Folks, I've been off the air for awhile but with the winter months coming in for us in the Northern Hemisphere & my love of Topband, it's time to get ready for the chase. Add to that, there's a shiny new K4D looking at me smiling. Haven't powered it up yet, I'm studying the manual first. I might fire it up tonight after I've read all the manual.
After the couple hurricanes (Henri, the eye missed us by 20 miles) & Ida, not to mention some hellacious storms over the year I expected to find my 160 antenna (sloper wire resting on top of trees) down but amazingly everything is completely intact. I'm making a couple WD-1A 160 antennas just to be ready for Old Man Winter, usually I have to replace the 160 antenna 2-3 times a season. No choice, it's the best I can do here. Had problems with my Rx antenna. Long story made short, it's a circle 8 made by Lee at HI-Z and thanks to his patience and excellent advice, I found the problem was the western element's coax (#7) was pretty much chewed in half and chewed thoroughly in several other places. Somehow it was not the flooded coax the others are. Proof Flooded keeps chews to a minimum. Now my Circle 8 again has the wonderful directionality I'm used to having and it is in every way running like new. I'm looking forward to this new topband season, the new rig, some fun contests and antennas that work. Good luck to us all! 73, Gary KA1J _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector
