Chapter 4

9 April 2006

Melody, Sebastian and I are coping. Not thriving, but coping. I cannot believe how much I miss my sweetie. I know it knocks my Manliness Factor down about ten pips, but there it is.

As a method of keeping busy, I decided to make a new antenna for my Tempo to feed.

A cruise through the Junque Box revealed a bunch of 300-ohm TV twinlead from some forgotten project and a surfeit of 18-ga stranded bare wire. A cruise through my old ham radio magazines - and my 1994-vintage RSBG handbook - told me to build a parallel dipole for 75 and 20.

I cut two lengths of the twinlead to make a half-wave on 14.2MHz. One end was shorted; this end attaches to the center insulator. One wire on each twinlead section was then attached to enough 18-ga copper wire to make up the legs of the 75m doublet (cut for 3.9MHz).

A trip to the shopping center gleaned the rest. From Home Depot came some stainless steel bolts, nuts, and washers, as well as four 3/4" PVC couplers for end insulators. Total: $5.57, including tax.

From K-Mart came a polyethylene cutting board. Martha Stewart's gonna be ticked, but that cutting board - which cost me $4.23, by the way - not only made the center insulator, it also will make a couple more.

The most expensive bit was the coax. I was forced to go to Radio Shack for it, because it was Sunday and all the radio shops were closed. The truck stops around here carry coax for far lower cost than RS, but it only comes in 18' lengths, maximum. I bought 100 feet, and it was just enough.

The rest was just cable ties and solder. It went together without a hitch, but I didn't get a chance to string it up. Dammit!