I participated in the annual VHF/UHF contest today, attempting contact with fellow ham radio operators in Fremont county. I was unable to do so, either on 6 meters, 2 meters, or 70 cm.

Lots of chatter on 40 meters that I picked up with my 6M PAR omni:

It’s installed on a Poles and Holders (dot com) 22″ extendable mast-

and it works pretty good. It’s quick to deploy-Just run over the “holder”, drop in the mast, put on the antenna, connect the coax, raise it up, and you’re ready to transmit. Here’s the holder:

Easy to use. I was using my HF/VHF/UHF station:

It’s a Tac-Comm case (seems like I keep promising a video). It holds my Yaesu FT-857D all band all mode radio, its LDG AT-200Pro II autotuner, and my Yaesu FTM-400 XDR/DE 2M/70cm radio. Eventually I hope to put a Icom IC 7300 in it.

I was able to make contact with a local ham through the Meadowlark repeater, but not the Fremont county group. Next time, I hope.

 

 

 

In stages.

I purchased new upper and lower ball joints and control arm bushings, strut arm bushings, and alignment shims from Rock Auto for the Nissan a few weeks ago, and last Thursday I installed the upper ball joints and control arm bushings. I might sound odd to hear someone say it, but I really enjoyed doing the work. My body didn’t enjoy it and was complaining that I was abusing it needlessly but I sucked it up and completed the job.

I’ve started the rebuild of the front end because the front tires wear funny, and I’d like to correct that prior to installing new ones. Naturally, I’ll need to the steering components, and I’ll be buying them next month-ish.

I’ll install the lower joints and bushings soon, when I can get it up on a rack so I don’t have to crawl on my back to do it. The torsion bars have to be “untensioned” to remove the parts, so I want to do it safely.

More to come.