Memorable Memorial Antenna Project

kc0isu writes "This weekend, I finally dragged myself to Home Depot to get the pieces and parts to build this HF loop antenna I dreamed about for almost a year.



This is a "memorable" project to do over the "Memorial" weekend. I remember seeing stats on this octagonal project and how great it is for poor little apartment renters like me. I went to the store, and headed to the copper pipe section. I brought my own tape measure and the jumbo variable capacitor to make sure everything measured correctly.



I picked out the copper pipe, and because I had a tape measure, I discovered some things hadn't been precisely cut to length. Swap that one out with another piece of stock, and head down the aisle...



I found a sales clerk and held up this big variable capacitor. "I need to mount this on a piece of wood. Can you help me?" She led me to a section with L-brackets. There were also nuts and bolts there. She started to look around, and I noticed the holes on the capacitor were threaded. She took one brief look, and picked out a threaded bolt from a huge display with thousands of choices, tested, and confirmed it was the correct size. "Good eye." She deserves some sort of Elmer award.



I swung over to a buddy's house to borrow a propane torch and pipe solder. After getting all the pieces and parts, I headed back to the pad to cut up the pipe with the little cutter I bought, and sand the ends off. Lit up the torch and starting putting things together. I was real slow and cautious, especially with this torch. I also remember another ham citing "I wanted this to be a 2-dimensional, not 3-dimensional antenna."



Great weekend to sit on the sidewalk outside my apartment and make a mess! Well, I turned off the torch because it was getting dark. "Pick it up again Sunday afternoon." I wasn't real familiar with propane torches. It wouldn't light again; kept blowing out the match. I figured it was empty, so bought another fuel cannister. I saw the same thing happen, and discovered where to properly hold the lit match. Well, the $2.50 wasn't a real blow to my pocket, after investing this huge sum of $40 on the other parts. I guess I'll donate it to my friend that loaned me the torch fixture.



Not quite done. It's all soldered together, but I still need to fetch some other bolts from the hardware store to mount the thing. But it looks delicious. Can't wait to finish it up, and hoist it up the palm tree sitting outside my unit, and hear those signals come flying in.



Well, that's MY thought of a memorable, Memorial weekend. What's yours?"