{"id":635,"date":"2018-04-01T14:14:33","date_gmt":"2018-04-01T21:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/?p=635"},"modified":"2018-04-01T14:51:39","modified_gmt":"2018-04-01T21:51:39","slug":"operating-from-the-titan-missile-museum-discone-antenna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/?p=635","title":{"rendered":"Operating from the Titan Missile Museum Discone antenna"},"content":{"rendered":"

On March 31, 2018, I was lucky enough to visit and operate from the\u00a0 80′ discone antenna built by Collins Radio Company<\/a> at the Titan Missile Museum<\/a> in Green Valley, Arizona.<\/p>\n

From Wikipedia:<\/a><\/p>\n

The Titan Missile Museum<\/b>, also known as Air Force Facility Missile Site 8<\/b> or as Titan II ICBM Site 571-7<\/b>, is a former ICBM<\/a> missile site located at 1580 West Duval Mine Road, Sahuarita<\/a>, Arizona<\/a> in the United States. It is located about 40\u00a0km (25\u00a0mi)<\/sup> south of Tucson<\/a> on I-19<\/a>. It is now a museum run by the nonprofit Arizona Aerospace Foundation and includes an inert<\/a> Titan II<\/a> intercontinental ballistic missile<\/a> in the silo, as well as the original launch facilities.<\/p>\n

The discone antenna is available for use by the general ham community any time that the museum is open for public use.\u00a0 It is a very large, broadband antenna with low SWR from 80m – 10m.\u00a0 (We tried 160m but it had a very high SWR)<\/em>\u00a0 The Green Valley ARC goes a great job of providing service to the antenna. The directions on how to use the antenna are listed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dave, AC7FF, Christi, KG7NAD, and myself planned on attending the Tuscon Spring Hamfest<\/a> that morning, a good local Tuscon hamfest which tends to attract a lot of classic radio gear and a few good deals if you are willing to hunt for them.\u00a0\u00a0 Our plan was to arrive early, attend the fest, then leave by 9AM to head down to the missile museum to get on the discone antenna.\u00a0 One of the rules of using the discone<\/a> is that it is “first come first served” and there is no “time limit”\u00a0 If you wanted to operate all day, you could.\u00a0 While that behavior doesn’t really support the friendly nature of the ham community if others are waiting to use the antenna – it does lend to the notion of – “if you want to use the antenna, get there first”.\u00a0\u00a0 That was our plan and on our minds as we headed south from Tuscon on I-19 towards Green Valley – we were banking on the fact that it was a hamfest day and the day before Easter – so attendance at the discone would be low and we would be able to get on the air.<\/p>\n

The discone<\/h4>\n
\"image

The discone as seen from the entrance to the Titan Missile Museum.\u00a0 You can see the car and operating position in the lower right of the image.\u00a0 This antenna is BIG!<\/p><\/div>\n

The pictures of the discone do not really show the magnitude of how large this antenna is.\u00a0 There is a good shot on the Green Valley ARC page<\/a> that does show some of the hams at the base of the antenna that does capture just how large this antenna is.<\/p>\n

When we pulled into the museum parking lot we immediately noticed that no one was using the antenna!\u00a0 Wahoo!\u00a0 No waiting! \u00a0 We quickly formulated a plan and dropped Christi off at the museum entrance while Dave and I headed down to the parking lot so we could park and start to setup to use the discone.<\/p>\n

\"image

Parking space at the discone antenna operating position.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"close<\/p>\n

The coax for use with the antenna is neatly rolled up in the panel box at the rear of the end of the picnic table.<\/p>\n

\"image

About 15′ of coax is rolled up in this box to connect to the discone antenna.<\/p><\/div>\n

Soon Christi was back having signed up and we started to operate on 20 meters, (14.290 Mhz).\u00a0 Dave connected his ft-857 to the coax pulled out his 36Ah battery box, connected the radio to power and tested the SWR on 20 meters.\u00a0\u00a0 It was very low, around 1.2:1 or 1.3:1.\u00a0 Dave cranked up the power to 100W and we were off and running calling CQ “from the Titan Missile Museum Discone antenna!”.<\/p>\n

\"image<\/p>\n

When we made our first operator switch, after about 10 minutes- Dave logged into a DX cluster on his phone to “spot” us, so other hams could see that we were active from the Titan Missile Museum.\u00a0 I worked several stations then handed off the mic to Christi, who was giddy with anticipation and the excitement of being able to operate on the antenna.<\/p>\n

