The biggest job among the belated bits was the work at N4YZ. Tommie had a TH-7 he wanted to remove, swapping it for a new Mosley PRO-67C. I had some misgivings, as his 90-ft 25G was even older than the Hy-Gain, & was installed with some serious potential issues: short-guyed, elevated guy posts that were (a-hem) a tad under-sized, & guy cable from the hardware store, not EHS. But that’s what we had to work with, so away we went….
First, we discovered the originally-installed mast was water pipe (how appropriate, considering my article on mast selection & safety had just appeared in the current QST!), & was only 1.25-inch. I was apprehensive even tramming down the old TH-7. Luckily, gravity is always working with you there & everything went well. But the mast would need replacing & we discovered the taper top was also under-sized, so we need a new top section, too. Tommie acquired one, which allowed us to use a thrust bearing, another requirement I thought worthwhile. Of course that created a delay. Once we got the old top off, it was pretty apparent the guy wires were in terrible condition, too. Tommie agreed to replace them with all new EHS. Once we got the new top section on, along with the new guys, we encountered rain. Lots of it. Further delays. Our next visit found us failing to get the 136 lb Yagi trammed up–the top section simply bent over too far to suit me, once we had sufficient tension on the tram line. Some other method was clearly called for. As we had plenty of room in the back yard, I decided to haul the beam straight up the tower vertically, jumping over two sets of removed guy wires as we went. This also allowed us the opportunity to replace each guy station with all new EHS once the beam was past the guy bracket. I made up a simple angle bracket with a short “yardarm” extending outward, holding a forged eye, where we attached a pulley. This worked perfectly, providing just enough distance to allow the beam (balanced on slings) to pass each guy bracket without hitting it. Mounted at the very end of the top section, it also allowed the beam to clear the top bracket, mounted at 85 feet. In each case, it was easy to maneuver the two guy wires into position & secure them to their post. From here on, it was relatively simple to install new coax, orient the beam, & then secure all the cables while coming down. All reports are the beam works fine.
I promised myself I’d do my level best to keep current on the blog–which is the idea behind them, of course. (Although you don’t read or hear much about blogs these days; perhaps their heyday has passed…?) In any case, that’s my intention, although we all know about “that road,” et cetera…
Anyhow, please stay tuned….
