Be careful of some lightweight masts. My brother gave me wind surfing masts to donate to club members. The trouble was that some were made from fibre glass and as they age can shed fibres. ( This prob

My first mast ( which was an Aluminium scaffold pole + 12 ft hang glider spar) was fixed to a single brick garage wall. However I put reinforcing plates on both sides of wall where the fixing bolts we

I have a ex WD Scam mast. It is a "temporary structure" (which has been up for 25+++ years.) It is supported by four legs with climbing steps on them. Two fit persons can erect the mast, it is easier

My son being an engineer would have sailed through the RAE. However he was not prepared to mess around with three separate exams.( He was using two way communications in St John Ambulance and was alre

Once again my thanks for all the advice given on this group and also by private E mail. Today I had the use of a calibrated Procom VSWR/ Frequency generator and tested the coax lead up to the antenna.

Good morning all. Thank you all for your helpful feed back. It is interesting that I can still hear the Beacon PI7CIS with my mast down. (and I am in Greater London) This seems to indicate that the Co

I have a long term problem with my 17 element MET Yagi. The VSWR is rather high at about 6-1 and I cannot risk blowing my new radio! I have no way of taking down my pump up mast to adjust the matching

I have had both 2 Metre and a 70 CM MET Yagis on my mast for over 30++ years, plus a small 5 Element MET Yagi for 70 CMs for /p use. As a Group member rightly pointed out the threads on the elements a

I also have a can of Rocol tapping lubricant. ( Must be 40++ years old) I remember being told that it was carcinogenic. I still use it as it is a good tapping compound, but I keep it off my hands. We

My thanks to all the group members who have recently given me good advice on my earth stack problems. A friend of mine has a heavy duty hammer drill that is unstoppable. I will turn up on my lathe a s

Not quite microwaves, but still radio. I have been trying to drive in earth stakes for my shack and HF vertical. I have tried using a sharped rod and a club hammer to start the hole ,but I am not real

In our labs we had kilos of doped and undoped billets of silicon dioxide. We used to slice them up on a diamond saw and do interesting things with them. ( I spent many hours lapping surfaces to micron

Can I give my thanks to everybody who gave me good advice on how to solve the problem with my PMR Linear. I choked off the DC leads to the PA and also borrowed a reliable power meter. I retuned the P.

Many thanks to all for your positive and useful feedback. This morning I went through my whole set up again and changed to another Dummy load. As I have never run more than 10 Watts on 144 MHz ,my reg

Good morning. I only tuned up on low power so hopefully I have not fried the devices. I have been through my whole system again swopping Dummy loads and meters etc. I have found out that both Welz met

I have just been through everything at low power and swopped the dummy load to a cheaper" amateur type' I was using two Welz meters from my late friends estate and I assumed they were new and unused.

I know this is not microwaves, but I need some expert advise. I have just retuned an A200 PMR Ampilfier to run at 144MHz SSB. I put a VSWR/ power Meter between the dummy load and the Ampilfier. I have

Many thanks for all the advice about the Smart meter. It was greatly appreciated! I think I will quietly ignore their letters until they start to fret. I have some much local QRM on all bands, I do no

I have just had notification that they want to fit a smart meter to replace the recently installed standard new one. Will it bring RFI into my station? Will any RF I may generate from HF up to microwa

I am about to scrap some new brass waveguide. I am under the cosh from the Dragon and they have to go.( Plus a life time collection of interesting bits). In old Imperial units All crudely measured wit