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My fall project, ham radio tower work

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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:

--- Quote from: DanG on October 22, 2022, 07:41:51 PM ---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.. .  :)

--- End quote ---

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.

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