The HX Files004

Hello and welcome to extract 004 from the HX files .      

 This file is about ATV/m and before I go on…………..
With the amount of government advertisements for the last few years telling us it is illegal to operate  /mobile with a phone or a microphone,(and I am sure a camcorder)  in your hand, you should have both hands onthe steering wheel at all times,unless using other parts of the car (ie the gears and indicators to name just two) . There are plenty of hands free kits for phones and radios available and a lot cheaper than a fine and /or a funeral .

As you should know the most dangerous part of any car is……THE NUT BEHIND THE WHEEL. After a talk about my QTH may not be a good one for ATV, as it is close to a hill in the north direction and other blockages to the south, I asked Michael EI5GG and the late Dermot EI2AK, did any of the gear work on 12 volts and when I was told that everything was available in 12 volts I said that’s good as I could always go portable or mobile. .

Portable and mobile on ATV sounded good to me if my QTH was as bad as I was been told . But as I said in previous files I could do quite a bit of ATV from home so I was happy with that for awhile. A few rallies later I had a bit of 12 volt equipment gathered and I said it was time to look at /portable and /mobile again .

Rigging any vehicle for the amateur radio hobby is not any easy task thanks to the design of the modern car interior, so fitting a camera or two and hiding the antenna coax, the dc and video and audio leads and a monitor could be messy. I did think of calling MTV and EXZBIT to pimp my ride but I said I would do it myself.

Instead of putting a camera on the dashboard, as it would be a distraction I decided to put a camera on the towing eye on the front of the car and as I would also go ATV/M at night I used an infrared camera. With it so low to the road it should give an interesting view and a small camera with its own remote control pan and tilt on the back shelf of the car looking out the back or it could be turned to face front and it could give an over the shoulder look.

Looking at the TV while driving is never a good thing even using an infrared camera with the car head lights off, you are not a Terminator, and if you crash you may not be back and it could be hasta la viva baby. I used a portable DVD player connected to the receiver board to listen to my TX video andaudio. I did not use an aerial as I could see and hear myself as the RX unit was only a few meters from the aerial and it was a good judge that I was getting out .

Fitting the slot aerial to the roof rack was an easy fix, with a clamp to the side of the roof rack and connecting an N type elbow connector to the slot aerial so I could attach the TX unit .Top picture shows the aerials and camera. The middle picture shows the infrared camera and bracket attached to the front towing eye on my car, the towing eye is only 13 inches (33cms) above the road. The bottom pictures shows the internal camera and its remote control pan unit .

Of course you have to be very careful with cable routing, making sure you stay away

from the exhaust pipe and any spinning parts of the cars engine, if you take the under

the bonnet (hood ) route. As I was travelling on my own I put the cables under the bonnet and from under the bonnet through the door seals. I had checked with an off cut of cable to see how tight or loose the cable was first to make sure there would be no binding of the cable and that may cause the cable to short out and start a fire.

Other cables, like the coax came in through one of the back windows, wound down enough to let the coax and the transmitter dc and phono leads for the internal camera

out (and some times the rain in). I have a dc distribution box wired direct to the car battery through the firewall.

Looking something like the car out of Ghostbusters with the various aerials and some times the pan and tilt unit. (I am sure I made a few people rush to the post office to

pay their TV licence the next day). If you do buy one of the Alford slot aerials you can rest assured that they stand up to a sustained storm winds of at least 70 mph (115 ish kph ) for at least an hour and a half, that is how long the trip took me.I made a few trips like that over last year in all kinds of weather and the results varied greatly.The type of aerials I used on my mobile experiment were a slot aerial, a 12 element loop aerial and a circular polarised aerial, (clockwise rotation, 20 turns), all were terminated with an N

type connector and I used the same piece of coax FSJ4 - 50B. Andrews Heliax 122 inches, (310 cms ) long and fitted with brass N connectors.

Thanks again to Thos EI2JD for taking the pictures for me.

In the next Echo Ireland we will look at some of the test equipment I use on the Microwave bands.

73 to you all and may all your transmissions be P5.

 73's Pat EI2HX