That reference is to the weather–not that I was having a wild ‘n crazy time! It was cooler than the Carolinas, so I suppose that was a welcome bit of news, but it really did not “feel” that much cooler, with temperatures in the low to mid-90s. But I digress, readers want to know and read about tower work. So the job of the day was to take down the old original three stack of 15M Yagis at W3LPL, replacing them with a more modern design, specifically OWAs. Frank had gotten the bottom two down, rebuilt them as OWAs, and my job was to take down the topmost antenna, re-install one of the newbuilt models at the tower top, and then install the middle beam. As usual, the rigging for tramming took longer than anticipated, but the old beam came down without incident. At that point, I swapped out Frank’s rigging hardware for my own, and the new beam went up just perfectly. In fact, I’d have to say it was easily the most perfect tram I’ve ever done. The mounting plate arrived within two inches of the horizontal-style PVRC mast mount! No struggling or horsing heavy stuff around aloft was needed.
For readers who may not recognize what’s what in the pictures: the towers at LPL’s are all AB-105, in this case the entire tower rotates. The OWAs are all built on 48-ft long, 3-inch booms. The topmost beam is at about 165 feet.
Tnx to W3UR, who snapped these pictures. Stay tuned…
