Gang,
For your enjoyment, here are some action shots of our new W8UM roof-top
tower installation from 7/30/07. It is a 40 ft Rohn 55G tower on top of the
60 ft tall Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) building at
The University of Michigan:
http://www.umich.edu/~umarc/projects/towerConstruction.html
And one view from the ground on Michigan's North Campus:
http://www.umich.edu/~umarc/photos/tower/views/tower_Beal.jpg
The new tower and antennas have evoked some positive responses from the
engineering types in the vicinity ("it is huge!") and we hope it will serve
as our most valuable visual recruiting tool (enticing students into the W8UM
shack).
The 4-el SteppIR at 105 ft is a DX killer on 20m (and should be on 14-30 MHz
when propagation improves) and the dipole seems to be doing well on 40m,
too.
We originally were going with a MonstIR for the HF Yagi but ran into a
series of engineering problems. It is a long story, but our problems were
mostly due to having structural engineers that did not have any experience
with roof-top antenna installations. In the end, the 6-20m Yagi with 30/40m
dipole was a good compromise between overall performance and
size/weight/cost.
I sincerely thank everyone on the list who gave us excellent advice
throughout the design process. We learned a great deal in the year or so of
putting the design together, and a lot of information came from list
members' valuable experience. As you'll note on the web page, Hank Lonberg
and Matt Strelow had a lot to do with our success, too!
Support your college amateur radio clubs!
73, Chris KA8WFC
The U-M Amateur Radio Club (W8UM)
www.umich.edu/~umarc
P.S. If you know any U-M alumni, please spread the word. We love to hear
from former W8UM (and W8PGW, W8AXZ, even 8AX!) ops.
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