My fall project, ham radio tower work

[Mary B]

Warning large picture size heavy post!

Tower next to the house had 1 antennas removed to go to a new tower I am still waiting for concrete to cure, and 1 temporarily removed and 3 new ones added(well 6 new but 4 are the same frequency to get more gain).

The new tower waiting for concrete truck to arrive. This tower will have four 432mhz antennas on it to bounce signals off the moon!



The new 6' stub tower that will get a 2.1 meter dish antenna this winter of I get some decent weather.



Getting to old and crippled for my helper or myself to climb a tower, rented a lift for 3 days at a cost of $575!



All the old antennas removed, first new one going back on. It is for 222mhz



All the new antennas mounted. 902mhz top, then 222mhz then 1296mhz. We had to duct tape 2 2x4x8' to the man basket to have a support to hold the antenna while U bolts were added. Turned out one was a foot to long and wouldn't clear the tower so out came the battery skilsaw... and me crying over cutting an $8 2x4 LOL In this pic the 4 antennas for 1.2ghz are being mounted. They went up as a complete unit.



And finally putting the old antenna I kept back on this tower, this one os for 6 meters(50mhz) and the biggest dimension wise at 20' long and almost 10 feet wide

[tanner0441]

Hi

Im enviouse. When I lived in the Midlands I had a 30ft self supporting mast with a 3in pole up the middle taking it to 47ft.  On that I had 4 x 18 element 432mhz JBeam parrabeams stacked and bayed at the top and 2 x 10 element XY bayed below them wired right hand circular, and living 650 ft ASL I could work the south coast of the UK most days. My interests were predominantly VHF and microwave and with the hill I lived on rising to 750 ft ASL I was in a good position to follow those frequencies.

Now 2 and 70 seem dead with the hills all round 1296 is out of the question and I have S9 plus 30dBs of noise on the HF bands. I have recently put a 1.2 stearable dish to see how I get on with Eshail ll

So here's hoping.

Brian

[Mary B]

1.2 meter dish n 10ghz EME is doable to the larger stations! Get a good preamp and a 20+ watt amplifier and go for it!

The new tower is getting four 24 element LFA antennas with full az/el rotation for moon bounce!

As you can see in the third pic I am rural, on a slight rise(75 feet above average terrain) so don't have a ton of electronic noise to deal with. My neighbor to the west has a few noisy computers but she is rarely home and there are very few stations in that direction.NW thru SW looks across fields, west across the tiny town(under 300 population) I live on the edge of. HF bands are noisier than they used to be but 432 and up are still quiet

[DanG]

Mary Bee - I for one would like to see the word 'fall' replaced with 'autumn' in this threads title, between getting a workout with chores today, tiny phone display & dirty reading glasses plus too much coffee it took three scans to discard the notion you or your tower had fallen!

The last man lift I rented bobbled around so much my legs were still phantom hopping & rocking the next day.. . 

[Mary B]

Mary Bee - I for one would like to see the word 'fall' replaced with 'autumn' in this threads title, between getting a workout with chores today, tiny phone display & dirty reading glasses plus too much coffee it took three scans to discard the notion you or your tower had fallen!

The last man lift I rented bobbled around so much my legs were still phantom hopping & rocking the next day.. . 

This one was good until 20mph wind gusts hit LOL My friend up in it asked for a ratchet strap and he stabilized it to the tower.

[SparWeb]

That looks awesome.  Thanks for sharing the photos.

Are these all home-built antennas or do they have special components that you just have to buy no matter what?

It's probably a trick of the perspective and long zoom, but the booms look like they'd hit each other as you rotate them!

[Mary B]

That looks awesome.  Thanks for sharing the photos.

Are these all home-built antennas or do they have special components that you just have to buy no matter what?

It's probably a trick of the perspective and long zoom, but the booms look like they'd hit each other as you rotate them!

Commercial antennas, come as kits though! Lot of assembly required!

Zoom fake out, the towers are 40' apart...

