| This is the humble container for my ground
station. The box is a 19" Benchtop brand toolbox from K-mart and
cost me $9.99. It is the perfect size to hold all of my field equipment. |
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| Here you can see the system fully deployed.
The receiver is mounted on a boom made of 3/4 inch pvc pipe and various
fittings. Two 3/4 inch pipe clamps hold the base of the boom to the
inside of the box using suitably sized nuts and bolts. No glue
is used in the boom so that the whole setup can be folded down for storage.
The whole thing collapses to fit inside the box. |
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| This is another view of the deployed system
showing how the boom is articulated. This allows me to orient the
antenna for best reception. The receiver is mounted to the boom via
the conveniently located mounting tabs on the side of the receiver. |
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| This shows the receiver boom stowed for
travel. A future enhancement to the box includes some sort of tie-downs
for all the different pieces of equipment. Right now they just sort
of rattle round in the box (but I'm careful not to let them rattle too
much) |
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| These are my barely-recognizable Sony
PLM-50 video glasses. In their standard configuration they were virtually
useless in full sunlight. I removed the headmount, drilled holes
at the corners to add a makeshift strap, and then crafted a gasket that
would give an almost light tight seal around my face. It's not much
to look at, but it works well. The black foam of the gasket was acquired
from the junk bin at work. |
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