Because we have to disconnect all antennas when we leave the station, I've made a PL-259-to-male BNC jumper for the IC-7300. I have a female UHF-to-female BNC adapter on order. BNC connectors are made for repeated disconnects and reconnects and easily handle 100 W. I'll make the same things for the LPDA transmission line. IC-9700 will get this, too. Managing antenna swapping will be a bit easier. Once the adapters arrive, I'll set it all up.
I was in the radio room installing jumper coax cables, labeling cables and feed lines and replacing batteries in the three digital multimeters we have up there. I decided to try for a match to the Skyhawk on 60 m using the LDG IT-100 autotuner. It works just fine and finds a perfect match. It will NOT find a match on 80 m, so this is about as low as we can go in frequency. Not bad. Not bad at all.
The antenna installation on the NWC is essentially complete; the tops of the DB224 antennas are waiting to have stays installed. Here is a brief rundown:
*New Antennas for W5TC/WX5NWC:*
* Skyhawk 3x10 HF triband yagi beam with special NWC mount for 4/3/3 elements on 10/15/20 m * Create CLP-5130-1N VHF/UHF 21 element log-periodic antenna for 50-1300 MHz * DB224 collinear dipole array for 2 m FM * DB404 collinear dipole array for 70 cm D-STAR/FM * Not yet installed: off-center fed dipole for 6-160 m; this will go on a mast to be secured to the steel antenna grid
