From Dayton I brought the Green Heron Wireless remote control. I want to use this for switching the 2 new 4 squares that I want to set up in the autumn. Switching is done on 2.3 GHz. You can make hot keys on the keyboard to switch the four directions. There is also the possibility to switch it with a touch screen. That is the way I am going to use it.
Finally home from Dayton Hamvention. On Sunday the flight from Dayton to New York had a delay. When I landed on Newark New York my flight to Amsterdam just left hi. I brought home some nice things like a remote switch system from Green Heron, a QS1R SDR radio to replace my SDR-IQ radio for the use of CW Skimmer and a touch keyer. Also bought another Green Heron RT21d rotor box to control another rotator.
I asked around on the SteppIr Yahoo group. Some hams told that SteppIr had used Mission boots for a short while but the are back to Femco boots which are better. Let me have the Mission boots… Today I wrote an e-mail to Vine antennas where I bought my antenna and Ron told me he would replace all the 10 broken boots for free. I only have to pay shipping. That’s what I call great service!
Today I turned down the Versatower so I could reach the element with the broken boots. I called Jan PA0VAJ who came to help me to move the 6 meter long ladder in the right position to the tower. Removing the elements was easy. To get them back was a little more pain. To be on top of a ladder and put with one hand a 5 meter long fiber pole in place was a no go. We decide to make something to support the element from the ground. Jan created a V on a piece of aluminum (see picture) and then it was an easy task. I had one spare boot and repaired another. Later I have to replace all the boots for better ones.
In the morning I replaced the crashed computer by an other one and made it running with wsjt and tested it it txed the tranceiver. After I came home from qrl at 2330 local I inmediately fired up everything and after calling in the big pile up I finaly worked PJ2/PE1L for dxcc 102 via the moon.