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The Lincoln County repeater

K1LX/R is alive on a new hill

After a long absence, thanks to

the efforts of Ernie Richards,

K1NI, Dave Hawke, KQ1L

and Randy Lewis, K1XI, the

Lincoln County Amateur

Radio Club's K1LX repeater

is now back on the air.

They found the original location on Huntoon

Hill not to be the best possible site for various

reasons, so they set up on nearby Blinn Hill in

Dresden. As before, the repeater frequency is

146.985 MHz with a PL tone of 136.5 Hz. The

LCARC hopes to get their ARES Net running

again sometime in December. Give it a try and

see how it works for you.

NEAR-Fest New England Amateur Radio Festival

Don’t forget, Friday & Saturday, October 14th & 15th

at the Deerfield, NH Fairgrounds is the fall edition of

NEAR-Fest. Come have fun with your fellow Hams

from all over New England and the northeast.

Getting to NEAR-Fest by automobile is extremely sim-

ple. The Deerfield Fairground is located at 34

Stage Road, Deerfield NH 03037. Stage Road is also

NH State Highway 43.

Back by Popular Demand,

The W1ZE PVC Frame

6-Meter Moxon

By Bruce Randall, W1ZE

Driven Element Max

Several years ago I had an article in this

newsletter that described a simple inexpen-

sive six-meter beam antenna that per-

formed equally as well to a two element

Yagi. I thought it was about time to put it

back in the newsletter so that some of you

that want to build a small six-meter Moxon

beam antenna could go about building one

for yourself.

As you can see in the above diagram the

Moxon is a two element beam antenna that

is smaller than a full size two element

Yagi. Being smaller than a two element

Yagi the Moxon makes a good portable

antenna on the higher HF bands plus six-

meters. The Internet was loaded with in-

formation about the Moxon so I went about

building a six-meter model from available

hardware store materials.

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I found a web site that had an Moxon

antenna dimension calculator at:

[http://ab1jx.1apps.com/ham/calcs/moxon/index.html].

So by just entering the frequency and wire

size it gives me all the wire length and

dimensions.

Being a guy that likes to build antennas

from PVC pipe I thought the Moxon would

be a good candidate. After some calcula-

tion on the old graph paper I headed off to

the local hardware emporium to gather up

the stuff to build my six-meter Moxon

antenna frame. I purchased two 10-foot

lengths of ¾ inch schedule 40 PVC pipe,

two ¾ inch PVC pipe Tees and a ¾ inch

PVC pipe cross connection. While in the

local hardware store (Rogers in Bath) I

spied a display rack with bicycle flag

whips used to keep an eye on your kids in a

crowd. The whip was made with ¼-inch

fiberglass rod stock. I thought that would

make a pair of stiffening rods to keep the

PVC pipe element from bending in when

the wire elements were tightened up. That

proved to work out well.

About an hour in the workshop I had the

frame assembled (see above diagram) and

had cut the needed No.12 stranded wire in

accordance with the Moxon calculation

program. For the feed-point of the driven

element I uses a couple stainless steel 6- 32

screws, washers and nuts and applied

crimp-on connectors to the end of the wire

and attached them to the feed point.

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I then secured the wire elements to the

frame and used electrical tape to hold the

wire in place until I got through with the

tuning process. When finished I used black

tie-wraps to secure the wire to the frane. The No.12 wire I used was insulated so

when I applied the antenna analyzer to it,

the antenna resonated at 48 MHz rather

than 50.1 MHz. It hit me quick. The calcu-

lation program was for bare No.12 AWG

wire and with the insulated wire taped to

the PVC pipe the Velocity Factor had

changed. I shortened up the elements little

by little until I achieved a 1.15:1 SWR at

50.1 MHz. The antenna appeared to be

fairly broad banded so it would play with-

out a tuner from 50 to 50.6 MHz with an

SWR of less than 2:1. The element end insulator needed to be

2¾ inches apart so I thought of using some

scrap PVC pipe but came up with an idea

I thought would work and it did. I made

the end tie-insulator out of some heavy

Weed-Whacker® monofilament line and

two crimp type wire splicing sleeves (blue)

I made the antenna so it would have a

15-inch section of PVC pipe that would

slide into a pushup mast or into a TV rotor

motor mount.

At the feed point I used s short section

of RG-58U coax with a few ferrite beads

slid over it to act as a 1:1 current balum. If

you do not have ferrite chokes, you could

build an RF choke by making a four or five

turn coil in the coax feed line about six

inches in diameter at the antenna feed

point. Then came the acid test just before Field

Day. With the Moxon at about 15 -feet off

the ground and a 20-foot length of coax

hooked up to my transceiver I tuned-up on

50.125 and “YIPEE” I had an SWR of less

that 1.2:1 and I could hear stations

thundering in. Good time to have the band

open because I worked several southern

and mid western state hams with the

antenna only 15-feet off the ground. Front

to back was what you would expect for a

two element Yagi, about 15db change on

the S-meter, front to side was even better

while tuned to the WA1OJB beacon in

Bowdoin about 8 miles away from my

QTH in Phippsburg, (ground wave).

