Joe & I went to Raleigh, where W6NWS’s QTH awaited us with some significant tornado damage, all suffered while Larry was over in XV2-land for three months. His F-12 80M rotary dipole & F-12 40M Yagi was both broken by the high winds. The 40M beam was shifted into a Delta Loop configuration by them. The dipole can down relatively easily, but the 40M…well, it quickly & irrevocably, shifted bent ends down & then fell over to one side, not how I had pre-visualized things, nor how I wanted them to go. Luckily, the PVC insulating element mount was then resting atop the guywire (Phillystran), so with some small amount of reservations, I began lowering it. After 3-4 feet, I saw that it was not even leaving a mark on the Philly, so simply let it continue to slide down to the ground, where Larry peeled it off & over on to the ground. He intends putting up an M2 4L 40/30M Yagi atop the 100 feet of 45G.
We then addressed his other issue–mounting an M2 Log Periodic on his other tower, 70 feet of 25G. This beam is a bit large for this small tower, but trying to appease clients is always the name of the game, so we proceeded to work out a solution to get the big LP up & on the tower. Flying (tramming) LPs almost never works well, because if there’s any breeze whatsoever, the large elements at the rear of the beam will catch that wind & the beam will shift, despite having a tiller on the boom. They are best installed from cranes or by lifting them straight up & on to the mast. Which was our solution here. Once the rigging was in place, we removed the lower guys & simply lifted the beam up & over the guy bracket. But during our rigging time, the winds came up & by the time we were moving the beam, they were constant at around 30MPH. So, we re-installed the guys, then climbed & rigged the beam in place above the bracket at 30 feet on the tower. It seemed to ride the wind quite well as we watched while re-loading the truck.
Next trip, finish that, & then rig & tram up the big 4L 40M Yagi using the capstan winch. Then install a little 5L Cushcraft 6M beam above the 40. All this work was greatly helped by the 75 degree temperature, here at the end of January! Who’d ever have guessed??
stay tuned…..
