Hello. I was an auto mechanic and had my smog licence for 20 yrs. Now I install sound attenuated engine rooms and back up generators from beginning to end. I also service gen-sets, plus demo of old gen-sets, mostly for AT&T.  The new ones are sized at 40kw to 3 megawatts

  Radio equipment, Palstar AT1500CV tuner, Radio is an I-Com 756 PRO III for HF, plus a couple of 2M handhelds. I monitor the marine bands on an old IC-M100. For a little HF horsepower I have an Ameritron AL811H amp with 572B Svetlana tubes.

  I use a DC battery string, with a MFJ-4416 battery booster, and can be on A/C or D/C with a flip of the switch. I am almost always on DC, for one less fan in the shack.

  I made a boom mic, converted from an old Dazor (1950's)"floating fixture" clamp on desk lamp. I removed the lamp assembly, and worked a mic holder to it. The mic is a ACM-1 ribbon by TNC, with the W2IHY 8 band eq.

  I also have made a wireless headset headset for my HF rig , completely wireless, 400ft range, how fun. What a hobby.

  My antennas are a vertical dipole made for 10m with four 45 degree radials that start at the middle (the top of the shield element) The vertical is made from two 1/2" conduit pieces with a spacer between. This is at 40ft.                             

  Then a simple SO-239 ground plane for 2 meter at 30ft.

  For HF, a rectangle 320ft. magnet wire loop at 40 feet high. Fed with Coax to a home made 4:1 balun, after that, ladder line to the loop. The shack is on the second floor. I had some issues with running my feeds and grounding.  With the tuner I can use the loop every where but 160m.

  So, the new antenna is a 30ft vertical. This is 4 Slinkys soldered together slid down three sticks of 2" pvc, Internally connected together with 1.5" pvc, then  a 3ft diameter capicity hat on top. Four slinkys are 268 feet of wire, ( approx 1/2 wave) end to end, but helical, and tunable. You just clip on at your prefered freq. at the bottom. I can tune from there if I change freq.  The coils are about 3/4" inch apart on the pvc. This works, and takes my full output of 800 watts. This has proven to be a poor antenna and is in a transisional state. Inverted slinky L ?

  Ain't makin antenna's fun??

  We are about 20 mi. North East of S.F. here in California. Well, thanks for visiting my bio, 73's,   

Eric Schreiber,KI6IBS,Pleasant Hill,California