Pete-K4JAC Antenna Work

After breakfast this morning, Mark-KA4CID and I went over to Pete's-K4JAC house to give him a hand taking down an antenna that he needs to do some repair work on.  It's a vertical antenna that's mounted on a mast up on the roof.  Pete's wife told him that he was too old now to get up on the roof.  Pete turned 83 today!  So that means that 82 must be the cutoff age to climb up on the roof for the rest of us now! 

Mark and I climbed up and after disconnecting the radials, some guy wires, and cutting the mounting hardware, we were able to lower the antenna down to the ground.  Pete's gotta do some straightening of the tubing that was bent in a wind storm.  Once he's got that done then we'll go back over and help him put it back up.  Sure was good to spend some time with Pete.  He's got a wealth of knowledge about radios. antennas, and electronics in general. 

While we were there Pete showed us an old Heathkit organ that he put together back in the 60's.  I never knew Heathkit did those!  But that thing is packed with electronics.  What an interesting piece.  Pete's wife says it still plays as well as it did when Pete built it.

Pete has a great supply of old parts and test equipment.  He knows that Mark and I are both in the process of restoring vintage radios and he told us not to buy any parts that we might need, to check with him first since he probably has whatever we're looking for.  What a great guy. 

Pete's antenna farm on the rooftop

Mark disconnecting feedline and radials

Mark-KA4CID

Mark is not 83 years old yet so he can climb on the roof

Vertical antenna safety on the ground

Pete gave Mark an piece of test equipment that he needs to work on the vintage radio he's restoring

Pete showing us the Heathkit organ that he built back in the 60's

"Under the hood" of the Heathkit organ

"Under the hood" of the Heathkit organ

"Under the hood" of the Heathkit organ

Formal Message Handling Class

Had a great formal message handling class tonight here in Savannah.  Thanks to our Georgia Section Traffic Manager, Charles-K4GK for making the trip from Sandersville to deliver his informative training session.  If anyone knows how to move a piece of traffic, it's Charles!  Lord knows he's been doing it long enough.  We're fortunate to have operators like Charles in Georgia.  What a great asset he is.

Charles covered the use of the ARRL Radiogram Form as well as the ICS213 Message Form.   Charles also explained the Nation Traffic System and how a message is move thru it.  It was a great interactive session with lots of good questions.



We had about 15 operators in attendance tonight representing Chatham, Effingham, Bulloch, and Liberty Counties.  Kevin-KW4B was able to arrange for us to meet in one of the training rooms at the Candler Hospital IT Building.  Great facility for training.

Now it's up to us to pratice what we've learned so that we'll be ready and able to pass traffic in and out of our neck of the woods.  We plan to continue to incorporate traffic handling during our local drills and exercises and we also plan to have some local practice nets.

Charles, K4GK imparting wisdom

This is what it's all about

Charles, K4GK - Georgia Section Traffic Manager

Hallicrafters S-53A Update

Got to spend a little time today working on the S-53A.  Still needed a 5Y3GT rectifier tube so I got the suggestion from Ralph-W4REQ to check with Pete-K4JAC.  I emailed Pete and sure enough he had an old 5Y3 in his stash and told me to come on over and pick it up.  So on the way to church tonight I stopped by Petes and got the tube as well as some diodes and a tube base in case I want to build a solid state rectifier instead.  Pete also drew up some nice diagrams for me to follow if I go that route.  What a swell guy.  Pete needs some help lowering one of his vertical antennas so he can do some work on it so I told him I'd come by sometime and give him a hand.  Seems like a fair trade.  That's what I love about ham radio! 

After church I went ahead and took the case off the radio so that I could clean out the glass from the old broken tube.  Also found the washers and nuts that are supposed to hold the transformer to the main assembly.  These nuts had evidently come off at some point and allowed the transformer to come loose and hit up against the rectifier tube thereby shattering it.  Got it secured now.  Gonna do a thorough cleaning on the inside while I have everything apart.  Also need to replace a toggle switch that controls "Standby/Recieve".  I'll start searching for one of those next.  The dial face is also bent inward and is causing the tuning for the Bandspread and Frequency to be obstructed.  Still trying to figure out what I need to do about that. 

