Well, we're making progress on the antennas. KD8MRC stopped by with a
friend/helper and in a little over 3 hours we got the 7L C3i 6-meter
yagi down, and the mast has been lowered to the point where he can
easily remove the 144 and 440 antennas. We'll probably have to put my
larger and much heavier Gin pole up to remove the 20' lengths of masting
from the tower and replace them with two lengths of 2" OD DOM. He's
getting lots of practice on my system so it looks like we have a
new,competent climber in the area.
I'm going to try and pick up three lengths of 2" OD DOM tomorrow.
Actually they will deliver it, no charge, as it's on the way home for
the guy that runs the place. This time I'm going to weld on steel end
caps, dose the inside of the tubes heavily with LPS-2, and paint them
with a coat of Rustoleum primer followed by an Aluminum finish coat, or
coats. Two of the lengths will be spliced with a 2' long collar for the
45 G. The top will only be 15' above the top of the tower instead of 30
and the 144 and 440 arrays are not going back up on that mast. It looks
like I may have discovered a local (within 20 miles) industrial
supplier/source for 6061-T6 Aluminum tube to use for boom material so I
won't have to resort to ordering 6' lengths via UPS.
The third length of DOM will go into the top of the 25G, to support the
TH-5 for the time being and maybe a log periodic later on. I'd like to
build on using the design that was in QST a month or two back, but I'd
rather have 30 through 10 meters instead of 20 through 6 meters. I have
the equipment to build my own fiberglass boom. It'd be tapered and much
stronger than the one in the article although a bit heavier. OTOH I'm
not sure where to start on the design as I found the article a bit
lacking at that point.
73
Roger (K8RI)
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