Quote from: gil on September 16, 2017, 04:12:05 PMI am thinking already how long a dipole could I fit in that wing?!

Gil

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Go end-fed, maybe lol.  I met a pilot that flew some long over-ocean trips in a piper archer back in the 1970s.  He had a wire antenna on a crank spool that was mounted next to him in the cockpit.  The wire exited the tail of the plane.  He had a small funnel attached to the wire to provide drag to pull the wire out and, I assume, keep it from whipping in the air as he flew.  I suppose he would crank in/out the right amount for a good match on the band he was on.  I wonder if he ever forgot to crank in the antenna before landing :o

Nice Hammerheads! 8) ;D
What a fun plane!  Unlike conventional bi-planes you aren't way back and between the wings where all you can see is fuselage in front and wing panels on either side.  The visibility in that plane looks fantastic.

You towed b.. b.... banners?!?!?!?  Wow!  That's some pretty hairy-chested stuff.  Low and slow but don't hook the ground(!), then grab extra weight and a ton of drag and fight your way back up to altitude. 

Joel, mega Dx on a rig you built yourself 8) .  Ham radio doesn't get much better than that!

You guys are killing me with all the great aviation memories :'( .  Not flying hasn't hurt this much in years ;D .


Gil, a Pietenpol!!!! ;D ;D .  That's the first plane I actually felt like I had a crush on.  I never got to fly one, but for years I planned on building one.  I had the plans, back issues of the International Pietenpol club news letters, etc.  I gave all that to a friend who actually did build a Piet.  I gave it all away because I bought a scratch built 80% replica of a 1933 Fairchild-22.



My wife and I flew it to Oshkosh from CA in '97 and the EAA liked it, and the fact we flew it 2,000 miles at 95mph camping under the wing, so much they did a little article on it and us.  Yes, it has no electrical system.

Awesome! 8)


I'll never forget my QSO with RI1ANT in Antarctica 10,700 miles away using my Ten-Tec R4020 and 63' wire EFHW antenna.  Power was probably 3W because shortly after looking up who he was, doing my happy dance and logging the contact, the rig switched itself off due to low batteries.
When the propagation God's are smiling on you CW is just amazing.

Joel,
Tri-Pacers (I call them flying milk stools), T-carts, Chiefs, Champs (I soloed in a 7BCM, 85 horse Champ) and building a Tailwind.  It's like you are talking dirty to me.  I'll be in my bunk (with an EAA magazine). ;D

Quote from: KK0G on September 13, 2017, 09:00:01 AM
I was not taught the third method of aerial navigation, pilotage and dead reckoning yes, but smellage no. LOL

My wife was in the front hole on a long trip and pioneered Nasal Navigation after smelling a few things before we got to them(head winds) or once we were abeam them (cross winds)  Looking on the chart to find what we smelled really helped pass the time.

Quote from: caulktel on September 13, 2017, 10:58:09 AM
Back in my flying days, I bought a Piper Vagabond, (PA-15), for $2500 which was nothing but a clipped wing Cub with a short fuselage. It was a cute little plane after restoration. I miss those days, but I'm too old and too broke to fly anymore.

Joel
N6ALT

A Vagabond?  Nice 8).  I love short winged Pipers.  +1 for being a rag and tube tailwheel pilot.  I owned a Stinson Voyager for a bunch of years, but if I was smart I would have gotten a Pacer.  Similar size and performance with much less maintenance.

Have a great time.  Sadly I almost never hear France, at least from the antenna in my upstairs office.  But if I see you active and DroidProp says there's a chance, I'll move to the basement where my 180' long-wire comes in.

Great that you're flying again!  I'm not and really miss it.  I looked up that Moto du Ciel.  Ha, it looks like a 21st century, open cockpit equivalent of the Paper Cup,...er... I mean Piper Cub.  Great, great fun!  I've got 100s of hours in open cockpits and on the good days you can navigate with your nose ;D.  The smell of things like saw mills, paper mills, stock yards and garbage dumps have gotten my attention, then I looked to find them on the chart.  It made a nice cross-check to my pilotage and ded-reckoning.  That, or a good indicator of the wind direction (I miss dirty, smoky factories when I fly non-GPS lol).

Quote from: gil on September 12, 2017, 02:55:56 PM
Darn, I thought it had a built-in USB charger. I have one on order and will buy more.

Genasun has solar chargers for these batteries, so it might be time to order one  and a lead/acid model..

Gil

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At least it has a protection board (non-balancing) so you don't need a smart charger, though I think it would be a little better to have one.

2A and 2A.  I trust that's during Tx, not Rx.  Even so, that's a lot for a 4W CB radio, unless that includes the cough emergency cough amp.  My 100W, all mode, all band ham rig (FT-857) draws about 0.7A during receive.  Receive current is the one I pay attention to since I tend to be listening 90% of the time.

A battery capacity meter would be nice to have.  Much better than just Volts.  I just took a quick look and they exist but I have no idea which ones are good.

Hi NF822WNY (wow, that's a mouthful)
Welcome to the forum! 

I don't think anyone here is going to give you a hard time about CB.  Most of have a CB in a box somewhere, just in case the SHTF.  There's probably more CBs out there than ham rigs, so lots of information will be flowing out on 11meters.

I'll ask the standard Radioprepper's question.  How much current does the rig draw in receive?  Batteries are expensive and heavy so I don't go overboard on the size. I figure 12-20hours of listening is a big enough battery.

I'm not much help on your questions.  I just have a little advice on the Charge Controller.  You only need one rated for the amps the solar panel will be putting out, plus some margin.  For power supplies and similar things, I try to buy one that is rated for at least 30% more than I need.  That is, if the radio draws 8A in Tx, I'll probably get a 12A power supply so it's only at 67% max.  As far as brands go, I don't have any advice.

Again, welcome aboard.  That's a fun project you have going there.

I'm almost done tinkering with a step-up converter so I can re-charge the pack from a standard USB port or USB charger.  None of the step-up converters have current limits on their outputs and the ones I linked in post #3 above put out enough current into a discharged bank of batteries they get too warm and will easily pull down a 1A USB port.  So, I'm adding a transistor, 2 resistors and a capacitor to add limiting to the output.  Naturally my first attempt oscillated so I calculated new loop values but haven't had the time to test it.

When I'm done I'll be able to plug the USB-12V charger's input into my battery pack's USB output and I'll plug the charger's output into the same battery pack's 12V port and the pack can charge itself :o ;D

Wow Joe.  That doesn't sound good.  Are there links you could post on this?  I have friends in central CA that would be interested.

Nice video.  Have you "tested" it?

http://mightyohm.com/blog/2012/02/feed-your-geiger-readily-available-radioactive-test-sources/This site shows some mildly radioactive items we all have access to, like granite counter tops and old radium dial watches.  From your description I'm guessing it might not be sensitive enough to pick up what comes off granite.

If I'm still this twitchy about this topic by this weekend I think I'm going to get one of those little Geiger counters. :P


Uh oh, I just looked at the reactors in France.
Dude, you're as screwed as me ;) .   Probably worse because it seems the ISIS guys are much more active within 500 miles of you.




And the map above doesn't show the 42 other reactors in the countries that border France.  At least the prevailing winds for you seem to come from the west and you're pretty close to the coast, but there's 3 in France you are directly down wind of :P

Nice!  I just looked and those aren't as expensive as I expected (high $20s to mid $30s).