Well, I left the humidity drenched eastern Nebraska swamps for the Sandhills around North Platte. Moving always sucks, period. The bright spot, if you look at it that way, is the chance to make a new QTH.
A few things that have cropped up. My power supply now is giving birdies about every two minutes, which when I adjust the noise offset it instantly goes away. I suspect a ground loop could be happening. The QTH has no grounds yet, and not even sure how good of a AC ground there actually is. One thing (behinds humidity) that I don’t have an abundance of here are trees. One tree that could support a wire about 20′ up is about it. And lots of sand. Not sure how many grounds I will need to establish a good ground plane. Or so I thought. I decided I am going to put up my old vertical, and an EFHW, which really doesn’t need the grounding a vertical does. I ventured to Denver to Ham Radio Outlet this past Saturday (the 17th), and picked up a 33′ push up mast, and some copperweld wire to give myself a project for the coming Thanksgiving weekend. Temperatures are predicted to be in the 50’s, so that should work out well. I have an acre of land to play with, and have more than enough room for the 134′ length I need to stretch it out.
I have met one neighbor, who gave me the ACE of the area. Apparently, most everyone around me is like minded. After a discussion about myself, my ham activities came up, and I asked him to let me know if I start interfering with any electronics he has. He led me over to a grassy area, which hidden among the varioud pieces of scrap metal, was a 50′ crank up tower. Visions of contest verticals, dipoles, inverted Vs, etc, danced wildly around my mind. The price will be reasonable, and now to investigate how much concrete I need to stabilize it, guy wires, hectares of radials, etc. So an important lesson that applies to hams and non hams alike, get to know your neighbors. Especially those with lots of grassy areas hiding potential treasures.
73,
KG7OTQ