Hey Greg,
I didn't realize we sold you the Turbo J-pole. That costs an extra hundo......
Shhh....... Don't tell Mills, he will want one, too!!!!
OK, now I get it...the good stuff goes to the -9A guys...I see how it works!
On Greg's ping...is that for real, or an aprs.fi data glitch? I know Vlad's 185K is a data glitch, but Alan's friend's hit on the ISS is real (right?). Could an over 7K mile ping be real (skip, ducting, etc.)? Just wonderin'.
So Alan has the highest ping, Greg has the farthest ping, and Vlad has the highest altitude recorded...
...but perhaps I have the highest ping rate per minute and ping rate per mile with the following track, from a formation practice flight with 3 lead changes and a LOT of maneuvering:
Now that may not necessarily be a good thing, as upon landing I had a message from my wife that Alan had called and said I was pinging sites all over northern California nearly every 10 seconds (smart beaconing), and had some PO'd HAMs out there. I then realized I had my tracker in its secondary profile (for low altitude or sparse territory tracking, includes Wide 1-1 and Wide 2-1) rather than my primary profile (normal hi altitude X-C tracking, Wide 1-1 only). So I was spitting out red BB's during a lot of rendezvous turns and other maneuvering. As I mentioned in my VM Alan, my apologies...will keep it on PRI when doing form work!!
So its not a contest I'm trying to start, but just a sidenote to the thread...
Now this track was with a Howell J-pole, this time in the wingtip, in a "Flying M" configuration:
This configuration showed SWR sweet spots at 143 MHz (near 144.39) and at 152 MHz (near my SAR radio freq of 150.025), so its been working well, and is switchable between the Howell J-pole in my right gear leg. So far, so good, and I've removed one belly whip from my plane.
We're also working on testing J-poles, Bazookas (not bubble gum or weapons
) and even chopped and channeled belly whips in my other wingtip...so far not with a ton of success...but that's a topic for another thread...
Cheers,
Bob