I have four Force12 antennas, including a C3E, and have never had a rivet failure. I'm not an engineer, but it seems to me that the rivets they've chosen are more than adequate for their smaller ante
The Trylon site says the cable comes in 50' increments. What if you have a 120' tower? Or, as I do, have three TIC rings spaced 30-32 feet apart (i.e., requiring three separate cable systems of 30' e
Yeah, but there's another variable besides forward gain, bandwidth and feedpoint impedance: front-to-back ratio. The 3-el and 4-el SteppIRs have only about 11 dB F/B on 10m, which is less than half t
Good points. I agree that the jury is out on F/B. It's a particularly mixed bag for contesting. If domestic contacts count, as they do in WPX for example, low F/B can actually be something of an adva
I'm using the Champion replacement clamp on my Orion rotor, which turns a 16 sq ft antenna. It's working as advertised: the mast hasn't rotated in the clamp at all since I installed it. When using th
Ditto. My 110' Rohn 55 tower is on a steep slope. The base is on a narrow strip of relatively flat ground that's not much wider than the base in the uphill/downhill direction, but stretches away from
too. Depends on the climber :-) 73, Dick WC1M _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ TowerTalk mailing list TowerTalk@contesting.com http://l
Allow me to make an unsolicited endorsement of Steve's submission below. I have used 9913, Times LM-400UF and BuryFlex for low-loss coax applications. I had massive problems with critters chewing thr
John, thanks for posting this. I hope it convinces people to carefully consider their next temporary guy arrangement. I thought about it a lot when I installed my 110' Rohn 55 tower on a pier pin bas
Back in 1997, I installed a set of three conduits, 4", 2.5" and 1", running 265' down a fairly steep hill to a crankup tower and some other antennas. The 4" conduit contains two coax runs (it was ori
I don't agree about not connecting to the rebar. That's the standard way to do a Ufer ground and I believe that's the way it's described in the NEC. My local jurisdiction required a visual inspection
How about aluminum contacting galvanized material? I use aluminum ground clamps to connect my ground and Ufer wires to the tower legs. 73, Dick WC1M Good info Dave... Also From the same site: http://
The optional truss kit is used for antennas that have a boom truss. In a typical mast-mounted installation of such an antenna, the truss wires are connected to the mast a few feet above the boom-to-m
Tim uses essentially what I described in my previous post -- an off-center truss support. Mine look almost exactly the same, though I'll bet the boom-to-mast plate isn't as pretty! And I'll bet those
I've had good results on CW using a 80/160 trapped inverted vees made with a pair of Unadilla/Reyco traps. 73, Dick WC1M In theory then you should be able to get a decent swr for both bands. I don't
That's *really* cheap! Must have been leftovers from a job, or the construction market in south Florida is worse than I thought! I paid $783 for a truckload back in late September 2006. I believe tha
Other than optimization, is there any reason to change the tension from 400 lbs? Does the tower sway? Do any of the guys sag too much? If not, I would leave the tension at 400 lbs. Why? Tensioning gu
Regarding the pier pin base, I agree that in theory it's the way to go, and that's what I have on my 110' Rohn 55. However, I've often wondered if the Rohn flat-plate pier pin base used by most hams
I would bet that Rohn's specs for its dirt base required a certain soil consistency and limited the windload. You might be able to get away with using a base like that in some locations, but not othe
There's a market, though probably not large. I purchased several 7/8" grounding and hoisting kits on ebay a few years ago when I needed them (and I have an excess, too!) I suggest you check out ebay