[600MRG] WH2XGP status

[Larry]

With the exception of a couple hours, WH2XGP has been running WSPR 24/7 
since 25 June 2014, a few hours after the license was granted. Due to 
some planned upgrades/modifications/maintenance, I expect some downtime 
soon. Operation will start/stop without notice, so if you don't see me 
or I don't report your signal, you know why.

Some background:

The present station consists of an Icom 706 mk2 driving a homebrew 
transverter. The transverter uses a 3.0 MHz LO and the Icom tunes to 
3.475 without mods. The transverter produces 100 Watts output LINEAR so 
any modes can be used that I can produce with the ICOM.

The antenna is a vertical, about 34 feet overall, with the loading coil 
at about 24 feet above ground. There is a top load wire which runs up to 
one of my other towers and then sorta downward and away. The wire can be 
easily adjusted from the ground to achieve resonance. The ground system 
consists of 16 radials each 25 feet long extending away from a pressure 
treated 4x4 post set in the dirt. The 4x4 serves as a support for the 4 
inch irrigation tube vertical as well as the base insulator. Since the 
loading coil is up in the air where it belongs, there is very little 
voltage at the feedpoint and wood is just fine. No arcs, sparks, flames, 
or exploding ceramic insulators like I used to get with base loading!!

The loading coil is wound on a piece of 3" PVC conduit (the grey stuff). 
The conduit is UV stabilized and is a bit softer than regular PVC so it 
resists the cold WX and does not crack like regular PVC sometimes does. 
It is wound with #23 wire salvaged from the degaussing coil removed from 
an old computer monitor. The coil Q is high enough so that it's loss 
contribution is small compared to the ground losses.

The vertical is resonated at about 480 kHz. The ATU has a small series 
inductor with taps that are selected from the shack by small relays. The 
relays are the "TV" type, rated at 12 amps/125 volts and were purchased 
off ebay for $0.25 ea. No vacuum relays for this cheapskate! With 5 
relays, the entire 472-479 band is covered with low SWR.

Part of the planned downtime work is replacing the temporary guy ropes 
with permanent dacron, and finish WX proofing the loading coil. Winters 
get kinda tough here sometimes and I hope I can keep it all together 
until next spring.

Other work in progress is bringing up the Kenwood TS-590S and it's new 
400 watt amp. With a bit of luck, I should be back on the air with 6 dB 
more signal.

73,

Larry - W7IUV / WH2XGP
DN07dg - central WA
http://w7iuv.com