On the way back from a week-long business trip, I made a side visit to a
surplus outlet in the Ft. Bragg, NC area this afternoon and spotted a new
tower near the base. What at first I took to be another cookie-cutter cell
tower turned out to be something else. As I got closer there seemed to be
some large horizontal attachments to this one. As I drove closer it was
evident that these were HF log-periodic arrays. And, there were 3 of them
stacked on this one tower! My first thought was that this was not a military
setup, since they usually only have one LP per tower; so maybe this was some
ham operator who had won the lottery and had put up a "dream station". Since
there were some people still working in the field around the tower base, I
slowed and pulled into the driveway. As I walked across the field toward
what appeared to be the construction tent, out walked Jay Terleski, WX0B! It
seems that Array Solutions and Custom Metalworks (Paul Nyland, K7PN) have
teamed-up to install this system for the Army Special Forces. They have
spent the last 3 weeks working on the installation.
Luckily, I had my digital camera along, so I have placed two pictures at the
following web site www.geocities.com/k4tmc/wx0b-22.jpg and
www.geocities.com/k4tmc/wx0b-31.jpg . Here is a quick description: 170 ft.
Rohn 65 tower with 3 custom Tennadyne log periodics. They have also
installed three 900 ft. terminated longwires aimed at various foreign
locations. Jay indicated that he is planning an article for QST on this
installation, and he will have pictures at the Array Solutions web site later.
Also, Jay may be on the air with this system over the weekend. He has
obtained permission to use the call K4A. So, look for him with a huge signal
anywhere on 40 to 10 meters.
73,
Henry Pollock - K4TMC
Raleigh, NC
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