That's it for tonight.  I'll work on it some more this week.



View of the back with the case off



Serial Number

Underside Circuitry

Some of the broken tube glass that was floating around inside

Replacement 5Y3 Rectifier Tube that I got from Pete-K4JAC

Replacement 5Y3 Tube that I got from Pete-K4JAC.  Note the diagrams that Pete drew up for me.

Broken glass inside the radio

Speaker

Closeup of some of the components

Veterans Day Special Event Station WW2COS Day 2

Had another great day at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum celebrating Veterans Day.  Several of us met for breakfast at the Cracker Barrel before heading over to the museum to handle communications support for the 2nd Annual "Flying Fortress 5k" run.  Steve-K4SDJ acted as our net control station and several other radio operators positioned along the race route to report position of lead and trail runners and to notify of any injuries or accidents.  The race was a great success and the museum now has more funds to spend on restoring the B-17 "City of Savannah".

While the rest of the team was helping with the race I went ahead and started getting the radio compartment ready for our special event.  Got the antennas connected, aircraft powered up, and radio equipment up and running.  Also set up the webcam for the video feed so that folks could watch us across the Internet.  Everything was working great and I was able to start making contacts on 20 meters well before 0900.  Enjoyed making contacts with other hams all across the country and telling them about the B-17 restoration project. 

When the race ended several of the hams that helped came inside and stuck around for a little while as well as many of the runners.  This gave all of us a great opportunity to interact and explain to folks what we were doing in the the radio compartment.  As usual we had the audio set up to be heard by everyone in the combat gallery.  This really generates alot of interest around the aircraft. 

As the day wore on I had some great opportunities to take several of my friends and thier families on tours of the aircraft.  I'm getting pretty good at telling the "City of Savannah" story!  And I love it.  Right around noon Kevin-KW4B took over on the radio station so I could get a break.  Right around that time my old Air Force buddy and former tech school instructor arrived at the museum.  Tony flew in for the day from his home near Washington DC just to tour the museum and spend some time on the aircraft with us.  It was great to grab some lunch with Tony and give him the grand tour of the aircraft and show off all the great things that the team has done over the last three years.  Before you know it, it was time for Tony to head back to the airport.  Sure was great to see him after all these years.  He is a true patriot.

Kevin took off around that time too and I took over on the radio station again.  Made several more contacts and just spent the rest of the time listing to some shortwave broadcasts on the 70 year old BC-348 Reciever.  Boy that thing sure sounds good.  I started shutting things down around 4:45 or so.  Shut the radios down, turned the video feed off, killed the aircraft power, disconnected the battery charger, disconnected the external antennas, and packed up all my stuff.  Basically ran the "post flight checklist". 

Sure was a great day playing radio and celebrating Veterans Day.  Looking forward to our next event.....perhaps Pearl Harbor Day?



Ahh...breakfast




The race crew....Don-KK4AMD, Paul-KJ4FAV, Fred-KK4AMB, Mac-AF4KL, Irene-KF4RFF, Caleb, Lester-KF4JBQ, Steve-KD4HDQ, Ken-W4JKG, Peter-KJ4FAW, and taking the picture is Steve-K4SDJ



Kevin-KW4B and the radio operator position

My old Air Force buddy Tony in the radio compartment

Tony at the radio operator position

Tony and me in front of the "City of Savannah"

Laptop on the floor of the radio compartment providing video feed to the Internet

Veterans Day Special Event Station WW2COS Day 1

We had a great time at the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum today operating amateur radio station WW2COS from the radio compartment of the B-17 "City of Savannah".  Steve-K4SDJ and I arrived onsite around 0800 and promptly connected our exteranl antennas for HF and VHF/UHF.  Jeff Hoopes arrived shortly thereafter and we got the 12v and 24v distribution up.  Double checked all electrical and RF connections then fired up the BC-348 and the Kenwood ham station.  Steve setup the information area outside the aft hatch and and spent most of the day interacting with museum visitors.

