TT: A couple of comments embedded below: 73 de Gene Smar AD3F Agreed, including the "not unacceptably so" part. Some thoughts: True. I use soft calfskin gloves most of the time I'm on the tower, exce
TT: I had intended to write this earlier: On towers as with automobiles, there are no such things as <accidents.> Let's be careful out there! 73 de Gene Smar AD3F P.S. I agree with Pete. Building my
Doug: Couple of comments: 1. Make sure your rotator will handle the added torque/twisting load. Assuming everything on this mast will be a rigid connection (no loose clamps to let the auxiliary masts
Tom: You are likely to be disappointed with these ground-mounted verticals for FD contesting for the following reasons: 1. FD is a domestic US (i.e., non-DX) contest for which a low dipole would work
Kelly: You might have to move the tap to the tower up or down to get an appreciable dip at resonance on 160M. Another degree of freedom available for shunt-feeding is moving the shunt wire even farth
Roger et al: The gin pole depicted is made for round tower members. I don't believe it will work on angular tower members such as those on Trylon towers like mine (the Titan series of medium-duty tow
Roger: You're right - I didn't read the description, just looked at the pix. Never mind. 73 de Gene Smar AD3F _______________________________________________ _________________________________________
I, too, prefer separate positioning belt and fall-arrest harness. I don't like the idea of putting all my eggs in one harness basket, as it were. If the single harness were to fail while I'm aloft (t
Rob: No. That wire should curve gently toward the ground rod beneath the surface. Clamp the wire up higher on the tower leg so you can bend it into a curve of a couple feet radius. Also, if you have
TT: I suppose the bottom line here is: On the low bands, one can never have too many antennas. 73 de Gene Smar AD3F _______________________________________________ ___________________________________
TT: My rebar lanyard http://store.pksafety.net/fi10tirela.html arrived for Father's Day (How did they know?). I like it a lot. The straps are sewn onto the various mechanical clamps with heavy and ma
Bill et al: The term <Rebar> is used in conjunction with safety lanyards because the snap hooks at the far end of the lanyards were originally used as positioning systems to clip iron workers onto th
Gary: Your description of your DX-A antenna as two slopers seems accurate to me. (Sounds like N4KG's broadbanded sloper design, too.) If that is the case, then you might get better performance on 160
Eugene: Welcome to the most interesting hobby (IMHO) in the world. You'll enjoy Ham Radio even more once you jump in to things like DX'ing, contesting, antenna construction, VHF weak signal work, etc
Roger: A couple of comments FWIW: Use an oversized flange nut from The Wireman ( http://thewireman.com/newconnect2.html , P/N 1164 ) to fasten your barrel connectors to the aluminum angle. These babi
TT: Photo H in Bob's collection is similar to how I raised my Bencher Skyhawk into position on the tower, i.e., nose upwards. The principal difference between our approaches is that I used two rope l
Tom: My best guess (and that's what it is at this point) would be that whatever happens with rolled-up ribbon line is not predictable nor pretty. Instead of using a continuous piece of ribbon, why no
JC: It's nearly impossible to undercut safely the full size of the pad for this type of foundation. When I was working in the electric utility industry as an engineer, we used these foundations all t
Kelly et al: I used a concrete vibrator like this one: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000224W5/002-7979284-5720834?v=glance&n=228013 to ensure proper concrete flow and filling of the undercut in
....or beesting remedies. 73 de Gene Smar AD3F P.S. Happy 4th of July weekend to all us US Hams. _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ TowerT