K9OZ ham radio blog

Here's more details on installing ham radios in Mini Coopers. On my R56 I used the heavy-duty Comet lip mount on the edge of the back hatch and had an ATAS 120 antenna on it. It worked well, and I could get into parking garages. When I was looking at trading the R56 for my Clubman, I assumed I could use the same mount on the center of the back doors. But I've spent days messing with it, and it just doesn't work well. The coax is just enough to bother the proper closing of the door. So at the moment, I'm confined to 2 meters and 440. I used a small lip mount on the club door -- I think that's what it's called, and it works OK. It isn't real pretty, but it isn't too obtrusive. Nobody has ever noticed it when looking at the car. Next summer I may try removing the AM antenna and putting a simple quarter-wave in its place. For the radio, I'm using a Yaesu 7900 with the radio mounted in the back cubbyhole under the false floor, and the control head attache...

My resolution for the new year, be a better blogger. I took some time off over the holidays and spent a lot of time playing with the radios. Mostly, it was nice rag chews on 40 and 80 meters, but I spent some time on the Stew Perry Distance Challenge -- a 160 meter contest -- and running mobile on 40 adn 20 meters over New Year's while driving to Memphis. I enjoyed getting back on CW mobile, but I'm afraid my trusty old Yaeseu FT 857 is seeing its last legs on HF. During a contact on the drive south, I unfortunately had stuffed a coat over the radio while packing the car, and the radio overheated and quit operating. It later cooled down and I got back on the air, but it died on me again part way through a contact. I should have known better, and broke one of the basic rules of mobile operation -- watch the ventilation around your radio. I've been discovering a bunch of IPhone apps for Ham radio. Some are very useful, some I wonder about. I can now practice sending CW with m...

I finished my road trip today, and worked more DX. I was working an East Coast station on 20 CW while driving through Des Moines, and SP5SA (Poland) broke in to see if he could get that county. I gave him that county, and we kept talking until I reached the next county line and he got Jasper County as well. He thanked me profusely. All this while I was driving 80 mph on I-8o. Later I heard LZ50KA (Bulgaria) calling CQ and answered him. He came right back, and that was another good contact. Not bad for using an ATAS 120 antenna on the back of the Mini Cooper.

This week I took a 900 mile drive to visit a friend in West Nebraska. That gave me a lot of mobile time. Here are some highlights. Early on the trip Monday I had a long contact with someone (his call escapes me) who I've talked to a few times from Pennsylvania. While we were talking he viewed this blog, and commented on the photos of the mobile setup. That's how it's supposed to work. Shortly after that I was calling CQ on 40 meters and W7AAZ/m came back to me. It turned out he was about 400 miles ahead of me on I-80, also heading west. We talked for about an hour, largely about mobile setups -- his was in a Corvette -- then both stopped for lunch at the same time. A half hour later I called him again, and we went for another half hour or so. Great mobile activity. Today I started the eastbound trip. This morning I was having no luck on 40 meters, so listened to the I-pod instead. Then this afternoon I switched to 20, and was still having minimal luck. So I settled in on a ...

Last week I had the Icom 7000 in the Mini Cooper, but was running the power for the radio from an accessory jack in the boot (trunk.)  That worked, but we all know that's not the best way to do it in the long term. Sunday morning I was on a Mini Cooper web site   and did a search for running power lines through the firewall. It turns out it was incredibly simple, with Mini leaving a space to do exactly that, and right next to the battery. So I now have a fused power line running direct from the battery to the radio in the boot. This solved a couple of issues, and I can now crank the power up to 100 watts without fear. Of course, I had to drive around a make a couple contacts. I am impressed with the 7000 as a mobile radio and am getting the hang of going to the right menu on the fly. I'm happy, and ready for the road trip to Dayton next month.