Antenna buildin' time again

So it looks like it's a go to build that G5RV Junior.  I discovered I had enough 450-ohm ladder line to build the antenna.  Dad is letting me get about 52' of his 16-gauge wire to create the dipole part of the antenna.  He's checking to see if he has a silver-plated board-mount SO-239 for me to use with the coax.


We (meaning Dad KD7SXQ, Mom KD7SXR, and myself) are going to the Greeneville, TN, hamfest tomorrow.  I might try to get a few parts if I can and pick up another silver-plated board-mount SO-239.  I love the silver-plated parts as you can solder directly to them unlike the nickel-plated stuff.

I heard someone doing one of my biggest pet peeves in ham radio: transmitting on a station's listen frequency when they're running split.  I worked N5M today (activating NA-120 which is not a very activated island) and there was a station, who shall remain unnamed, who repeatedly kept transmitting on the station's listen frequency, even after he was told go to "five up" (5 kHz up).  Idiots.  I guess he doesn't know the DX Code of Conduct.  Truthfully, I haven't heard too many stations being an idiot lately, but man, breaking the FM5FJ Martinique pileup the other day, there were some knuckle-dragging idiots in there transmitting just their call suffix, talking over FM5FJ while he was transmitting...no etiquette anymore.

Enough of the soapbox.  I'm hoping to get the G5RV Junior built this weekend.  Getting it up in the air, however, might be another story.  I'm getting some pressure from my parents about installing a larger antenna.  I've offered to try to get 100' of coax and put the antenna up in the "back 40" but no dice on that.  We'll see what happens.

If the weather holds, I should have that antenna up somehow this weekend.