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

[Scott Dickson, W5WZ]

  _____  

From: Marshall-K5QE [mailto:k5qe at k5qe.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 5:13 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: [LCC] Decommissioning two 8 band rovers....


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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