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Antenna shopping list

I think for the first antenna at the house I’m going to go with the G0FAH/ZS6BKW variant of the G5RV multi-band dipole antenna.

It’s a simple antenna, a bit shorter than the G5RV with a slightly longer ladder feed line and from what I’ve read online about it, has pretty decent SWR in most of the ham bands I want to operate in.

Shopping list:

I can either make one myself, which doesn’t look all that difficult, or get an already made one. Total cost ends up being about the same either way.

Still need to figure out how to put it up. There are some trees hanging over the ditch next to the house that have some sturdy looking branches that look like promising antenna supports.

There are a few constraints I have for getting the antenna up high: anything I use has to fit in the car and there’s a limit to the height I can reach easily. The power lines running behind the house also limits where I can put the antenna and supports. Maybe I can get some of the club members to come out and help me figure something out.

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Star Trek: TNG Season 2 theater event

Hey look! A non-ham radio entry!
Another season of ST:TNG is coming out on Blu-ray, and yesterday was a theatrical event to mark the release, just like for Season 1. Made the trek (pun intended) up to Summerville to join Erika and CAST to watch Q Who and The Measure of a Man on the big screen in HD.
Yeah, I wore my Star Trek robe.
Both were good episodes for the season, although the picture seemed kind of on the dark side. Maybe it was just the way it was projected. Borg cube looked pretty cool in HD, but it didn’t look like the episode got any extra CG treatment like what was done for DataLore in the first season. Measure of a Man featured an extra 13 minutes of previously unreleased scenes. I was able to spot a few of them but I don’t think any of them really added much to the overall story. The extended fencing scene was kind of cool though.
Also got to see some of the blooper reel, and part of the 25th anniversary cast reunion interview from the 2012 Calgary Comic Expo.
Looking forward to adding Season 2 to the collection (I should probably think about getting a Blu-ray player or something). Season 3 looks like it should be pretty awesome too. Hopefully there will be another similar event for the Season 3 Blu-ray release.

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blog.AB4UG.net

In preparation for archiving this blog to start fresh, I started up a new blog over at http://blog.ab4ug.net/ where I think I’ll post most of my electronics and amateur radio adventures.

It’s a vanilla MovableType 5.2 set up right now. Nothing fancy, but functional. The archives here at Imablog will stay and I’ll probably start over with a new MT5.2 install and database. Still mulling something Drupal-y though. Haven’t quite decided yet.

I’ll probably cross-post material at the AB4UG blog here also so that nobody feels left out.

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Looking for an antenna

Slowly gathering the parts to put the ham shack together. The space is going to be an office/ham shack where I’ll have my computer/workspace in one corner, the radio, power supply and maybe a laptop for logging in another corner, and a bookshelf or two. Still need to move my computer and desk into the room.
Need to find an antenna now and think of a good way and place to put it up. Then I’ll need to get the feedline into the house.
I think to start, I’ll just go with a simple multi-band wire dipole, like a G5RV or something. I’d like to start building my own antennas, but the workshop doesn’t quite have all the necessary supplies yet. Slowly getting there but it’ll take a bit of time.
Looking forward to getting things set up and getting back on the air.
Update: Got a lot of good antenna ideas from @W2MDW, @KQ2RP and @WB0LCW. All dipole variants and look pretty easy to build. Now I just need to work out how to put it up.

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Broken comments (again)

I’ve been getting reports from people that they’re getting a mangled response page after posting/attempting to post comments (not that there are a lot of them to begin with).
I’m not entirely sure what’s going on but given the age of the blog, it’s possible there’s something messed up in the database.

I’ve had on my TODO list for a while now to restart the blog using a fresh MT5 install, fresh DB and republishing what’s in the current blog into an archive folder.

What’s that you say? Just use WordPress?

Well, I suppose I could. All the cool kids seem to be doing it. I’ve also given some though to creating a Drupal based thing where I could include other non-blog type content.

Maybe I’ll take this opportunity to do drink more of the Drupal Kool-Aid.

In the meantime, feel free to leave a comment on my Facebook page (blog posts get crosposted there) or Google+ page, send me a tweet, or just email me.