Thanks to all who replied!
The consensus of the listmembers who live(d) in brick houses is that
removing one brick (hammer and chisel, masonry drill w/big pipe-sized bit)
or possibly more than one brick (for a bigger hole) and PVC or galvanized
pipe with a rain elbow outside, stuffed with insulation is the best way to
go. Quick and easy to repair if/when we leave.
My plan is to have several antennas - I use a Butternut HF9V vertical now,
which will be the last one down here and the first one up at the new QTH.
After that will come a wire antenna (not sure what yet) and then the tower
and beam. I may also experiment with a second vertical with elevated
radials later. There will be a primary rig, a secondary rig and several QRP
rigs.
My current idea is to use an Array Solutions six-pack to allow any antenna
to be selected for the primary or secondary radios. Any of the QRP rigs
would have to get their antennas off the secondary radio feed when the
secondary was not in use.
I started to diagram how to do this with manual switches to save a buck or
two but the page got so covered over with crossed out, erased, scribbled
shapes that I think I was going to almost spend more on manual switches and
coax jumpers than the Six-Pack costs. I managed to diagram something that I
think would give me the ability to have any antenna on either rig but I'd
hate to have to build it.
Am I missing something? I checked e-ham and found only two makers of this
sort of SO2R switching - WX0B and microham(?). Prices are about the same
and reasonable for the product.
What do others do for this sort of functionality? I don't want to use cheap
switches with little isolation and that drives up the price for a manual
arrangement. The most reliable and simplest is to physically swap cables
and that has excellent isolation qualities plus automatic lockout between
the two rigs. A bit slow and awkward, though...
I'm leaing strongly towards the Six-Pack - added bonus of keeping all cables
entering the shack within the one-brick width pipe size mentioned above.
Bill, W5VX, got it right when he wrote "I never dreamed it would take so
much planning."
73,
=======================
Chuck Chandler
WS1L
chchandler@adelphia.net
=======================
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See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
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