The Johnson Blog

Ramblings of a geek with a few hobbies…

Tag: diy

  • Fixing My Mobile Antenna Wind Noise

    A couple of months ago I purchased the Comet SS-680SBNMO UHF/VHF antenna for my truck and paired it with a mounting bracket.

    It has worked very well except for one major annoyance. Wind noise above 60mph. As soon as I go over 60, the high-pitched whistling gets louder and louder. After 6 hours in the car last weekend, I just couldn’t stand it anymore. The thought of highway speeds for an extended period of time makes me want to take the antenna off.

    After noticing the stock antenna’s spiraling wire running its length, followed by some googling, I learned that that is a common way to avoid the noise I’m experiencing. I saw a few forum posts about DIY’ing it with string and heat-shrink tubing. So that’s what I set out to do this morning.

    The first step was to disassemble the antenna so I could get the small segment wrapped, capturing the distance between segments before taking them apart.

    Next was to spiral some nylon string around this small segment. Keeping the string in place was tricky until I pulled out the hot glue gun and tacked it into place.

    Once secured on one end, it was easy to wrap the string and slide the heat shrink tubing over it and into place. I used 1/4″, 3:1 tubing from Amazon.

    Tubing heated, it looks pretty good!

    I repeated the process for the main antenna segment, again using small dabs of hot glue at strategic locations – top, middle, bottom.

    After sliding the tubing over this section and heating it, it didn’t look horrible.

    The real test was getting out on the interstate. Sure enough, at well above 60 Mph there’s no annoying whistling!

    It is worth noting that the antenna is significantly thicker, and a tad bit heavier now. As such, it bends much more in the wind. Thankfully it doesn’t appear to impact receiving or transmitting; I tossed out my callsign and quickly got a response with a good signal report (thanks KD9WHG!).

    So there you have it, it works!

  • Blackstone Griddle Box

    Blackstone Griddle Box

    For my birthday this year, Ana gave me a 17″ Blackstone griddle which we’re planning on giving plenty of use while camping.

    This model came with a hood, but I’m not comfortable just stacking things on it – which is sure to happen as we’re loading the truck up for camping. With this in mind, I set out to build a box for storage and travelling. I want to make sure that it’s protected, can have stuff stacked atop it, and is easy to pack/unpack.

    This afternoon I wrapped up the simple build and the final coat of stain is drying as I type this.

    It’s a simple box constructed of 1/2″ birch plywood, sitting on a 3/4″ birch plywood base. Handles are routed into the sides for easy carrying, and a set of spring loaded toggle latches affix the box to its base. With this arrangement we’re able to just lift the lid off the base and get to the griddle. We may just end up cooking with the griddle on the base.

    Some testing has shown the latches to be more than capable of securely holding a pair of 20lb dumbbells so the griddle’s weight isn’t a problem.

    The second coat of finish is drying here.

    I added small strips of wood to aid in lid alignment and a set of braces for the griddle’s legs to set into to keep it from sliding around as it’s in transit and being carried around.

    The finish is Minwax Polyshades, Classic Black, Satin. I used this combination stain and polyurethane finish before for a tablet stand for the car, so I’m expecting it to be a good fit here too. The outside is covered in three coats, while the inside has two.

    Ana created the vinyl logo on her Cricut machine and in the coming days I’ll be coating the whole thing with some polyurethane to add just a little more protection.