K5ZD/1 Hardware Change Log

Construction of a successful station doesn't happen instantly.  Continuous improvements are the key to station maturity. The list below shows the station hardware at different points along the way.

October 2006

40-2CD became intermittent. Had to lower the mast and work on it to find and fix the problem.  Turned out to be a bad barrel connector (see picture). Now hoping I get another 12 years before I have to work on it again.

(click image to view full size)

Purchased used Yaesu FT-847 so son Andrew (KB1NXJ) can enjoy his technician privileges.

September 2005

Purchased Array Solutions BP-6 band pass filters.  This is the set of W3NQN filters that are all in one enclosure.

August 2004

Upgrading coax connections on 80 and 160 so they are on their own into the SixPak.  Needed to do this to optimize SO2R switching.

Added W8JI mods to FT1000D.  Mod to help close in strong signal response by turning off noise blanker and mod to reduce key clicks.

July 2004

Put up 5-ele 6m beam above the TH7DXX at 45'. Got transverter and amplifier working, so now QRV on 6m.

January 2004

New gamma match on 160m shunt fed tower and eliminated all cables coming off the tower above ground level. Added 32 1/4-wave radials.  Antenna now works!

October 2003

Bought Downeast Microwave 6m transverter, amplifier, and beam from K2UA.

December 2002

Put up 80m 4 square hanging from 90' tower. 8-12 radials on each element.

November 2002

Replaced Create RC5A-2 on Tower 1 with Tailtwister.  Create is great rotator but direction potentiometers keep failing.

October 2002

Ran separate coax to 80m Inverted vee.  No longer sharing with 20m.

Built switch to allow instant selection of South TH7 from either radio.

September 2002

Purchased FT1000D from K2RD.

July 2002

Purchased Array Solutions FM-6 band pass filter switcher.  Used some ICE band pass filters that I had from WRTC-96 for 40-10 meters.  Put this on the left FT-1000D.

August 2001

Moved 6-el 10m up to top of 90' tower.  Installed two 4-el Cushcraft 10m beams at 30' and 60'.  Feed all 3 antennas through WX0B stackmatch.

October 2000