AKA Harbor Freight, it's been posted on this reflector a number of times. This hammer is SDS, not SDS-Max. AFAIK, ground rod driver bits are only available in SDS-Max and Spline. Do you know where to
The part of the cable I can see looks perfect. However, they are 20 years old and I never lubed them (didn't know any better). Is there a chance the cable is rusted in an area that is not visible? P
My tower project has finally progressed to the point that I need to install a rotator. The antenna will be a 4 element steppir Yagi, with a wind area of 9 sq ft, 32 foot boom. I currently have the fo
These baluns have two major disadvanges: 1. They are *voltage* baluns. In all antenna applications I know of, you want a *current* balun. 2. They have excessive leakage and magnetizing inductance. T
Stiffness (not strength) of a tube of a given wall thickness is roughly proportional to the *cube* of the diameter. A pipe tower only 2 inches in diameter for the top 20 feet is nowhere near as stiff
I have been kicking around the idea of making my own air dielectric coax using 2 or 3 inch irrigation tubing for the outer conductor. I had just about exactly the same idea with the balls. I had bee
It is easier to just use tape measures simulateously to triangulate. This avoids drawing arcs on the ground. For example, mark the first guy point at the correct radius and arbitrary angle, then pul
Where did those numbers come from? AFAIK, the MA-550 barely survives 80 MPH with no antenna on top. I see no way you can do what you propose unless you crank the tower down whenever you are off the a
Sometimes you can get earth anchors locally from businesses that sell landscaping and tree trimming supplies to tree service businesses. You can also get them by mail from McMaster-Carr. I got some
I recently compared a 520 ft Beverage on 75m to a 4 element vertical receive array. The vertical array was a rectangular end fire/ broadside arrangement of dimensions 1/4 wl by 1/2 wl (65 feet by 13
99% of the time, these things are Fair-Rite 43 or equivalent. The permeability is 1000 up to about a MHz, then they become mostly resistive. Rick Karlquist N6RK richard@karlquist.com www.n6rk.com ww
Use a 26 inch section with larger tubing and/or thicker wall. The tower vendors can usually make up sections like this. Rick Karlquist N6RK richard@karlquist.com www.n6rk.com www.karlquist.com
Thanks for the plug Tim :-) Some additional info not yet on my web site: I have made numerous scaled down versions of the 90 foot vertical. 60 feet of 3 inch (.050 wall) tubing works well when tilte
Standard irrigation tubing is 0.050 inch wall. "Heavy duty" tubing is 0.065 inch wall. There is some "center pivot" stuff up to 0.100 or so. For GUYED installations, I see no reason to use anything
1. Making a mast self supporting with only its own windloading is nontrivial, so the fact that you are only supporting a wire doesn't help you all that much. 2. An aluminum self supporting pipe mast
Yes they do. If you put an ampere turn or so through a high permeability ferrite, it will magnetize and permanently lose a lot of inductance. You can of course fix this by heating above the curie te
To search, use the search window on the index page of contesting.com (do not click on towertalk first). Has anyone found an SDS ground rod driver? I can only find spline and SDS max types. Harbor Fre