or create unneeded holes in the firewall. I headed over to K0BG’s mobile installation site to view other hams’ installations, based on a recommendation from KZ1X. I read on the eHam forums, too. I finally decided that I would run #10 AWG red/black power wires from my battery to the trunk, where I would place the transceiver. The #10 was probably overkill, but I thought that it would allow the most flexibility if I ever decided to put anything else in the trunk in the future which required more “juice”.

First I tried simply pushing the #10 through a hole through the firewall I had located behind the glovebox. While the #10 is pretty stout wire, it would not make it through on its own.

Next, I tried taping a straightened wire clothes hanger to the #10 and pushing it through. I had made it through the firewall successfully, but once I started pulling the hanger through on the engine side, the hanger snapped in half. Finally, I decided to take advantage of the nature of the twin-lead wire and make a few small slits in the thick plastic separating the red and black wires (NOTE: Be very careful not to breach the insulation of either the red or black wires and create a possible short!) and “weave” the coat hanger in and out of these slits. I tightly wrapped electrical tape around it and I was in business. This technique allowed me to get the wire through the firewall to the battery. Success!

Scosche pocket, plastic from The Scrap Exchange, faceplate mounting bracket

The next step was to figure out a way to fasten the control head to the dashboard. Below the AM/FM radio there is a small pocket where papers, CDs, or the like can be stored. I found a replacement pocket kit on eBay which was manufactured by Scosche. I wanted to preserve the resale price of my car as much as possible, so I decided to purchase the replacement pocket and save the original pocket to re-install once I removed the control head at some point in the future. Thanks to a tip from N2JFP I headed down to Durham’s Scrap Exchange to search for something to cover the pocket and attach the control unit to. Success once again, as I found just what I was looking for in a rectangular plastic piece for $0.10!

I drilled a hole in the rear of the pocket and in the new plastic faceplate for the control wire to pass through, pulled the wire through, and grommetted the front hole (to keep the wire from passing back through the opening if I ever removed the control head). Next, I used super glue to attach the plastic rectangular panel to the pocket and waited. Once the glue was dry, I then measured and installed the control head mount with the included screws.

Installing the pocket in the dashboard is another topic completely, but if you are lucky enough to find a service manual for your particular car, then this becomes much easier to do.

Once the pocket was installed, I began the process of routing the power cord, speaker cord, and control cord from the front of the car to the rear of the car, where I was going to install the actual transceiver. I bundled the three wires together with wire ties and used split-loom tubing to protect them from potential nicks. Using the handy service manual I had found on the internet, I removed the interior side paneling to pass the protected wires to the trunk. (Again, I’m making this sound easier than it really is, but each installation will be different depending on your automobile.)

transceiver in trunk

I decided to install the transceiver on the back of the passenger-side rear seat. I first removed the backing of the seat to reveal the metal where I would drill through to attach the transceiver mount. A Dremel came in handy for this task, then I used a cordless drill to drive the screws into the metal.

On each end of the #10 AWG I attached the ubiquitous Anderson PowerPole connectors. This allowed easy attachment of my transceiver to the power cable, using replacement VHF/UHF “T” connectors from PowerWerx, as well as to the Littelfuse (yep, that’s how they spell it!) ATO/ATC fuse holder (attached to my car’s battery on the other end).

I was finally ready to apply power and try it all out. Lucky for me, the result was a clean, alternator warble-free sound. Thanks to all the club members who offered encouragement and experience along the way. I couldn’t have done it without you!

As far as I’m concerned, the installation is complete. I decided on the Vertex Standard MLS-100 speaker, which plays perfectly with my FT-7800R. The speaker is loose in the floor at the moment as well as the hand mic. I may eventually fasten them to the interior of the car at some point, but I’m quite happy with their locations at this moment.

References
http://www.eham.net/reviews/
http://www.K0BG.com/
http://scosche.com/
http://www.scrapexchange.org/
CARQUEST: split-loom tubing, Littelfuse fuse holder, fuses, battery terminal connections
http://www.powerwerx.com/oem-connectors-filters/

High resolution photos of the install are available at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shadle/sets/72157613559691280/

resurrection

Welcome to the first post of my newly revived W4PAH ham radio blog!

I sincerely hope that the content on the site is relevant to folks who are interested in kit building, homebrewing, and QRP operations both at home and in the field.

Past incarnations of this site were both unorganized and frankly not very interesting. This version will provide the reader graphic (read: pictures, drawings, etc.) and textual evidence of my life in ham radio.

Comments are always welcome, but please take the few seconds to register and become a member before attempting to post a comment. I hope each of you enjoys the site!