KI4TZ and I have hopped around a bit of late, catching up on some local work.
Joe is climbing while my left hand closes back up under 10 stitches. Very weird to be on the ground watching the work progress. But at least I can be the perfect ground crew guy I’ve searched for ‘lo these many years!
First up was a simply rotator swap out for WU2G, over in Concord. That went off without a hitch, so we headed North, to the Raleigh area, next.
First stop, N4XO’s brother Joe, K4MVV, who had a beautiful 25G atop a hilltop. But a recent near miss from a medivac helicopter had Joe not sleeping at night. The tower had not been installed correctly–the guys were simply draped around trees and the base was undersize. So…shedding a tear or two, we decided to drop the entire tower (there was only an old 2M corner reflector antenna up top). Dropping towers is always dangerous. In this case, the tower actually came over part way once I’d cut the back leg, pulling the base up and out of the ground. That was pucker-inducing, as I was right there sawing away. But then I cut through the Z-bracing, and the the backs of the front two siderails (so they would act as a hinge for the tower). We could not get it to move. Cutting one front leg accomplished nothing. So there’s 100-ft of 25G standing (albeit leaning) on ONE leg! As I started cutting on the final leg, it finally came over. It fell exactly where and how I visualized it, atop two small trees we’d cut down, so things were not totally smashed to bits. But the leg bolts had been over-tightened, so getting the sections apart was truly a PITA….Hauled the sections home for the scrap yard…
Then on to the big city, where we dropped off the rotating tower bearings and orbital ring rotator for Scott,
W3TX, at a professional facility which is going to reverse engineer drawings for him, before I install them. Once installed, I’ll be writing and reviewing them.
Then over to W4HJZ’s, where we removed the antennas, took down and dis-assembled his Rohn 25G foldover. Not a hard job, but burdensome in the 100-degree weather. We still have an old Spaulding tower (precursor to today’s BX-series towers) to take down. Next trip…
stay tuned…