Then the pileups began.\u00a0 It did not hurt that we had the trifecta of:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • skilled operators<\/li>\n
  • a female op<\/li>\n
  • remote and rare location<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    That was a winning combination.\u00a0\u00a0 We started working folks at a rate of 2-3 per minute.\u00a0 It got to the point that logging the stations was what slowing down the rate of QSOs – so Dave and I started logging for Christi as she worked stations so we could keep up with all the callers calling – sometimes 3 and 4 stations deep.\u00a0 We would copy the call of the calling station and then a partial of the next one, so she could jump from one right to another without having to call CQ.\u00a0 All the while mentioning hams should “Google the Titan Missile Museum for more information and pictures” of where we were operating from.<\/p>\n

    When Christi got tired we switched out again and Dave took over the mic and I logged for Dave.\u00a0\u00a0 At this point I was SERIOUSLY missing computer logging as we were copying everything down by hand.\u00a0\u00a0 Poor handwriting, sweaty hands and paper and a feverish pace of working stations all added to my mental notes for next time.\u00a0 BRING LOGGING COMPUTER NEXT TIME.\u00a0 (also bring and apply sun screen!)<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \"Dave

    Hand mics, paper logging and sun burns!<\/p><\/div>\n

    We operated for about 2.5 hours at the discone, switching out operators every 15 to 20 min.\u00a0 I cut my rotations short so Christi and Dave could get more operating time.\u00a0 After a few hours, 20m seemed to dry up, so we moved to 17m hoping to snag some DX.\u00a0 Dave found an older ham who was calling CQ and spent over 15 minutes going back and forth with him trying to work a station in Aruba.\u00a0 We could hear him 54 to 59 with fading on each transmission.\u00a0 On the other hand, he had a lot of noise and was only pulling our signal out on QSB peaks.\u00a0 It took many many minutes of back and forth in order for him to get a partial of our call, then full calls.\u00a0 If nothing else, it was a good exercise for Dave on getting his call across.\u00a0 I was surprised the DX stayed with us for as long as he did.\u00a0 He didn’t have any idea that we were at the Titan Missile Museum or operating on the discone, just that we were weak – and trying to work him.\u00a0\u00a0 Dave promptly send him an email after the very abbreviated QSO with pics of where we were.<\/p>\n

    Trip highlights<\/h4>\n

    Working a retiree from the Airforce who was stationed at one of the Titan Missile stations.\u00a0 He rattled off a lot of information about his experiences and thanked us for keeping the “memory alive” of this very important part in our history.\u00a0 We promptly thanked him for his service.<\/p>\n

    Working several very strong mobile stations<\/p>\n

    Working dozens of stations in Texas<\/p>\n

    A station from Africa who was operating remote from California<\/p>\n

    And last but not least, a member of the Green Valley ARC, who resides about 7 miles from the discone.\u00a0 It was neat to be able to thank them in person for keeping such a resource available for others to use.<\/p>\n

    Stats:<\/h4>\n
      \n
    • Just over 2 hours of operating, using each of our own calls.<\/li>\n
    • 102 QSOs<\/li>\n
    • 4 countries<\/li>\n
    • 34 states worked<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      It was a great time.\u00a0 I am looking forward to going again and bringing some additional gear (triplexer) so we could operate separate radios on 15m and 20m (and 10m if it was open) at the same time from the same antenna.<\/p>\n

      From Christi: add to \"for the next time\" - operator headset, foot switch, headset splitter, logging headset. Using that stuff ruins using a hand mike and the radios speaker!<\/pre>\n
      Thanks Dave for driving – and thanks Christi for coming down with us. It was a super fun time!<\/p>\n
      \"image
      I was tired of sitting so operated standing for a while.. or at least as long as I had coffee.<\/p><\/div>\n
       <\/p>\n
       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
      On March 31, 2018, I was lucky enough to visit and operate from the\u00a0 80′ discone antenna built by Collins Radio Company at the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, Arizona. From Wikipedia: The Titan Missile Museum, also known as Air Force Facility Missile Site 8 or as Titan II ICBM Site 571-7, is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[199,203,202,9,200,198,201],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-ham","category-portable","tag-discone","tag-discone-antenna","tag-green-valley-arc","tag-portable","tag-remote","tag-titan-missile","tag-tuscon"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":662,"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions\/662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.n1rwy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}