I got some good comm checks on the HF rig and the dual bander and then turned my attention to the 70 year old BC-348 Reciever.  Uh oh, trouble.  The tuning knob will not turn and frequency indicator wheel is blank.  Hmm....time to open it up and see what's going on.  I pulled the case off and was able to get a good look at the tuning knob gears.  There is a leaver of some kind that locks the gear if the tuning knob goes past a certain point in the frequency band.  I freed up the leaver and tuned the knob back into the band.  Tuning knob now turning freely and the frequency range is now visible in the window.  Whew!  Slid the unit back in the case and powered it back up.  Good to go. 

Takes a good hour or so for the tubes to warm up and the occilator to stabilize so I began to make some contacts on the ham station.  The bands were in pretty good shape and the station performed pretty well today.  After several local radio operators came through for a visit I got streaming video feed up and running so folks good see us operating in the compartment.  Had the feed streaming here to my blog.  Seemed to work real well.

Spent the rest of the day making contact with hams all across the country and talking with visitors to the museum.  Toward the end of the day Henry Skipper, the CEO of the museum asked me if I would do a quick interview with the local ESPN Radio affiliate who was doing a live broadcast from the museum for Veterans Day.  It was fun.  Got to talk about our involvement with the restoration project and what it's been like to work with 70 year old radio equipment. 

Radio interview complete, it was time to shut things down for the day.  Powered everything down, killed the video feed and packed things up.  Looking forward to doing it all over again tomorrow.  We'll be at the museum early in the morning to provide communications support for the "Flying Fortress 5K" race that raises funds for the project.  After the race, we'll be back on the air with WW2COS.

WW2COS ready to go with our new callsign plate

BC-348 out of it's case to troubleshoot and repair tuning knob



Not how you want to start the day......with a broken radio!



2nd Annual "Flying Fortress 5K"



B-17 "City of Savannah" Veterans Day Special Event Station WW2COS

The Coastal Amateur Radio Society in Savannah will be operating special event station WW2COS from the radio compartment of the B-17 "City of Savannah" to commemorate Veterans Day. We will be operating a combination of vintage and modern radio gear and will be streaming live video from the compartment. QSL information and link for video stream can be found at our QRZ.com entry for WW2COS.









Date: Nov 11, 0900 til 1700 est
         Nov 12, 0900 til 1700 est

Freqs: 28.375 MHz
           14.265 MHz
             7.290 MHz

Savannah Rock & Roll Marathon Support

Had a great time today providing support for the inagural Rock & Roll Marathon in Savannah.  Along with 22 other local amateur radio operators, we provided time clock setup and monitoring at each mile marker along the 26.2 mile course.  Hats off to everyone on the team as we all had to be in place and ready to go before the race started at 0730.  The weather was absolutely gourgeous to be outdoors.  Steve Jonas, K4SDJ did an outstanding job coordinating and planning our participation in the event over the last couple of months.  Steve was also our net control station today and everyone really did a fine job on the net. 

I really enjoy supporting these type of events and they give us a great opportunity to exercise our comm procedures and show our capabilities to the public.

The team picking up our time clocks on Thursday night

All radio operators got a Race Crew t-shirt

Everyone had a race clock to setup and monitor

Guy-K4GTM at Mile Marker 23

Cases for the three clocks that I set up

Dan-KF4MND at Mile Marker 6

Ted Moore's crew......Shane, Colby, Frederick-KK4AMB, Matthew-KJ4HAB

Somewhere along the course in beautiful downtown Savannah

Yep, Elvis was there!  Four of him, that I counted anyway.