Get a map and figure out the orientation of the street in front of your
house. Set your rotor on this heading and then line your beam up with
the street (or roof if parallel). (Of course my street is N-S!)
Chuck, KZ5MM
Roger L. Elowitz wrote:
>
> At 08:33 PM 4/1/98 -0800, you wrote:
> >Hi Roger,
> >
> >Line the boom of your beam up on the North Star and you will be within
> one
> >degree.
>
> Hi Vic...and all the TowerTalkians.....
>
> Thanks for your input. It was most appreciated.
>
> Since my beam (a Mosley TA-33) is on a 9-ft peaked roof TOWER on my two
> story home.... messing around on the roof at night is not my idea of fun.
> Then again... I HAVE tried that recommendation.... trying to sight down
> the boom in the dark towards the North Star and I can tell you it's darn
> near impossible and very dangerous to say the least. It is fun however to
> be able to find the North Star... and of course I believe everyone should
> learn how to do that....IMHO. (No! I can't explain why everyone needs to
> be able to do that. Please don't ask!)
>
> So... the very simplest solution was to determine the alignment of the my
> home's roof edges which are, fortunately on my home, parallel with the
> alignment of the street in front of the house. That determination was
> easily accomplished using my township's street map and also my home's site
> plan. I used a protractor and a straight edge to determine the
> direction of
> the street relative to True North. Then, I set my rotor to indicate the
> direction PERPENDICULAR to the rear of my house and then turned the mast
> below the rotor to bring my beam's director parallel to the rear roof's
> edge as viewed from the ground level looking up. My mast was then locked
> in place and has stayed "dead nuts" perfectly positioned for over a year.
>
> I've check the alignment direction (duplicating the surveyors work)
> with an
> expensive compass during the day (taking into consideration local magnetic
> variation), and just for curiosity sake.... with the shadow cast by a
> stick
> in the back yard lawn (after it was plumbed) using a table for mean solar
> noon at my location. Everything agrees within 1-degree or less.
>
> Now you understand the joy of having all the time in the world of a
> retired
> guy to play with these things. All of the above should underscore the
> point
> made by many fellas on TowerTalk... that it probably doesn't amount to a
> hill of beans (accurate antenna aiming) when it comes to working DX on
> HF.
> With signals fluctuating up and down, it's really impossible to know if a
> five or ten degree turn of the beam was really responsible for a signal
> improvement or not.
>
> Then again... too often I've heard signals coming from directions
> perpendicular to the location of a station that were in fact stronger..
> and
> of course we have the long path scenario. So... all this probably amounts
> to a tempest in a teapot... but I enjoy the hell out of aiming the beam
> anyway and doing it accurately.... and that enjoyment is all that really
> matters anyway!
>
> Have fun Vic,
>
> Roger, K2JAS
>
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