MARS Modification - Is It Right For You
One of the things that became a disappointment to me after I passed my General exam was while I could listen (RX) to other forbidden frequencies I could not transmit (TX) on them. The frequency I really wanted to TX on was 11-meters or better known as the CB band. The band covers 26.965 Mhz to 27.405 Mhz.
I can hear it now, "Why would you want to have a QSO with a bunch of truckers, after all, you are a ham?"
Think about it, who knows better than truckers what is always going on around them at all times. What a great group of gals & guys who can be your eyes and ears out there on the interstate. Then to have the ability to TX them, is priceless. Debrief them and make requests.
With the drama that is happening around us, I finally decided to pull the trigger and send my radio off to GiGiParts to have them do the procedure. Jackalope, whom I have a great deal of respect for, shared with me on how to do it myself. Apparently, there are DIY procedures on how you can perform the modification out there for every radio. I can easily do brain surgery after looking at a YouTube video, but I could not bring myself to mod. my own radio.
I received back my radio last week. Unboxed the radio, ran into my shack, hooked up the power and tuned one of my antenna's. Once the manual tuner was set, I plugged in the coax to the tuned antenna. Viola! I could listen pretty dang clearly trucker traffic on the interstate about ten miles away. Once there was a pause on one QSO I jumped in and asked for a signal report.
Politely, a trucker came back and wanted to know what power I was TXing on. Whoops...Sorry. 11-meter is restricted to 4-watts. I immediately made an adjusted down to 5-watts, the lowest my radio puts out. I then came back and told the trucker I was using 4-watts, "why"?
Anyway, the signal report was only okay. Mmmm, what was up I pondered? Then I realized I was using a horizontally polarized antenna and I need to use a vertical polarized antenna. Remember, all those trucks you pass and look up at the driver's side of the tractor - Yup, they are using a vertical antenna.
Okay no worries, I will make one. I did the calculations and made a vertical dipole antenna out of 12-gauge solid wire I had left over from wiring my cabin and a BNC Female Dual Banana Female Socket Connector. The schematic below was my plan for my new antenna.
It took me about thirty-minutes to put the antenna together and another fifteen to hang it vertically. I put it up on a porch wood column.
Ran a coax cable to it and then did a SWR test with my MfJ antenna analyzer after it passed through my PalStar manual tuner. Hooked up the tuner to the transceiver and asked for a signal report. Out of the blue a trucker came back who was about fifteen miles away and gave me a full quieting report.
Now I can hear you thinking, "why did you risk sending in your 590s when you could have picked up a CB radio for under $50-?" My radio puts out 100-Watts which is illegal to TX with on this band but in an emergency, I do not care.
Also, I now can TX, not just RX, to aircraft, military, ship to ship, and other stations in
an emergency - Certainty, no TXing now. Think about it, we live in interesting times folks.
73 & God Bless
PS,
any thoughts for a CB handle for me? 
