Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Mosley tested, shirts ordered

I assembled the Mosley beam tonight. It went together easily and tuned up nicely on 20m, 15m, and 10m. It is a little heavier than I had thought it might be, heavier than would comfortably sit on a Buddipole tripod and mast. I'll need to figure out how I'll hoist this new antenna in the air long before leaving for St. Kitts.
The final assembly called for holes to be drilled in the elements and screws inserted to finalize the element lengths. Upon further consideration, I'm not going to do this. Since I am not erecting the antenna permanently it might be better to simply put a turn or two of tape around the elements to hold them in place. There is sufficient overlap between the aluminum tubes that tape should hold it securely for the seven days we are on the island. I'll verify that this is sufficient this weekend when I use the antenna in the North American QSO Party contest.
By the way, the quick check of the beam tonight was done with the AntennaSmith. I continue to be impressed with this unit and amazed as to how much time it is saving me.

Finally, if you have visited the St. Kitts DXpedition web site you will have noticed the graphic for the trip of the islands and sea turtle. I created this design (along with the 100 Pound DXpedition logo and the logo for the BUMS VP2M trip). I'm no artist, but I get by. {grin} I took a few minutes yesterday and designed T-shirts on Cafe Press for Sandy and me. I had created T-shirts for the VP2M crew, too. I believe this is a great team-building and excitement generating opportunity. The shirts give everybody in your group a common identity and give members a concrete, tangible, and visceral link to their upcoming adventure. The print on demand places like Cafe Press provide a very affordable way to create items specially for your trip. If you do organize a group trip (or even if it is a little family vacation) you might want to consider a little "teamwear".

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