The View From The Tower

Or, to be more specific, back home again. Off the road, as it were…

W2GD & I spent two weeks traveling, doing tower work. Here’s a brief recap:

First, flew down to Houston, headed to the NR5M radio ranch, where we loaded up on tools & gear, then headed to Austin. We were going to take down (again) & finalize the repairs needed on N5CQ’s 2L 80M Yagi. We had taken it down on a previous trip, but there wasn’t a suitable hunk of coax available to test with before hauling it back up to 200 feet! This time, I’d prepared a hunk of RG-8X just for testing & shipped it to Austin. We were surprised to find 12 feet of the reflector tip missing upon arrival, so the beam would needed to have been taken down anyway. I climbed up & installed the EHS tram line, while John did the ground prep. Things were going great until the last (of four) U-bolts. I simply could not hold the Yagi in place with one hand, & remove that U-bolt with the other! So…we spent some considerable time with the beam twisting in the wind & me straining mightily to move the 250 lb beast enough to allow that bolt to come out. In the process, the Yagi slid vertical, then upside down! No amount of cursing, prayer, or muscle power would help.  High winds & heavy rain squalls did NOT help! So, I secured it with some slings & we left it hanging on the tower side overnight. We decided to take it down in this upside-down configuration, & that worked just fine. We removed, turned, & rotated the elements once on the ground, & made the needed repairs. The main feedline was defective—the primary problem all along. Tramming the antenna back up went well, & w/both of us atop the tower, we had it bolted into position in no time.  A tighter tramline this time allowed us to easily clear the guys. We headed back to Hempstead.

At NR5M, the worklist was long & involved. We began w/changing the 10M stack tower (140 ft of 45G) to a star-guyed tower, installing our “standard” K0XG hardware right below the existing orbital ring rotators. The topmost 10M Yagi was on a mast, on a PVRC-mount, so there we had to install both the star-guy bracket & an orbital ring.  Once they were in place, we shifted that top 10M Yagi down, on to the rotator, removed the mast, and then hauled up 18-ft of solid, two inch fiberglas rod to replace the mast. The antenna then going on the mast (a 2M X-beam) was trammed up & into place. The rain we’d encountered over in Austin continued to plague us in Hempstead, along with unusual high winds out of the NW, opposite what we usually experience there. Moving from the 10M stack tower to the 15M stack tower, we took down the existing 2M beam (stored it carefully atop the 15M beam elements), & then trammed up the pre-made 1296 & 432 stacked Yagis, carefully storing them on the 15M beam elements. By this point, it was impossible to stand, let alone work, at the tower top, w/o impaling yourself on an aluminum rod, or cutting some portion of your anatomy or clothing on the hardware. We then hauled out the 12-ft mast, moved the rotator down lower in the tower, & installed a 24-ft mast! Then began the arduous task of stacking the various beams on to the mast (carefully pre-labeled), moving it up inside the bearing, securing it, then repeating the process. Installing the phasing lines & duplexers, along w/the required weather-proofing of every connection, slowed this process to a crawl. It took us two 11-hour days to accomplish everything, with nine of each of those days atop the tower. Other trivial tasks? Building new chain drives for up-grading the transmission speed of an XG-ring rotator, trouble-shooting the top 80M beam rotator. fixing the TIC rings on the 15M stack tower, & considering what might be slowing the lower 40M stack Yagi down….

Then it was time to fly to Oklahoma, where K5KC’s 2L 80M Yagi awaited our attention. The weather was actually worse:  higher winds, & then rain. But I climbed Ken’s 200-ft 55G tower & rigged the line to lower the Opti-Beam. It turned out to probably have had the boom-to-mast plate installed incorrectly, & was critically unbalanced. Luckily, we had a tag line, which I was able to secure to one side, & with some careful juggling, we manged to get it past the topmost guy & trammed down. We configured it as a simple dipole, installed a new relay set, & trammed it back up the next day, with W2GD climbing that day. Then it was time for a collective sigh of relief, packing, & flying back to Houston, where we boarded separate flights for home….

Next up? Staying close to home while the XYL recovers from back surgery. Local gigs, including some video production work (I think I recall which buttons to push on the camera…).

Then, back on the road, to MO, IL, TN, et cetera.

stay tuned

Well, after a swell start to the week atop K4MK’s 130-ft Rohn 45G, installing a new Prosistel 61-D (replacing an old, lightning-damaged Create RCA-5 (amazingly, this little box turned his 2L 75M Yagi for seven years w/no problems at all!), the 2nd task Kent wanted done was to install a big 6M vertical on his 100 foot 25G tower, under the TH-11.  Sounds simple enough. But the 15-ft standoff was simply too stand-offish, no matter what rigging we used or tried, the moment was too great and the damn vertical would roll or flop over and no amount of gut-busting strain would enable us to hold it in place. After two hours, I called it quits. I’ll build a simple, smaller standoff from angle iron, and we’ll bolt that it place, and THEN mount the vertical on it, after the fact. Simple, and something that’s done probably dozen of times/day across the land, hi hi…

The rotator turns fine. But there’s some apparent “crosstalk” that causes the Green Heron box to act weird. It’s probably caused by using Romex cable to reach the shack from the tower, which is 600 feet away. We’ll research that a bit to see if we can resolve it.

Next up? Trips to SC probably for small jobs. Although K1TO called today, wanting to know my schedule. We may be going to AL for the 80M beam takedown…although Dan has yet to call back.

stay tuned

and writes…and writes…

The proofs from ARRL’s book editor arrived, & have been busy updating the tower book for the past two days.

Nothing major, but a few typos & extra words filtered through, etc.