If you want a small effective but cheap

six-meter beam, try a Moxon. I think you

will be pleased with the results.

73,Bruce

Big Ham Radio towers & antenna

farm appears in Harpswell

MARA member Richard ‘Dick’ Bean, uses

K1HC/1 for contacts made from his vacation

home in Harpswell, Maine (grid square FN53).

Dick is in the process of erecting two large self-

supporting towers at 160 feet above sea level

above a tidal marsh. His 120-foot tower will have

32 five element Directive Systems end-mounted

Yagis, 16 at 60 degrees and another 16 at 240 de-

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grees. That tower will also support a 25 element

Directive Systems 432 MHZ Yagi, a 146/440

MHZ Diamond X50 vertical, a six meter loop, and

a 160 meter inverted V. The second tower is

70-foot tall and will have a M2 log periodic and a

seven element Directive Systems six meter Yagi.

The 19-acre site will have other antennas

springing up as time permits.

The 32 element Directive Systems two-meter Ya-

gis installed on the 120-foot tower, but not yet

connected to the ten power dividers. Transmis-

sion lines are coming soon.

MARA Members attend

BOXBORO Reported by George Szadis, K1GDI

Photo of serious ham operator with crank up tower attached to

his RV at Boxboro

I was able to attend the Boxboro Hamfest on Satur-day September 10th. Good crowd, sufficient flea market tables and pretty complete vendor indoor display. Certainly worth the trip.

Enigma machine display and lecture was the high-light for me. More modern hf rigs for sale than usu-al. Quite a few tables packed up early Saturday after-noon and not sure if the returned Sunday morn-ing. Not good if that was the case. Still waiting to hear if I won the grand prize. . 73, George K1GDI

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Last year DR Steve Kercel, AA4AK wanted to get

some wire up in the air at his QTH in Brunswick

that would exhibit some gain on the fourty meter

band. With paper and pencil and a antenna

modeling program he started in on plans to

fabricate and install a 7 MHz Double Extended

Zepp antenna and an associated balanced

matching tuner.

The above graphics show what he came up with

and got up in the air, assisted by Harry McNelley,

N1TTT. There is a story about the trials and

tribulations of getting this 177 foot long wire up in

the air but that is a story for them to tell.

Before it went up in the air Steve spent many an

hour assembling the parts and building the

balances tuner that feeds the antenna. The

following is the tuner diagram.

The following photo shows the tuner before

placed inside a weatherproof container made

from a 50-Cal. Ammo box.

Steve obtained/fabricated some real open-wire

600-ohm transmission line to feed the antenna

and fabricated a center feedpoit using ceramic

strain insulators.

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After it was up in the air and adjustments made

with the tuner Steve’s experience with his new

Double Extended Zepp has pleased him no end.

He is working 40-Meter DX with ease and

made the following observations:

Steve is very pleased with his 40 Meter EDZ and

should give W1ZE and his rotary 40M SteppIR

dipole at 55-feet a run for his money.

Steve did a presentation of the EDZ at the ARRL’s

New England Convention in Foxboro in September

where the above power point slides were used.

After the convention the following comments were

made about Steve’s presentation:

Hi All, Although I won't be able to attend this meeting, as I

will be in Massachusetts that weekend, I just want to say that

I attended Steve's presentation at Boxboro and thought it

was absolutely excellent. Here is what two friends

said:

Hi_Steve,

Sorry I had to leave the session at 11 for another meet-

ing today, but I did hear your talk in total. It was very

well done.

Two friends, neither of whom knew that I knew you,

came up to me afterward and asked if I had heard it –

they both felt that it was the best talk they heard at the

convention and really liked the way you knitted it all

together from VOCAP through design, top-level con-

struction, to positive results. LOTS OF WORK for one

[very important] Q! --73, Larry W1DYJ

Well done Steve.

People you may know

Photo By Marjorie KX1I

Leisure time at the 2016 Windsor Hamfest

Bobby Donohue W1JX, Tom Donohue W1QU,

Bruce Randall W1ZE, Dan Lindsley N5AGG &

Harry Mcnelley N1TTT

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Midcoast

ARES/CERT

members attend

Lincoln County EMA

Event

Reported by the MARAs photo journalist

Marjorie Turner, KX1I

On Saturday September 17th a group of hams

from Midcoast ARES/CERT and MARA at-

tended the Lincoln County EMA event held at

and in front of the Lincoln County Courthouse

where the County EMA set up their portable

command post to demonstrate to the public it’s

capabilities.

The Ham attendees were: Norm Bosse (W1MKD),

Harry McNelley (N1TTT), John Goran (K1JJS)

Ed Wynn (N1WY), Marjorie Turner (KX1I) and

Dick Michael (AB1YX).

Inside the courthouse the Lincoln County ARES

Hams set up and demonstrated their communi-

cations ability with various digital modes using

the FLdigi programmed into their computer.

Kudos to all.