[LCC] Decommissioning two 8 band rovers....

[Marshall-K5QE]

Hello everyone interested in VHF/UHF roving.  I have decided to 
decommission two of my 8 band rovers.  This means that I will have a lot 
of "stuff" available for those that might be interested.  I don't have a 
complete list of all the transverters, amps, preamps, relays, and other 
stuff at this time, but I will try to get that soon.

I want to start by offering for sale one of my TV vans that we used for 
two of the K5N grid DXpeditions.  This is a TV van with the 40ft 
Wil-Burt pneumatic mast, the air compressor for the mast, and a 6KW Onan 
generator.  The van is a Ford F350 with the big gasoline engine.  
Mileage is high, as you might expect, because the TV station did not let 
these go until they were "well used". We put this vehicle into the shop 
and "cleaned up, fixed up, and painted up" anything that needed repair.  
The van runs very well and the Onan does too.  Currently, the Onan is 
110VAC only, but can be rewired to be 240VAC if you wish.  Any competent 
Onan shop can do this for you or you can try it yourself.  In any case, 
there is plenty of power there.

I put new oversize Michelin truck tires on the van in 2010 and those 
tires have only had about 5K miles on them since new(the two DXpeditions 
below).  We have cleaned all the TV station "junk" out of the van and 
built a small operating table into the cabin behind the two front 
captain's chairs.  The cabin has 3 19" rack panels and a power 
distribution panel.  You can put a TON of really good gear into the 
racks.  What comes to mind are 4 rack panel Lunar-Link amps for 6M thru 
432.  That would be a killer rover / portable station!!  We have put two 
Type N bulkhead feedthroughs in the roof where the old TV microwave 
cables entered.  There is also a 2M FM cable that runs to an NMO mount 
and 2M FM vertical on the top of the truck.  I will let the 2M FM 
antenna go with the truck(I want everyone to know how big a sacrifice 
that is....HI).

On the Grid Bandits web pages(created and maintained by JD-N0IRS), there 
are numerous pictures of the first K5N DXpedition trying to get to 
DL88.  We could not get there, because the road in the Big Bend National 
park was washed out in 3 places, so we did DL79 and DL89....but anyway 
follow this link== 
http://kcvhfgridbandits.com/kc_vhf_grid_bandits_042.htm.  Then on the 
left hand side, click on K5N DL79/89 2010 purple button.  When that page 
loads, there is a bright yellow strip on the right with picture albums.  
The TV van is in many of those pictures.

In 2011, we took the TV van on the Great Winter DXpedition of 2011 to 
the DL99/DM90 grid line.  If you click the blue button on the left, you 
will see the web pages for that expedition.  Again, on the right is a 
bright yellow strip with three photo albums of pics from that 
DXpedition.  There are several pictures of the van, now sporting a 2 x 
6M5X antenna with full AZ / EL(you DON'T get that).  There are good 
pictures there of the inside of the van and the operating table.

Bill-N5YA milled out a special rotor fitting that mounts on the top of 
the mast.  That will allow you to mount a Ham 4 or TailTwister rotor.  I 
think that he also drilled it for the M2 Orion 2800 rotor, but I am not 
sure about that.  The special rotor mount goes with the van.  It would 
cost you a lot of $$ to get this made at some local shop.  You can see 
that in some of the pictures.

A club or a rover group could make a serious rover out of this TV van.  
We have proved here that elevating the antennas 40ft, makes a HUGE 
difference in the number of QSOs made--especially on the higher 
microwave bands.  With the pneumatic mast, you would just arrive at a 
new grid, pump up the mast, run your scheds, lower the mast(try to 
remember this part), and drive to the next grid. Total setup time would 
be a minute or two to pump up the mast. This is the ultimate in rover 
vehicles.

Now, what is the bad news??  I want $2500 for the TV van, with mast, air 
pump, and Onan.  I am willing to make arrangements to deliver the van.  
If you want to come over here and check the unit out, that will be fine 
too.  We can put you up here at the K5QE contest station or the N5YA 
contest station and save the motel bills.  If you want to talk about 
this van, please call me and we can "cuss and discuss" it.

73 Marshall K5QE
Phone is 409-787-3830

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