Chapter 14

We pulled in at the first house. Ed said, “This guy was an extra class licensee. He might have lots of equipment which will really help us.”

I hated to make noise but I honked the horn to let any normal people know we were there and to flush any zombies who might be close. We would have to be ready for friends or trouble.

There was nothing. We got out of the truck and went into the house by the front door which wasn’t locked. I felt that was bad news for the former occupants. That fear proved correct as we found the husband and wife dead in their bed from being eaten. It smelled very bad. We closed that door and continued to search the house. We found a room in a corner which was the radio room, or ham shack as Ed called it.

There were machines in the room that looked like radios. I noticed wires going out the window. Ed did, too, and looked out the window. “He’s got some serious antennas!” He looked around the room taking in the items In the room. “There are a lot of radios in here. We’ll unhook some and leave the rest. I do want to note down what we’ll leave though.”

He moved to the desk and began to unhook radios and other items. As he did, he handed them to Sarah and then to me. The third, he carried out. Outside, he said, “We’ll make one more load and go on to another house.” That’s what we did. We left that house for the next house on our list.

This man and his wife were technician licensees. We had no expectation of HF radios but Ed said we should find VHF/UHF radios there. He was telling us what to grab. We had also removed wire antennas at the other house. At this house, we were removing antennas from cars as well. He was thrilled to find two antennas still in their cardboard-backed plastic wrappers. He said we could go to others but had plenty to work with for now. We went back to the house.

Stella and Alice had started supper. We hadn’t heard from the Stevenson’s as yet but they wouldn’t be truly late until after tomorrow. I had hoped to hear from them today. Over supper, Ed explained what we needed to do to work the radios. We selected a back room in the house for our radio room and would start installation in the morning. We watched a movie and all went to bed.

In the morning, we all got moving and assembled in the kitchen. I helped Sarah and Stella cook breakfast. Alice watched and got an impish look. She said, “Hank never helped me cook breakfast, Sarah. Why do you think that could be?”

Sarah and I both blushed. Alice giggled. She asked, “Is he really much help?”

Sarah grinned, “He seems to be trainable though is untaught.”

I decided that saying anything would be a waste of my time and giving the ladies more ammunition. Breakfast finished cooking and we sat down to eat. Joe’s arm was feeling better today. When we finished eating, we all went to the truck with the radios. Ed wanted to set them out and think through setting everything needed for a station in our selected radio room as our first priority.

With his help, we pulled radios and equipment from the bed of the truck. Ed selected a radio and took it to the radio room. Alice was carrying a window piece. He had pointed out another radio that Sarah carried. They returned. He picked out other items which he explained weren’t radios but were necessary for our use. These three were quite heavy. Once everything was in the radio room, he began to assemble the station. He had had Alice and Sarah bring a number of shorter lengths of wire which he used to connect everything together.

Ed said, “Thank you for your help. We have to connect antennas but the station is ready for use when those antennas are ready.”

Sarah asked, “What have we got?”

“Sarah, I’m using radios from the first house. They were all first rate.” He pointed at one at a time. “First, this is a power supply. For some reason, all the radios I’ve ever seen use twelve volts DC so a power supply is necessary. This one supplies thirty amps which is plenty for our use. The HF radio is an Icom 7300, a relatively new radio with an excellent reputation. I look forward to using it. The next item is an amplifier to increase the signal power of the 7300. I don’t know if we will need it but the ham had it. The next item in line is a tuner which we’[ll use in conjunction with the amplifier. From there, the antenna goes to the window unit. The other rig is also attached to the power supply but is simpler. It’s a VHF/UHF radio also made by Icom and was one that I longed to own before. It’s another great radio and will probably get more use than the HF because it’s more for local talk.

He continued, “Let’s go outside and connect the antennas.” We all nodded and went out.

We connected two that we had dismantled and brought with us. The first was a store-bought antenna that Ed called a J-pole for two meters and four forty. It was for VHF/UHF. We mounted it on the roof where a one satellite dish had been mounted. It was pretty straight-forward. The next took more work but was also more fun to mount. Ed called it a fan dipole. It would have a high center point with “legs” extending out in four directions. We had retrieved some strong rope and a strange-looking device called a “potato” gun. We used a small compressor to charge up the “gun” and ready it to shoot. Ed asked, “Who is the best marksman?”

Everyone grinned and said, “Alice.”

Ed said, “Okay. Alice, you need to shoot this weight over a high, strong tree limb.”

Alice pointed and said, “That one looks good.”

Ed responded. “It does indeed.”

The weight had fishing line attached. Alice looked a moment and sighted. She pressed the plunger to “shoot” the “gun” and we all watch the weight go over the selected limb and fall to the ground. Alice exclaimed, “That was fun!”

Ed exclaimed, “Well done! Most can’t do that on their first shot.”

The antenna was now ready to hoist. Ed stopped us at about twenty-five feet. We spread all four legs out off the ground and tied them off loosely. We had connected the coax. All of us went inside as Ed started up another machine. It came on and, after he connected it to our fan dipole antenna, he took two readings. He did some figuring for one and said, “Our forty meter legs are about a foot too long.” We went outside and he folded the shorter fanned legs back a foot. He taped the wrapping around the line. We held the legs while he hoisted the center point as high as possible which was about forty feet or so. He tied that rope off and then tied off the two long legs as high as he could reach with a little dip in each. He did the same on the shorter legs. He said that the slack is to let it ride out high winds.

[Auth. Note: I’ve been using an antenna exactly like this for over ten years with great results. There are other good home made antennas that hams make but it’s simple and it works very well.]