I just use a piece of braid inside the tower from the mast to the tower. Because of the small diameter of the mast, it doesn't take much to make a loop. It bypasses both the rotator and the thrust be
Dont use nylon, either. It is very lossy at RF. Fiberglass is OK, but must be protected from UV. 73, Scott K9MA -- Scott Ellington -- via iPad _______________________________________________ ________
On 3/25/2020 14:37, Randy via TowerTalk wrote: Im in the process of putting up a Rohn 25G tower.The top section is a 25AG4 which is a flat top section and of course a thrust bearing on top.In Michiga
FWIW, I used a BN-86 balun on a TH7 for 30 years at 1.5 kW SSB and CW, with no problem at all. I did not operate RTTY or AM. I also never accidentally tried to load up the TH7 on 40 meters, which I k
I just put up the W3JK C3S-JK on a side arm fixed SE at about 50 feet, about 20 feet below the rotatable JK Mid-Tri. Based on some RBN reports, it seems to be working OK, but the minimum SWR on each
I can't imagine climbing a tower held up by aluminum screw anchors. And what if one hits a rock on the way down? A friend of mine learned the hard way in a storm last summer about inadequate guying.
Another advantage of concrete anchors is that it's quite easy to calculate their strength. Assuming the anchor rod isn't the limiting factor, just add up the weight of the concrete and the dirt on to
I ran into the same problem when I replaced my tower last year. I used Big Grips on the guys, but wanted to use cable clamps on the safety wire through the turnbuckles, which was to be 3/16 EHS. Exce
Yes, the turnbuckles are rated to be stronger than the guy wire. But stuff happens. The safety wires were cheap insurance. 73, Scott K9MA Properly sized turnbuckles are not the weak link in the syst
Which it (the safety wire) certainly will NOT do unless it's installed way differently than is common practice. Which is EXACTLY why I went to the trouble of using strong cable for the safety wires.
I always wondered about that. That was way before computer modeling, of course. Even today, modeling traps is very difficult, hence all the interleaved tribanders. 73, Scott K9MA On 4/23/2020 09:08,
I just installed a small tribander about 2/3 the way up my 21 meter tower, among the upper guy wires. The direction is fixed. (See qrz.com.) The elements are unavoidably very close to two Phillystran
Your tower is probably just too tall for shunt feeding on 80, especially if it has beams on it adding top loading. For comparison, my 70 foot tower, with two tribanders and a 40 meter rotatable dipol
Unfortunately, one guy wire goes right between two closely spaced elements, so rotating the antenna won't help. There's no other way to avoid contact, though it will only occur during high winds. I d
Whether contesting or not, the small difference will undoubtedly make a statistical difference over time. That statistical difference, on average, will get you through the pileups a little faster, at
There's some controversy about whether the thrust bearing should support the vertical load. It's primary purpose is usually to take the radial load. If the mast is free to move vertically, of course,
A bit off topic, but this lesson may prove useful to others: When I replaced my tower last year, my plan was to just lower the mast down through the Rohn (TB-2?) thrust bearing, and leave it inside t
Why do you want to go 65 feet out? Seems to me the minimum distance from the tower to keep the ground rods 16 feet apart would be better. For 4 rods 90 degrees apart, that's just over 11 feet. If you
This is exactly the scenario I've imagined. Thankfully, it hasn't happened here yet. I think it's virtually impossible to completely protect the equipment, at least without building a new house, but
I expect polarization has a lot to do with the unexpected results. A horizontal dipole has zero sensitivity to vertical polarization broadside, regardless of arrival angle, but has at least some sens