On Jul 22, 2017, at 2:15 PM, Joe gojoe55@gmail.com wrote:

Dave,

Hope you made good progress today.

Send picture(s) and tell us details about your rotating tower project.

Joe - WA8OGS

On Jul 22, 2017, at 3:14 PM, Dave Sublette via mvus-list mvus-list@febo.com wrote:

Hello Joe and all,

I got up at 5:30 this morning and started loading the small utility dump wagon that fits on the back of my lawn tractor.  It is the “mule” that hauls me and the stuff I need the 250 feet out to the tower behind the house.  At 6:30, N4TY arrived from Georgetown, KY, about 40 minutes away.  I cooked up both breakfast.  We were out at the tower by 7:30.

We got two sections up and the first set of guys temporarily installed at that level.  the tower is now at 55 feet, since I had previously installed the rotary joint and three sections of tower myself.

By this time it was ten AM and the temperature was rising rapidly.  We were Blessed to have cloud cover all morning.  But, by ten o’clock, the sun was coming through and I told Tyler that it was time to knock off.  The next task is to lift and install the first of three guy rings.  Each ring assembly weighs 200 pounds.  With the (now) direct sun and being already tired from our morning efforts, knocking off was the thing to do.

I will now secure the bottom ends of the first set of guys to the anchors and prepare the next two or three tower section for going up.  I take a wire brush to the same diaper ends and the opposite ends are coated inside (liberally) with Penetrox.

I should be able to get all of this done this next week and toward the latter part of the week, Tyler will repeat the process we followed this morning.

And so we will continue until we get the tower up.  Each section has slightly different tolerances on leg spacing.  Some sections slide right together.  Others have to be “persuaded”.  So the time to put up a sections is not thee same for each.

Keep in mind that I put up this same tower, without any help at all, 28 years ago.  I was 48 years old.  Tyler is now 62 and I am 75.  We both remarked to each other a couple of times this morning that we didn’t see how I was able to do that.  Age is a great factor.

We are having fun.  And we should be finished before the weather turns too cold.  Getting the tower repopulated with antennas will be an extended task.  The first antenna I “think” am going to put on it will be a two element Moxon for forty meters at 140 feet.  Eventually there will be a second one at 70 feet, duplicating my previous installation of two, two element Cushcraft forty meter yagis in phase. Each Moxon has better performance specs than the Cushcrafts had, so I expect an improvement in over all performance.

I am not going to be in a hurry to put ten and fifteen meter antennas on it.  The sunspots aren’t up enough.  After the 40’s, the next may be a 20 meter, perhaps four or five element. Maybe before the 20, I will put the microwave stuff back up.

So that’s the tentative plan.

I attached a photo of the tower, after this morning’s effort.  I hope it gets through the list server.  If not .. there isn’t that much to see.  It’s just a tower in the process of being erected.

73,

Dave, K4TO

mvus-list mailing list
mvus-list@febo.com
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mvus-list

On Jul 22, 2017, at 3:14 PM, Dave Sublette via mvus-list mvus-list@febo.com wrote:

Hello Joe and all,

I got up at 5:30 this morning and started loading the small utility dump wagon that fits on the back of my lawn tractor.  It is the “mule” that hauls me and the stuff I need the 250 feet out to the tower behind the house.  At 6:30, N4TY arrived from Georgetown, KY, about 40 minutes away.  I cooked up both breakfast.  We were out at the tower by 7:30.

We got two sections up and the first set of guys temporarily installed at that level.  the tower is now at 55 feet, since I had previously installed the rotary joint and three sections of tower myself.

By this time it was ten AM and the temperature was rising rapidly.  We were Blessed to have cloud cover all morning.  But, by ten o’clock, the sun was coming through and I told Tyler that it was time to knock off.  The next task is to lift and install the first of three guy rings.  Each ring assembly weighs 200 pounds.  With the (now) direct sun and being already tired from our morning efforts, knocking off was the thing to do.

I will now secure the bottom ends of the first set of guys to the anchors and prepare the next two or three tower section for going up.  I take a wire brush to the same diaper ends and the opposite ends are coated inside (liberally) with Penetrox.

I should be able to get all of this done this next week and toward the latter part of the week, Tyler will repeat the process we followed this morning.

And so we will continue until we get the tower up.  Each section has slightly different tolerances on leg spacing.  Some sections slide right together.  Others have to be “persuaded”.  So the time to put up a sections is not thee same for each.

Keep in mind that I put up this same tower, without any help at all, 28 years ago.  I was 48 years old.  Tyler is now 62 and I am 75.  We both remarked to each other a couple of times this morning that we didn’t see how I was able to do that.  Age is a great factor.

We are having fun.  And we should be finished before the weather turns too cold.  Getting the tower repopulated with antennas will be an extended task.  The first antenna I “think” am going to put on it will be a two element Moxon for forty meters at 140 feet.  Eventually there will be a second one at 70 feet, duplicating my previous installation of two, two element Cushcraft forty meter yagis in phase. Each Moxon has better performance specs than the Cushcrafts had, so I expect an improvement in over all performance.

I am not going to be in a hurry to put ten and fifteen meter antennas on it.  The sunspots aren’t up enough.  After the 40’s, the next may be a 20 meter, perhaps four or five element. Maybe before the 20, I will put the microwave stuff back up. 

So that’s the tentative plan. 

I attached a photo of the tower, after this morning’s effort.  I hope it gets through the list server.  If not .. there isn’t that much to see.  It’s just a tower in the process of being erected.

73,

Dave, K4TO

mvus-list mailing list
mvus-list@febo.com
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mvus-list