{"id":2359,"date":"2015-02-08T18:34:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-08T23:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wr4cc.org\/?p=2359"},"modified":"2015-02-08T18:49:28","modified_gmt":"2015-02-08T23:49:28","slug":"th-53m-assembled-and-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/?p=2359","title":{"rendered":"TH 53M &ndash; Assembled and Tested!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> The weather was nice enough today to spend a little time outside 65 F and Clear \u2013 light wind.&#160; I picked up some stainless screws to replace the ones that were slightly bent, probably during disassembly.&#160; Also replaced two driven element standoffs insulators and two trap covers that were cracked (age).&#160; Since the color codes had worn off, I checked the dimensions given in the manual only to discover I had installed the driven elements backwards. Swap those and checked all the fitting for tightness and plumb.&#160; With all the elements in the right place and tightened, all that was left was to connect the feed line and fire that puppy up!<\/p>\n<p>I reduced the power on the FT897D to 10 watts, installed the SWR bridge, and fed her a little RF.&#160; The SWR looked good in the middle of the 20 meter band \u2013 right on spec 1.7 : 1. Bumped the power up to 90 watts \u2013 no change.&#160; I ran the same test on all bands \u2013 low and higher power \u2013 both ends and the middle of the band.&#160; The antenna performed exactly per the spec on all five bands.<\/p>\n<p>Ok, now the real test! Checked into the MMSN on 14.300 \u2013 S6 \u2013 15 db above the noise in FT Worth.&#160; Then the Ten Tec Net S9 in Atlanta, Georgia, then the AMSAT net \u2013 S9 in Houston \u2013 all with the Antenna pointing due East \u2013 3 ft off the ground on saw horses.&#160; <\/p>\n<p>Can\u2019t wait to get this puppy up at 50 ft and she what she can really do!&#160; Check out the photos below.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wr4cc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/IMG_4712.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"IMG_4712\" style=\"border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-bottom: 0px\" height=\"369\" alt=\"IMG_4712\" src=\"http:\/\/wr4cc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/IMG_4712_thumb.jpg\" width=\"552\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wr4cc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/IMG_4710.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" title=\"IMG_4710\" style=\"border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-left: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-bottom: 0px\" height=\"369\" alt=\"IMG_4710\" src=\"http:\/\/wr4cc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/IMG_4710_thumb.jpg\" width=\"552\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Soon, real soon!<\/p>\n<p>73 W4AUE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>The weather was nice enough today to spend a little time outside 65 F and Clear \u2013 light wind.&#160; I picked up some stainless screws <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/?p=2359\" title=\"TH 53M &ndash; Assembled and Tested!\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wr4cc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}