CarolinaPirate

Joe Biden on the CB Radio 10/26/2022. CB channel 38 LSB. 27.385 MHz LSB

Classic Radio Round Up videogate recorded on June 22, 2022. Thanks to Spitfire for recording the videogate from his location near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - U.S.A. Night Ranger is coming in sporadic E skip from the Charleston, South Carolina area about 550 miles away. Classic Radio Round Up is a weekly classic CB radio net that meets every Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time (EST/EDT United States) on CB channel 13 (27.115 MHz). Spitfire's classic CB radio is a Demco Super Satellite. Night Ranger is talking on a vintage 1980s Realistic TRC-451 40 channel sideband CB radio running on an Astron RS-7a power supply. The microphone is an Astatic D-104 TUG8 desk mic.

Kira Beagle loves to go see Momma and Daddy in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Zebra longwing butterfly in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. Three of them were migrating through my area in the Fall to go south.

Wire multi-band Lazy H antenna for covering 13 Mhz to 30 MHz including the CB band. 1/2 wave elements and 1/2 wave vertical spacing at 27 MHz (The CB Band). Read the full description below for helpful hints on building the antenna. These are a few things I learned while making the Lazy H antennas that are not in the books. 1) Make sure the ladder line coming away from the antenna is perpendicular to the plane of the antenna for at least a wavelength. Initially I had the ladder line coming away from the antenna at a 45 degree angle, and it skewed the radiation pattern of the antenna in the direction of the ladder line. 2) Adjust the length of the ladder line from the antenna to the balun at the tuner so that a minimum amount of inductance is required to tune the antenna tuner. If the length requires a large amount of inductance at the tuner the balun will get much hotter even at power levels way below the balun's specified rating. 3) Ladder line is affected by water, so expect the SWR to change sharply when the ladder line is wet. The SWR will return to normal once the ladder line is dry. 4) The vertical ropes used to set the spacing between the top and bottom elements will stretch over time and change the top to bottom element spacing. Take the antenna down after a few months and remeasure the length of the vertical ropes. I have seen the length increase by as much as a foot and a half over the first year. 5) Make sure the balun you are using is good. The built in balun on my antenna tuner was crap and prevented the antenna from working correctly on the first few tries. I replaced it with an external 4:1 balun and a short jumper. The Lazy H lit up and performed as expected once the bad built in balun was out of the picture.

Palomar 200x linear amplifier - Dumb stuff CB'ers do. Just a rant and friendly warning to CB'ers with poor judgement. I actually had five 6js6c tubes that would have worked in this amp, but why give them to someone who would just burn them up. I sold them to a Yaesu FT-101 owner instead. ============= UPDATE: The bonehead that burned up this amp burned up a six tube Elkin a few months later. He still has not learned his lesson. He sold it to someone else in non-working condition. I still have the amp. Maybe one day when I am bored I'll replace the 12 pin tube sockets with some 9 pin sockets I have lying around and convert it to cheap 6km6 tubes with no driver tubes since I have plenty of those.

Mint condition 10 tube D&A Phantom amplifier

Restored D&A Maverick 250 with cheap 6km6 tubes in the final section and 6jg6a tubes in the driver section. New filter capacitors, plate choke, keying tube choke, tuned input trimmer capacitors (driver and final), restored bias and metering circuit, repaired sticking relay on SSB setting, and repainted the outer shell case.

Restored four tube D&A Raider converted to cheap 22jg6a tubes. New filter capacitors, new trimmer load control (Arco 304m), new 12 volt (10 amp contacts) relays, installed 5 inch computer fan, and converted to use cheap 22jg6a tubes in grounded grid class B. 22kv6a tubes can also be used. UPDATE: Since Radio Shack is now bankrupt you can use this transformer instead; https://www.rfparts.com/f41x.html

Review of a restored four tube D&A Raider amplifier. New filter capacitors, new load control (Arco 304m), one new tube, re-painted case, and fixed various issues.

This is a two tube D&A Hornet amplifier I restored. It has new filter capacitors, load control, rf choke on the keying tube, and I added a bleeder resistor on the high voltage supply.

Large hail storm - Rock Hill, South Carolina - USA - May 2014

This video shows how to build a cheap and easy 1/2 wave vertical J-Pole CB base antenna for the CB band out of wire, 450 ohm ladder line, and coax. This antenna works as well as any end half wave antenna for the CB band. Construction time is about 20 minutes once you have the needed parts. 1) 8 feet 3 inches of 450 ohm ladder line. Cut 8 feet 3 inches and twist the 1 inch end together, but only on one side. Leave the other side open. 2) 17 feet 3 inches of 14 gauge stranded insulated copper wire. You'll actually need a few inches longer than that to twist the top end back around the insulator, but the total length of the wire after twisting around the insulator should be 17 feet 3 inches.