Believe it or not, once the Zoning Administrator decided that my 110' tower conforms to the town ordinance (a loophole eliminates the height restriction), the only thing the building department cared
I use guy grips with back-to-back thimbles inside the loops. 73, Dick WC1M There is nothing wrong with using the insulators however I am not sure what good they do since Phillystran is not conductive
Great info, Steve. Couple of questions: 1. Does your recommendation to solder the center conductor of crimp connectors apply only to UHF connectors, or also to N connectors? I used to try to solder t
On further examination of the antenna and re-reading the instructions, I'm inclined to agree with VE1DT, who wrote this: Dick, I looked at the drawing in the pdf and it shows a chassis mounted connec
When I built my 110' Rohn 55 tower, I acquired a handful of Andrew cable clips for 1-5/8", but decided not to run it up the tower (it's a bear to work with, especially inside a Rohn 55 tower.) I cons
Definitely agree that lighter, more streamlined rock/rescue harnesses like the ExoFit Nex are much better for amateur tower work than the heavier industrial harnesses. I've used a Petzl professional
Hi Dave, What's the distance between the tower and bunker? Does the tower have a separate ground system? If so, is it bonded to the bunker's ground system? There are a number of good texts on lightni
I just installed a 24x7 iGate in one of their 14x12x8 vented boxes. Added my own 120mm DC fans. Well made, works great. The latches arent very tight, but it does seem like the gasket is sealing. I ad
Interesting analysis, but I would add another factor to the operator-dependent factors: CW pitch. These days, most of the signals will be zero-beat with a packet-spot frequency. Going slightly off fr
Here are some instructions for using the hand prep tool that might be helpful: https://www.commscope.com/catalog/doc/pdf/14068/Hand_Tool_for_540__780__1480_and_1873_EZfit__Series_Connectors_for_HELIA
I'm a little late to the party, but my recollection is that #2 solid is the industry standard. Could be wrong about that, but worth checking. Definitely go with solid. I used 1/0 stranded, which is o
I had great success with ceramic Cadweld one-shots on my first tower ground system, but when I installed the ground system for my second tower 10 years later the manufacturer had switched to Styrofo
I have a 3-stack of 4-el SteppIRs below a Cal-Av 2D-40A beam. The booms of all the beams are aligned. The Cal-AV is a 2-element beam with a shortened boom (16 feet) but, unlike the JK402T, the elemen
My MD-750 is 350 feet from the shack, behind a stand of trees. I installed three conduit runs: one for RF coax/hardline, one for control cables and one for 240VAC (#10 conductors.) I put a subpanel a
Here's a link to my version, along with additional information/diagrams published by UST for the RMC-1000 tower and remote control circuits, and a photo of my 12V control box (unfortunately, I don't
I have coax and SteppIR control cables, taped together, that loop above the boom because all three of my rings sit about a foot above a guy bracket. The guys and brackets could interfere with a loop
I think Bury-Flex is supposed to be a 9913F clone, or maybe 9914F? but I haven't compared the specs closely. When I was deciding on flexible cable for rotors and my tubular crank-up, I got a few leng
The best choice depends on your intended use for the instrument. Do you really need a vector network analyzer? Much as I love lab-quality instruments, I don't design antennas, filters, matching netwo
I don't like to speculate, but it looks more like Rohn 45 or 55 on a pier-pin base. You can see the pier pin hole in the first shots of people gathered around the base. It also looks like there's onl