Ham Radio - Forty Years of Ham Radio

At the age of fifteen, I obtained my initially amateur radio license. I became interested in this pastime right after going to a neighbor’s home in the city the place I grew up. Doug Manza had a comprehensive ‘Ham’ Shack in his house and I listened to him talk on his transceiver to other hams from close to the earth. I had a brief wave radio that my dad had bought me and I was fascinated with this medium of communications.

Doug also launched me to Morse code and I studied a single total summer months listening to the code on a document at house. In individuals days, it was a requirement to find out the code which is a technique of dots and dashes, in order to get a newcomers license. After I had mastered this, Doug ordered the created examination for me and I handed it and received my Novice Course license from the FCC. My call sign was WN1EYO.

To get on the air, I purchased a 75 watt HT-forty transmitter which was powerful enough to transmit for a lot of miles on high frequency. I presently had my S-120 Halicrafters receiver, so it was an issue of putting up my antenna and developing my Morse code keyer. It wasn’t lengthy ahead of I was in operation. Code was received from all around North The united states and when atmospheric situation permitted, I could attain South The us too. Following an although, I had a total wall of QSL cards from many hams that lived in numerous states and provinces.

Eventually, I wished to discuss on the radio so I acquired a Gonsett Communicator II which had frequencies for two meters and 6 meters. This is the same unit discovered in several of the civil defense shelters at that time. These were the only channels a Novice was authorized to transmit in voice and only a narrow part of the bandwidth which necessary particular crystals to be plugged in. This opened up a total new planet although I continued to use the Morse code at other occasions. I talked routinely with many diverse hams. My close friend Burns had a teletypewriter in his shack and yet another by the identify of Al, was blind. It impressed me that Al could get his radio totally apart and put it again jointly. He could also perform on his car or truck and play the piano. I visited various of the guys at their homes and went to ham conferences and get-togethers.

Later on, I examined for a technician grade license and was then the operator of get in touch with indication WA1IZH. Amateur radio was an enjoyable hobby for me. Some of the hams who suggested me and supported me were Doug, Al McQuoid, Burns Getchell, Gene Merrithew and Roy MacLeod. These type males influenced and encouraged me at my youthful age. I will constantly bear in mind them. Later, I entered a profession in electronics with my initial work at Honeywell in Boston.

The devices nowadays is much a lot more innovative from all those early days of tube radios. In some way, the problem of constructing my personal gear was enjoyable and exciting again then. Some of my friends took up this pastime too. I attended gatherings from St Andrews, NB. to Swampscott, MA and met a whole lot of interesting folks both in particular person and about the air waves.

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do i need the cb ham radio antenna on the ground?

so i have this cb ham radio antenna and it is not on the ground, it is on the roof of my house. my house is not tall, just a normal regular house. do i need to put the antenna on the pole that is on the ground? and not on the roof? well my antenna is on the pole and its on the roof of the house. why is called ground plane antenna? and why do i need to put the antenna with the pole on the ground?

Answer
For a ground plane vertical to work correctly they need to be mounted above a conductive sheet or metal or a radial network.
This metal sheeting is called the ‘ground plane’.

If your house roof is made form metal roof sheeting , then this can be used as a ground plane surface , just in the same way it is used in a car antenna installation.

This is not however possible if you wish to raise the antenna base away from the surface of the sheeting , eg , on a pipe mast support above your roof.

If you want to get the antenna up on a pole you MUST replace the ground plane with radials.
Radials are wires connected to the base of the antenna and are approximately 1/4 wavelength long.
Typically they are angled slightly down for impedance matching purposes , which also makes them handy in some applications as guy wires.

Up on a pole you don’t have as bad an effect called ‘earth losses’ . this means that 4 radials may be all that is required to get the antenna to perform well. (but more the merrier)

Now if you mount your antenna at ground level the losses force you to use a considerably more amount of radials.
AM band broadcast stations use 120 radials ..!!!!!

Typically though no appreciable gain can be seen after you get past 20 – 30 or so radials.
The result of using less radials than required is poor radiation efficiency.
4 radials just wont cut it in this situation.

That all means that with a poor radials system ,. you have more wasted power , by comparison to a good radial system.

Another disadvantage of using a ground mounted antenna is signal obstruction due to buildings and trees etc.
Not only will these drop the strength of your incoming signals , but they also absorb your outgoing power, which means again , less overall effectiveness from the antenna.

Ground mounted verticals can work well ‘ONLY’ , if they are mounted in the clear and ‘ONLY’ when used against a suitable ground system.

Saying this , the fact is , most attempts of ground mounted verticals for CB fall far short of the requirements and often perform poorly.

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