Despite the lingering effects from the 10 days or so of continuous rain, managed to get up to Raleigh & repair K8SL’s rotator issues–the rotator was turning but the antennas were not moving. Turned out, once aloft, to simply be rotator clamp bolts that were only ever finger-tightened! Said a few surprised epithets, worked my way around several lengths of wood (never, ever, put wood on a radio tower, despite what you may think about its insulating properties, etc.!), & tightened everything down. Tested, all found to be working fine, & climbed back down. Shared a few stories (Rolf has some good ones, including being in the cavalry, no less), & came back home.
Then, next day, back up to Winston-Salem, to W4RKO’s, where Tommy wanted old antennas taken down, & replaced with new, better antennas. Things were a tad untidy on the tower, & it was 50-ft of un-guyed 45G. The first order of business was installing some EHS temporary guys, to get the constant wobbling & weaving under control. Then lifting the mast & removing the rotator, & dropping the mast, etc. The bottom antenna, a C-3S, was to remain, so that had to be slung to the side of the tower, & the mast continued downward, to remove & lower the next antenna, & so forth. Then the whole process in reverse, installing new stuff, jacking the mast up, etc. After six hours of the up/down process, I was simply too tired to continue, so we all agreed to finish up on Friday. And so we did. The tower looks about a thousand times better–cleaner & now everything organized, etc. I never understand how someone can simply wrap tape around coax & control lines in random, haphazard fashion. I like to do that work in some sort of order–the tape joints all evenly spaced and properly finished, etc. In any case, everything is now done that way & it is all working well.
Today (Saturday)…wait for it…it is raining once again. More in the forecast.
stay tuned…
