RAIN RAIN GO AWAY!  

AND TEST MODE QUESTIONS

 

Well progress on my MonstIR was interrupted today be landslides...

 
You may have noticed on the 5 PM news today that Multi $MM houses in La Jolla, CA have been sliding down the mountain.  With 20" of rain in a couple of months when we usually get less than 9" per year... disasters are no surprise... especially here in California..Great Weather 350 days a year and disasters (fires, floods, landslides and earthquakes) the rest of the time...
 
Shortly before 1 PM today, we heard a dull roar .. sort of like an earthquake...except without the vibrations...
 
The two houses across the street (actually 2 doors down) slid down the mountain.. One for sure in gone, a second is likely damaged and 4 houses below them on the mountain sustained damage...Looks like insurance does not cover Acts of G_D....There are fire trucks.. Gas lines broken...police barricades, every TV station in the world...and helicopters buzzing our street...and Real Estate Agents bottom fishing.... looks feels like a war zone....
 
I spent the day installing more drain pipes.and making sure the sump pump worked.... to move water off our property onto those below us... nice of me...but I think that they would rather have water than mud or my house...  Of course, with our house currently under construction, the pipes l installed look like a contractors interim work...to move the mud around....
 
Next rain is due on Monday... so we need to expedite as much of the MonstIR as possible...in between drainage work....
 
From a Ham point of view, I just lost 2 major obstructions to the SouthWest and will likely have 2 less neighbours to complain about the MonstIR...  So it may not all be bad news....

 

 

TEST MODE QUESTIONS

Since no one on the SteppIR reflector was able to answer my questions about the Test Mode, I call MikeM at the factory...
 
On regular 20M-6M units, when you go into Test Mode on teh SteppIR controller, you can select each element individually and it will extend about 18" and then retract.
 
On the MonstIR they did it differently.  They assumed that you would be installing the MonstIR according to their instructions... which is to build the elements first.. the 70' elements have 3/4" PVC internal guide tubes for the first 18' before the tapes hit the standard fibreglass tube part.. so if you follow their instructions, you would be testing the MonstIR connections when you had the 18' guide tunes installed... so you would need the tapes to extend 18' to see them..
 
Unfortunately for me, MonstIR # 1 is not being installed according to their instructions... this is a classic case of the best war plans failing at the first encounter with the enemy (me)....I have been constructing a wiring harness so that I can connect each element separately... this means that I need to be able to test the element motors individually on the ground before they are installed on the antenna..to make sure I have not got any wiring errors..
 
Well 18' of Be-CU tape shooting out of each arm at too many feet per second on my work bench is dangerous to say the least and hazardous to the antenna as a kink could result in permanent damage...
 
Solution:
 
The Steppir Controller has a Setup Mode wherein you can Create and Modify any antenna.. (the Steppir comes with 51 predefined Antennas in HAM Mode.. which in itself is rather cool)...
 
For MonstIR #1 Test Mode, I go into Setup Mode and define an antenna with say four 4.5" elements (... which is the minimum distance)...While still in Create Antenna Mode. I can select a specific element.. say the Driver.. and then using the UP/Down buttons on the controller, I can move the specific element in and out say 0.4" at a step...which is also really neat...In and out movement proves the wiring is OK..
 
I can now begin to understand why people love their SteppIRs so much... Using this same Create Antenna Feature, you can literally tune each of your antenna elements individually for minimum SWR or maximum F/B or maximum Gain....it is a true experimenters dream toy.. More important, it should enable you to optimize your antenna for your specific location by letting you tune out local interactions...
 
Had some hams over today to show off my wiring harness...it really impressed them to see elements Be-Cu tapes step in and out..
 
For you disaster watchers:
My house made the national news again tonite... at least the outlets of my new drain pipes where I am pumping torrents of water from the mountain did.. and so did the huge 100'+  cranes holding up the houses below me...[Now no one can complain my tower is too tall] ...Since the cranes are already here, I wonder if I could talk them into letting me borrow the cranes for a few minutes and turn them 180 degrees to install my MonstIR...Now that the torrential rains seem to be subsiding, I am sure those houses won't move that much further down the mountain while we install antennas.....

My XYL says I have a one track mind.. while the whole mountain around us seems to be sliding down into the sea, all I can think about is how to get the MonstIR on top of my 85' tower...and the one positive note is now that those two houses are further down the mountain my propagation to the SouthWest is much improved....