I have been a ham since 2001 and have enjoyed QRP.
I also enjoy making things for this radio hobby of ours.
I bought an MP-1 antenna a year ago to go with my FT817 however I sold
my FT817 in December and got an FT897. I liked the antenna from my FT817,
so I kept it to use with my FT897. I thought that it would be great to
have a mount on the side of my FT817 for the MP-1, just never got around
to getting one. Now that I have the FT897, the thought again returned
to putting a mount on the side of the FT897. I started looking around
and I could not find anything that really looked good and looked like
it should belong there so I came up with the following idea.
(Fig 1)
Tools used consisted:
The material list consisted of
a. 12”x 2”x 3/16” aluminum plate
b. 4mm .7m pitch x 25mm
c. A can of black paint to match the FT897
1) Pencil
2) Piece of paper
3) Drill
4) 5mm drill bit
5) ¼” drill bit
6) Phillips head screwdriver
7) Ruler
I decided that if I took the handle off the FT897 that the lip around
the handle would provide a uniform flat surface that the aluminum plate
could be mounted against and the two screws that hold the handle on would
hold the aluminum plate in place and once painted black it would look really
good and still let me set the radio on end for packing in the backend of
my jeep. I took a piece of paper and made a rubbing of the side of the
FT897.
This allowed me to center on the aluminum at one end and mark out the
holes. Once the holes had been transferred to the aluminum, a 5mm drill
bit made short order of the holes. At the opposite end of the plate I
drilled a ¼” hole for the MP1 right angle bracket that comes
with the antenna. So the finished part looks like this:
I tested everything out by mounting the plate to the radio with the handle
and it works and looks great. I use the ground screw on the back of the
FT897 for attachment of the ground radials. In the next to pictures you
see the finished bracket (unpainted for clarity) in two views.
As you can see in the pictures a couple of right angle connectors make
it a little easier to connect to the rig. You might also notice that I
have a comet B10 mounted on the 2m/70cm connector for a total package.
The Anderson power pole connectors go to the internal gel cell batteries
and are used for charging. The main power connector is still usable, so
whenever I want to hook up to a power supply for 100w it is all there.
The antennas and ground radials fit in a bag that is about 12 inches long
and 6” in diameter. With the batteries installed, just grab the bag
and the radio and go anywhere and set up. Start transmitting and enjoying
the radio gear.