Mobile chasing station almost there

Equipment
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It has been a long time coming, but I feel ready to get out and about now with my Mobile chasing station using “Nora the Note”

Everything I do these days takes a lot longer, either r because I am slow at sorting things or waiting for a slot in the diary of an assistant.

So, First of choice of Radio, easy, My Yaesu FT857 perfect mobile shack in a box. All that was needed here was assistant with less shaky hands than mine to Modify for 60m. Sorted with help from my son finding me a slot in his busy diary. below before and after pics:

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Next job, get it all hard wired into “Nora” done with some difficult manipulating of the Cockpit velour.

Decided after this that if I was to enter any Contests such as Backpackers or low power 144MHz then I would have a separate Car battery in the boot, to stop me running the car’s battery down.

Finally came the antennas, my initial thoughts were to fit a 3/8 Mount and an SO239 Mount, by drilling holes in “Nora’s” head near the rear hatch. This time I would need assistance from my very busy Mechanic and also felt a bit guilty for major surgery on poor Nora when she is quite well at the moment :thinking:
Decided for the time being to use Mag Mounts. I have only ever used Sirio Mags in the past so 2 ordered.

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Left hand pic shows HF Whip near the front and the 2m/70cm near the rear.
Right hand pic shows the 2m/70cm Whip again but this time with a 4m Whip built by my very good friend and Radio club colleague Steve M7HME.

I purchsed 4 HF whips all were AmPro Chinese copies for 60m,40m,20m and 17m. I was hoping to avoid having to use a ATU when Mobile, so using the old fashioned method of SWR meter in Line, popping in and out of the car to adjust each time. The 60m was 1:2 from factory so easy one there, 20m only took 2 small adjustments and again below 1:5, the 17m one slight adjust and again well below the happy stage.

The 40m was different story I have again spent too many hours in the last month trying to get it to tune, but will not go below 4. So back burner until I can get access to an analyser to test it thoroughly?

Finally and having a bit of patience, waiting for a 23cm Transverter from SG Labs to arrive shortly, I have plans to drive it with my FT817 so that I have multimode microwave facility. That has a UWB Log Periodic Antenna, 600MHz To 6000MHz 50W waiting for it in the shack.

So, here’s to my new adventure, Drive up the local high spot and chase the world :wink: :innocent:

Thank you anyone who reads my post, and Activators get ready for my callsign and dulcet tones

Tony

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Hi Tony, on the 40m “Hamstick copy” - make sure you position the mag mount in the centre of the roof to give it the maximum possible ground plane. If that doesn’t help solve the problem, make up a radial field set that you can attach to the earth side of the SO239 and then drape over the car roof and off to the ground around you. 8 x 4.5 metre wires should be enough.

Good luck, 73 Ed.

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Hi Ed,

I think the problem is the antenna, as the other 3 whips including 5MHz tuned without much problem, and also where I am parking, laying wires all round my car will certainly give me trouble from the public, even if I use high vis markings on them. now if it was private land it would make it easier?

Thanks Tony

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Excellent to read that you will soon be getting out and about SOTA-ing again, Tony. Well done and here’s to many successful and ‘Note-able’ chases for you from Nora. 73 Mike :grinning:

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Hi Tony, around 20 years ago I used some of those Pro-Am and Am-Pro whips on a magmount - but it was one of those with 3x 5" magnets on a T-frame. It took some care and effort to fit and remove the base (avoiding trapping my fingers!), but it was powerful enough to hold the antenna in place whilst driving. And I suppose that it had better capacitive coupling to the roof too.
I never used any external matching unit, but I found that I needed a selection of three top sections (one longer and the other shorter than the one supplied) in order to acheive resonance on my chosen frequency on the 40m & 80m antennas. I only had a VSWR meter and tape-measure to set up the correct length of each antenna, but nowadays a VNA would make it a lot quicket to set them up.

Looking forward to working you on 23cm again soon…
73 de Ross

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Ross, you’ve described exactly my experience (about 25 years ago) including the super-strong magnet and trapped fingers problem. I too had only a SWR meter to set the rod length to my desired resonant frequency. I got good SWRs but only over a narrow range of frequencies which was fine for me being a QRP CW-only op in those days. I found the ProAm-40 -30 and -17m very effective using the heavy-duty tri-pad magmount from the centre of my car roof (e.g. 40m on holiday in France) but the 80m version a bit less so (too much of a compromise? - not enough rod length, no extra loading coil). I would mark each rod (e.g. 80, 40, etc) so as not to mix them up on reuse once disassembled.

I also never used an ATU. With good SWRs I connected my 5W monobander directly to the AmPro via a few metres of coax feeder.

They’re been gathering dust for several decades and are redundant now I have a Chameleon MPAS Lite 40-10m vertical (a friend made an adapter to mount it on the big magmount). But these HF monoband whips are a good low-cost mobile solution so I should sell them.

