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<font face="Arial">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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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).<br>
<br>
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==
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://kcvhfgridbandits.com/kc_vhf_grid_bandits_042.htm">http://kcvhfgridbandits.com/kc_vhf_grid_bandits_042.htm</a>. 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. <br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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. <br>
<br>
73 Marshall K5QE<br>
Phone is 409-787-3830<br>
<br>
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