[SparWeb]

Please post about the Rx on the new antennas when you have them all hooked up.  I for one am interested in Ham even if I haven't tried it.  What kind of gain are you expecting? (oh well, pun intended I guess)

[Mary B]

Please post about the Rx on the new antennas when you have them all hooked up.  I for one am interested in Ham even if I haven't tried it.  What kind of gain are you expecting? (oh well, pun intended I guess)

I will go from the top down

902mhz 21.12dbi - cable losses(about .75db)

222mhz 14.1dbi - cable loss(about .4db the higher you go in frequency the worse the cable loss gets)

1296mhz 26.54dbi - cable loss (about 1db)

50mhz 11.54dbi negligible cable loss... maybe .2db

Higher you go in frequency the easier it is to have a LOT of antenna gain in a small space. On 1294 the stack of 4 antennas(every time you double the number of antennas you gain 2.8db) takes up a 10' long x 30inch square space. You see 4 cables going to a power divider/combiner on the back of those 4 then it goes down the mast.

I use all Heliax coax except for some inside jumpers where it is not flexible enough. FSJ4-50(1/2 inch flexible Heliax) from antenna feed point to the main cable up the tower which is LDF5-50A Heliax(7/8 inch) on 902 and 222, on 1296 I use LDF7-50(1 5/8") Heliax, and 50 mhz is all FSJ4-50 to the house. FSJ4-50 is flexible so can go around the rotor and not kink. LDF5-50 is stiff enough I could cement 30 feet into the ground and leave it pointed straight up... takes 2 people to form a bend. The LDF7-50 is so stiff we had to use a conduit bender to make the curve by the house.

The larger the Heliax the lower the loss to a point. As you move into microwave frequencies at 10ghz and above it can act like waveguide... limiting it to LDF4-50(1/2 inch) Heliax and a LOT of loss unless you mount equipment up at the tower top. Higher the frequency the higher the cable losses! Loss is bad!

So far only 1296 is ran into the house, I need to drill a new hole in the wall from my entrance box so I have space for more cables. And fall is not the best time for band conditions on VHF and above. Air is to unstable. So far I have tested 1296 to 300miles and it works well.

902 and 222mhz bands do not have many users, they are USA only bands so equipment for them is all an add on with extra cables and more to go wrong LOL

I am building the four 432mhz antennas, there I will have 25.19db gain but fairly high cable loss on transmit a little over 1db taking my 750 watts out of the amplifier down to 600 watts at the antennas. I will have a mast mounted receive preamp so loss on receive is zero, I will have a net gain on receive of approx 25db.

Probably a bit more technical than you wanted LOL Sorry!

[SparWeb]

Awesome.  Give me something to chew on and go look up what you mean in places.  I'm here to learn.

If you're "building" the 432's in the background, then what's left to go?  I see them in the background and the four booms seem finished.

I did a search on "432 MHz" just to see what's on that frequency and found a bunch of weather stations and police radar - and some erratic google hits on "432 Hz" which the snake-oil sellers call the "healing frequency".  Something for everyone, I guess!

[Mary B]

Awesome.  Give me something to chew on and go look up what you mean in places.  I'm here to learn.

If you're "building" the 432's in the background, then what's left to go?  I see them in the background and the four booms seem finished.

I did a search on "432 MHz" just to see what's on that frequency and found a bunch of weather stations and police radar - and some erratic google hits on "432 Hz" which the snake-oil sellers call the "healing frequency".  Something for everyone, I guess!

432 isn't up yet, it is a ham radio frequency in the 70cm band. I have to build those 4 antennas in the next week ... they are going on the new tower that isn't up yet. 432mhz shouldn't bring up police radar in any way... military radar near the borders yes. But I am far enough away from that to not have to deal with it. Never heard of the healing frequency crap LOL

[Mary B]

Well I slowed down, caught a head cold form hades that has my balance off plus a major lack of sleep with it. 432 tower is not up yet.

[JW]

Its all good      hope you get to feeling better

[MattM]

I think the pyramid/New Age/natural healing/moonbat stuff was 432 Hz.

[Mary B]

I think the pyramid/New Age/natural healing/moonbat stuff was 432 Hz.

432mhz sounded a bit high LOL high enough in frequency to cause RF burns just from the field strength and a band I have to do careful RF safety calculations for(required by the FCC)

[joestue]

I think the pyramid/New Age/natural healing/moonbat stuff was 432 Hz.

I seem to recall a lot of contention about whether it is better to listen to music tunes for 432 or 435 lol