The long range (10 day) forecast for Fancy Gap/Galax VA was good, so we’d planned to go there to resolve some issues for W4TJE. On tap were installing a guy bracket for the bottom guy on his 100-ft 45G tower, trying to determine why the middle TIC Ring was sticking around 90 – 100 degrees of rotation, and installing a new TIC Ring on the bottom Yagi (it’s a three stack of 15M monobanders), and then figuring out why the top Yagi had stopped working. While Joe went up to 30-ft to install the bracket, I did the ground work, which involved total immersion in thorn bushes, brush and other assorted underbrush. A mess, really. But that went well, and then I went up to help install the TIC Ring. We managed to get that done in just over an hour, then began the arduous task of figuring out how to mount the beam, which requires taking apart and off the Hy-Gain boom-to-mast plate, which effectively separates the boom in to two halves. Not good. Not by any stretch of any imagination. Then the rain started. So we climbed down, waited, and waited some more, then drove to lunch. Finally back up the tower late afternoon, but decided a real solution would be to remove the beam, build a proper splice for the boom, then mount it. So we trammed it down this morning. The top Yagi has a burnt balun (from what it’s not clear just yet), but Jack (W4TJE) decided to follow my advice and have us install three all new choke baluns (replacing Force 12 bead baluns), since one beam is down already, and we know we have to access the feedpoint on the top Yagi, et cetera. Came home early. Went out to Gaston County and made up the boom splice. Just chatted with Jack on the landline, and will order new coax cable for the baluns in the morning. Long range forecast (can we ever really TRUST these?) says next week’s weather once again going to be good in Fancy Gap, but that remains to be seen.
sta tune…
