The recent installation for WK4P in West Jefferson NC is worthy of some blog time. Adam lives on a small lot, so the only solution was a self-supporting tower. I was fortunate to find something akin to a VOA tower (leastwise it looks exactly like the VOA-supplied towers I’ve been on numerous times at K3CR!) out in IN. I picked it up & had it re-galvanized. Unfortunately, the rotator shelf would not allow a T2X to turn freely, so I had to have that section modified, which C&B Welding handled easily (my local fab shop–great guys!). I found a local crane company in nearby Fleetwood NC (Trinity Erections–I don’t make this stuff up…) & they had the tower set in less than 10 minutes. But it took the remainder of Saturday to get the three antennas situated on the tower. With a 2M Yagi for FM at the very top, then a 7L 6M Yagi just below that & then a PRO-67 (Mosley) at the tower top, things were a bit crowded. I used my usual “flying forklift” approach to get the beams up into position, but the man-basket Trinity has is one which affixes to the crane boom itself, not hanging from the headache ball. The close proximity of elements to the crane boom made for some serious juggling & re-positioning of each beam, especially trying to ensure the booms were all parallel. In the end, of course, it all worked out. I went back on Sunday to handle the Heliax, coax, rotator & cable, NEMA box install, along with trenching things over to the shack window. All in all, a nice installation for a deserving ham.!
stay tuned….
