The 80' of 45G + 15' of mast + C3XLD is up. Total to top of mast = 97'.
C3XLD is at 82'. Everything went together slick as duck snot. Thanks to all
for the patient advice and encouragement during this little 2 month
evolution, especially Steve K7LXC, Tom N4KG, Pete N4ZR, and others too
numerous to list.
Lessons learned:
Don't be afraid of Phillystran, it handles and goes together completely
without fuss, and looks really slick in the air, without all those godawful
looking insulators everywhere. And God bless the guy who invented grips.
Save grief, time, friendships, and bodily pain and rent a boom truck with a
good operator. My total tower erection time, including my fumbling around
with stuff, 2 hours. My total boom truck bill, $244 (which included his
travel time to and from). This included hanging the C3XLD at 82', which took
all of about 10 minutes with one helper on a single tag line. Installing
this 75 pound, 33' x 36' fully assembled antenna would have been no fun
without the boom truck. Anything larger than this, forget it. A tip of the
hat to K7LXC, and to Force 12 for their slick single-bolt antenna-hanging
system.
We had no problem picking up and handling 40' of preassembled 45G from the
top, but this guy had handled many tower sections, and had "magic fingers"
on the controls. I don't think I would try 50, or even 40 with a sloppy or
jerky lift operator.
Comealongs with Klein grips at each guy anchor station made initial guy
hookups a piece of cake. The Loos gauge makes tweaking them even easier, but
you can do that after the $1.25 per minute truck has left.
Have EVERYTHING ready when the boom truck arrives. My ground crew was two,
plus my XYL to take a bunch of digiphotos. I had to make only ONE trip up
the tower during the entire process: After dropping the first section on the
pier pin and installing the lower guys/grips, I climbed to the 40' level to
disconnect and drop the slings and then bolt the upper section to the lower
section when it arrived; After the ground crew temp connected and
pretensioned the upper guys, I continued up to the 80' level to disconnect
and drop the slings; and finally "hung out" up there while the antenna was
swung up to me. Never once felt in danger or that anything was not under
control. 45G is nice stuff to climb, much more comfortable than the 25G I've
always used.
The view of the countryside from 86' or so is MUCH nicer than it was from
36'. It's also at least 20 degrees cooler up there. I think I could feel
some DX waves on my face in the breeze, too. Might have been a 9N1, I think.
I worried a little about putting up a used antenna, but the highest SWR on
20-15-10 turns out to be 1.4 (at the high end of 10M), with 1.1 to 1.2 about
the average. I think I'm going to like this antenna. Tks, Force 12!
73 to all,
Jerry W5KP A proud and happy camper.
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