More station work gets done!

Over the last two weeks I’ve gotten a lot of station work done.  I’ve put up the new 15M 2 element beam and I’ve done more work on the single point ground box project.

When I got the 15M beam up, I checked it with the antenna analyzer.  Much to my dismay, it didn’t tune anywhere.  A quick e-mail to the YCCC reflector revealed that what I was probably seeing was bad coax – most likely a short between the shield and center conductor.  When i got around to checking things out a few days later, I realized that I had not connected the balun to the antenna correctly, and had accidentally created a short (there are 2 sets of leads from the balun – the 2nd would be used for the original 12/17M element and the way I had dressed them they were shorting to the boom).  Fixing this fixed the issues and the antenna now tunes nicely in the 15M band.  Unfortunately, it tunes also around 30MHz.  It would be nice if that 2nd resonant point were in the 10M band, but oh well.

I also got a lot more work done on the NEMA box this weekend.  I drilled all the holes for the connectors.  This went very smoothly as the box has a removeable “entrance panel” on the bottom.  This connects securely to the box with 10 screws and a gasket.  I used a 5/8″ hole saw for the coax connector holes and drills of appropriate size for the rest.  This went very smoothly.

I also realized that I cannot get away with only 2 Polyphaser suppressors.  The antenna must connect to the side of the suppressor that passes through the bulkhead.  So I’ve ordred 3 more suppressors from DX Engineering.  These should be in later this week and I can finish this project.

Here are some pictures of the NEMA box work that got done this weekend.

The RCS8V switches are connected to the backplate of the NEMA box with machine screws through their plastic cases.

The NEMA box with 2 of the 5 Polyphaser suppressors installed and the two antenna switches installed. There will be a lot more cable when everything is in place.

Two of the five Polyphaser surge suppressors installed on the NEMA box. The polyphaser suppressors bring each antenna feedline into the box, and the two bulkhead connectors at the left connect to the two lines that enter the house for the left and right rigs. The single hole to the left of the two bulkhead connectors is for the switch control lines.

Here is a view of the bottom of the box. It was easy to drill the holes because the box had a removable panel on the bottom. I used a 5/8" hole saw for the coax connector holes. The three empty large holes on the right are for the remaining Polyphaser suppressors (you can see their matching machine screw holes above each one). The large hole on the left is for the switch control lines. The two small holes at the top left and right are vent holes and will get covered with screen on the inside. The box will be grounded by running copper strap, heavy wire or braid from under two of the screws that mount the panel to the main box.