My Name is Mark Thomas - KJ4SLY

Are you a New Ham?
Here are some links for you..
How to become a Ham Operator (Tips for Getting Ready for your Tests and making sure you pass and are more knowledgable on your way.)
Buying your first Radio/Antenna/Power Supply. (Also Satellites and Echolink) (Buying your First Set of Equipments, and some information about Communicating using Satellites and Echolink)
Local Repeaters in the Western North Carolina Area.
Lots of little information after you get started (DIPOLE TUNING CHART)
Some Personal Projects of Mine.
For Starters Building a Screwdriver Mountfor my Truck. It will take me quite a while to move my other projects to this website.
Or a Cheap and Simple Power Distribution Block.

If you want to see how excited a newbie can be, you can read a bit further.. I built this site to copy to www.QRZ.com just after I got licensed and run got on HF.

My First QSL Card is below: ( A Frozen part of the River just up from my house from days before my license arrived)
My Second QSL card is here: (The upper Nantahala Cascades on Wayah Road, up the river from my place) A bit nicer card, and much less expensive than most other QSL cards.
I designed a form in Word, set the paper to very thick card stock, and print two types of info on the back of the card. Either a standard card I can use, or a card like a post card, that can be addressed, stamped and mailed like a post card. The forms I use are here, converted to PDF. The photos are printed for about .09cents each, and then I print the backs with a laser printer. They are nice looking cards now. My first was color printed with an Inkjet printer, then a Color Laserjet where the cartridges cost darn near as much as the printer did.

My first Temporary Mount of the Radio.. I had to get on and see what this was all about. In my kitchen for all places..

My radio experience started off with me needing a radio setup for my White Water Rafting Company. I needed a way to keep track of 30 employees, 5 mini busses and 3 large busses over an 8 mile stretch in the Nantahala River Gorge. Sounds easy,,, Right? I bought two dual ht radios and thought I would verify that it would work perfectly, and then buy everything I needed 8 miles???  Thats when I met a few Hams in the local area that were willing to give me a hand That is where it all began

After some time, the company project was in use, and I started listening to my buddies here and there. I decided to take a test, so I could be a Hambone too, and say hello to my new buddies from time to time.

I took and passed my Tech and General tests the same day, 2/13/2010. I showed up in the FCC Database on 2/24/2010. Shortly after that, I purchased my first HF rig. It sat in a box from then until 12/10/2010. While the Kenwood TS-480SAT and Laptop sat in the box. My test instructor told me about the Horse wire antenna he was using,  so I bought my first antenna.
Since then,,, I decided to upgrade to Extra. I took my Extra Test on 12/10/2011, and it showed up on 12/21/2011. My Mother passed her Technician test on the same day 35 out of 35, and got her call sign the same day mine was upgraded. Her call is KK4FWG, and I just applied for her Call to change over to KK4MOM, since it fits her better.. Ha... Also, Ruth my Grilfriend passed her test the same day 34 out of 35, and her new call is KK4FWF.. We had a little fun and checked into the net together the night they got their calls.


I bought a Stainless Steel Broadband Antenna from Norris Price (KF4BWG.com). It is a webbing that has 16 strands of stainless steel wire weaved into it. The kind that is used for Electric Fence for horses.
I used this antenna for a while, and during the first winter, a huge branch came down and hosed things up pretty bad. I made my next antenna and 80M wire dipole tuned for 3.902, and tunes fine with the internal tuner of the Kenwood TS-480SAT (4to1 or less to tune), 80-6 meters, except 40 meters. I built a resonant dipole for 40 meters. Now, I'm set for a bit.

My QTH is not the most Radio friendly place to be. I live in the bottom of the Nantahala River Gorge west of Bryson City, NC. As you can see from the next few pictures, the Mountains are not friendly to the QTH, but, being able to live here is worth it. The mountains are higher than they seem 300 to 500 feet above the highest tree on my pro perty.  But, I seem to get out of here fairly well.

This is my view to the west. My Rafting Company sign lit up in the parking lot, and some of my mini and larger school busses covered with snow.

My north view of the Nantahala River and the mountains. The little cabins on the river are for my guides that work for me during the Summer months. there are 6 cabins on this piece of property. As you can see,, the mountains are quite high. It is only 250 feet to the river from my QTH on the hill.

This is directly behind me, to the South. Another mountain range, but further back in the distance. Probably 800 feet to the base of the rise.

Alot of the trees around the house are 100+ feet. An average larger tree is 115 to 130 feet high. A sling shot is a joke A compound Bow and Arrow works pretty good, but if you want to hang one at 70 feet,, the arrow gets a little carried away You need a good recurv bow, so you can adjust the strength of the launch Or,, better yet A well built antenna launcher would be much better.
I got tired of spending hours to put up an antenna, so I searched the Internet, found a couple of plans and decided to mix and match and built this guy.. Works absolutely great.

THE ANTENNA LAUNCHER MAGNUM


The Air Canister is 3" PVC Sched 40 24" long, and barrel is 1-1/2" x 5 feet Sched 40 pvc. The trigger is a modified Sprinkler valve with a air blower tip to trigger the sprinkler to release the air pressure. For the projectile, hard work and performance, or quick production and average performance. (BTW,, if they hit the cement, they shatter)

If I just need to get 70 to 100 feet, I use 3/4" PVC pipe, capped on both ends, filled with sand. A piece about 4 inches long with a screw eye works good. At 40psi, it will launch 70 feet consistantly. At 60, you can get 100 feet consistantly.
If you really want it to fly, take a 1" piece of pipe 3" long, cap both ends, and grind the caps down a bit, so you can push it down the barrel like a musket, with a little resistance. The tighter the fit, the farther it will go. 40psi will send it easy 150 feet. You can put 60psi in it, and fly it over two tall trees at the same time.

 

73's
Mark Thomas.