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Hi Ross,

Yes 3x mag is better, but I will always be static mobile when using the whips. these single band ampro whips have a cavity inside the fibreglass rod, that allows nearly full reduction in the whip height the screw in whip holder has 2 grub screws to allow easy adjust. This 40m one no matter what length I set the whip to the SWR remained in the mid to top of the red section.

I am hoping to find someone with an analyser to have a look at for me?

and yes, waiting for a dispatch notification from Hyristian shortly.

speak soon Tony

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ITYM stationary.

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ooops my old C.B. Days showing my age :innocent:

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I won’t be moving, thanks Andy

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No Tony, you aren’t showing your age - when I started in radio in the UK in 1972, we used the term in Amateur radio (there was no legal CB at the tiem in the UK) - when operating two meters AM from a parked car, you were “Static Mobile” - now whether you signed /P or /M was unclear - never /SM of course.
73 Ed.

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oh good, thought I was going mad, but then realised it was Andy’s quip :grinning:

Yes I was naughty back in 1977/78 while I was studying for my RAE with a G3 Mentor.

I will have the call operating from Nora with suffix /M

Tony

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Only because some people seem to think the description of the station as “mobile” means it is actually in motion resulting in the expression “static mobile” which they use to try and ratify in their minds motion and no motion. i.e. “I’m moving but I’m not moving”.

In fact describing a station as mobile never implies motion. It actually means that the station (radio & antennas) are rigged in such a way that the station could be used whilst the vehicle is in motion. But there’s no contract in using the word mobile that says you have to be in motion. You can contrast it with portable. Our contests antennas are portable in that they fit in the back of a car but need assembling on site… 10m mast, 5m antenna, 8 guys at 2 levels, rotator, feeders, guy rings etc. Once erected you cannot move it unless you disassemble it then move it and then reassemble it. Nobody ever confuses such a setup with mobile or uses “moving portable”. So the meaning of stations that are mobile or portable is clear from context of the station setup. And with that context to what mobile and portable imply there is no need to say “static mobile” when really you mean stationary.

Anyway the correct CB term for what is erroneously termed “static mobile” is in fact “square wheels” as in “I’ve just gone square wheels outside Two Ton Tessie’s twenty while I check the swaarrrr(*) on my twig”.

We could consider the term “pedestrian mobile” and ask why SOTA activators do not describe themselves as “pedestrain portable”. Which is what 99% of them are. But we see no need to emphasise that we are portable with a pole wedged in rocks, staked out or tied to a tree and that we carried the gear ourselves.

As for not being able to get a match on the 40m antenna. Well it could be a broken connection in the antenna or it could be a really poor length of feeder. Check the continuity and also try altering the feeder length by inserting a few metres of extra coax.

(*) SWR is always pronounced as if you are a pirate. Pirate of the Caribbean not pirate of the airwaves that is.

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Whatever the historical usage it’s an oxymoron, and IMO confusing and meaningless. When stationary (and away from the home address) it shouldn’t matter where you are operating from, e.g. a parked car, a tarp or in a pub, you are portable. If you can move, and the station can move with you, (e.g. the rig/antenna is in/on a car or about your person) you are mobile.

When I become the Dear One Benign Dictator I shall scrap this latest Ofcom anything-you-like suffices and make /P and /M mandatory, when applicable, (on pain of death).
EDIT UPDATE: For those of you who are not used to my dead-pan humour, I am of course joking. I don’t even feel particularly strongly about this issue. It’s just the pedant in me.

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:heart: :two_hearts: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :heart_eyes: I think I’m in love :heart_eyes: :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :two_hearts: :heart:

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You only need to vote for me this one time. I’ll fix it so you and others won’t need to next time.

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I was going to add your face to this fine montage of world despots…

despots

But you seem to have done a good job of hiding it from Google!

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As you say, one could interpret “static mobile” as I am in a mobile radio station, which is currently static. In any case that’s how it used to be understood.

I agree looking purely at the words it is confusing - but as the expression was known and understood back in the 70s, that’s what was used.

One could also comment that those saying they are bycycle or pedestrian mobile (but are actually parked up / sat down) these days, are twisting the meaning.

As long as what the expression indicates is clear to the community I have no problem with the slight inaccuracies in these terms.

Ed.

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Me, a despot? They use their power over other people in very unfair or cruel ways. My reign will be judged as ‘firm but fair’, e.g. litter louts on release from a week in the town stocks would be saying as they wipe away the rotten fruit thrown at their faces, “It was a fair cop, I deserved wot I got”.

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People give S0 signal reports Ed and that’s another load of bollo^W twaddle that people say.

Just because it’s known and people say it doesn’t make it valid :wink:

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