And of course, there is a new list of picutre or images they would still like to have, or now want, etc.

So…there’s more work to do, besides climbing,  although the weather has been just about perfect for tower work. I hope to finish gathering or creating the needed images today.

Yesterday, I posed a simple query on the CDXA reflector, asking for title suggestions. I have 15 replies in about 10 minutes. No real winners, alas. I was hoping someone would have something catchy, & ever-so-perfect that I had yet to think of.

Progress, anyway…stay tuned!

Headed North last Thursday, with Shaun, for various tower jobs.

First up: Kam, N3KS, where our job was to swap out his old (relatively small OptiBeam), for the largest one they make–which includes 3L on 40M! Obviously a crane job, & the guy from Titan Crane arrived on time & immediately got stuck in the pasture. But Melanie (Kam’s xyl) dashed to the rescue in her new Bobcat, piling some stone under the wheels.
Ya gotta love a gorgeous gal who can wheel around a skidsteer with such finesse! We had the old Yagi down in a few minutes, & then began unbolting the rotator, the old mast, & associated hardware. Kam wanted to upgrade the pot in the Prosistel 61-D (for better response from the Green Heron box), which took a tad longer than we expected. We were getting a bit tired & cranky hanging out at 100 feet waiting (it’s especially tough standing on one foot for long periods!), on his ANW tower….but we finally got the upgraded rotator back & it checked out perfectly. I’d prerigged the big Yagi & they had it up & over our heads in another few minutes, with the new 4130 mast already attached. The plan to loosen that mast, allowing it to slide slowly in to place, went off without a hitch, too, & we were soon tightening up the Slipp-Nott on the boom to mast plate and securing everything. I admit to not being a Prosistel rotator clamp fan, & it took seemingly forever to hold the beam in place (North), while Shaun tightened things down. Weatherproofing the connections took another few minutes, & we were finally off the tower at 5PM.

I’d promised to haul away some old aluminum, so we loaded that, then headed to Leesburg, to K4VV’s QTH.

The K4VV station is unique, in that Jack has TWO original Telrex Big Bertha rotating monopoles. Shaun had never seen one, & was duly impressed. The focus of this worktrip was to take down ALL the non-functioning StackMatch boxes (apparent victims to lightning damage) & shift their locations to ground level. This required installing some new RG-213 jumpers between the old switchbox location & the ground, of course. And weather-proofing each connection, along with testing each individual Yagi, etc. We found some broken balun connections, which we able to fix while on the tower, but the two 20M Yagis will have to come down, as their feedpoints are not reachable from the tower. We finished with Bertha ONE on Saturday, then with Bertha TWO on Sunday, along with the 40M OWA stack on tower FOUR. Tower THREE still has a broken Prosistel at the top.

Jack has decided we should replace ALL the baluns–before any more problems crop up. This is indeed a good idea. But in going over the plan, I am more & more convinced it makes sense to do this work with a crane & man basket–doing both Berthas in one day. I believe that’s possible. Taking each individual Yagi down, off the pole, & repairing them, then re-stacking them once again, is simply not economically sound. It’s too labor intensive, or expensive. Hopefully, that’s the way we can resolve this repair work.

Monday brought ridiculous rain showers, so the planned work at WN3R was post-poned, until our next trip to MD/VA.

Amidst the rain, drove over to W0YR’s place, & retrieved some old 4-1000 amplifiers of his. I simply could not resist Mike’s generous offer; it’s a terrific collection of stuff! As usual, we had a few laughs & shared stories. (It’s standard practice–if one has been licensed long enough, say over 30 years–that stories & shared experiences never fail to create a unique & lasting bond of friendship between hams. At least this seems true in our case. Mike has also been instrumental in keeping the K4VV station active in the various contests, & provided me with valuable feedback about the station.

Home at 11PM.

Email from K1GD–the rebuild of NR5M will be a topic at this year’s Dayton Contest Forum.

If the weather ever FINALLY stays nice, tower work can resume in force, with lots of work awaiting….
(It was 73 yesterday in N VA; it’s 33 here this AM! Go figger~!)

stay tuned…

like the proverbial lion, apparently, at least according to the local weather folks.

But the forecast was changed (the storm is travelling slower than expected), so we are in the grips of something more akin to a truly pissed off house cat, rather than the king of beasts.  But I digress…such is the fate of folks who predict anything, whether it’s weather, the stock market, politics, or the whims of the public.

A trip down to Darlington, SC for a “commercially installed” tower takedown ran into one small problem. Yet another instance of a tower put up with a below-grade base & the legs being eroded over time.  It’s 200 feet of 25G & the three legs are basically gone; the Z-bracing is holding the tower up! We will be pouring concrete to secure the foundation, making the thing safe to climb & dismantle.

Long phone chats w/K1TO regarding a possible collaboration between us on an 80M beam repair down in AL. Dan doesn’t truly feel comfortable (yet) doing “big jobs” like this.  I am inspired by his confidence level that I should be so, having put up & taken down a few such monster Yagis! Every install is special, unique & different, but look forward to helping him out. We will try to schedule the work right after ARRL. I’ll be doing that this weekend from W3LPL’s up in MD.  A couple quickie jobs (site surveys) there right afterward (the weather there will probably prevent any climbing), then back home Immediately following that will be the Charlotte Hamfest. Once, again, will be trying to sell or dispose of the remaining Silent Key/estate items….

The week following, we’re trying to schedule another worktrip to Texas. This time, we’ll be re-doing the guying on the 10M stack tower—converting to all star guys, like all the other towers.

After that, the weather SHOULD be nice enough to regain some foooting here in the Carolinas, & catch up with the local clientele.

stay tuned