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Re: [TowerTalk] Keeping antennas straight

To: Joe Barnes <n4jbk@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Keeping antennas straight
From: Scott <scottb@radios-online.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 21:10:24 -0400
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Joe you need to give more information as others have said.

First is you have a large torque transferred into a small area. MOST manufacturers don't provide very beefy plates and clamps esp for a 2" size mast. Large arrays such as 40m4, optibeam ob4-40, etc will require larger plates to hold them. 3" mast is imperative prefer chrome moly, as is a minimum of 4 heavy duty u bolts with machined saddles in each direction appropriately spaced. Heavy plate aluminum so you can get any deflection. I use minimum 3/8 plate on up to 40m antennas and larger for 80m and up. The plate should give you roughly 5x the boom width for height and 8 times boom width for plate width.

After you got the boom to mast setup then drill your mast for a 1/2" bolt right through the rotor clamp. Don't care what the mfg says. Put a 1/2" threaded brass rod in there (available mcmaster carr) and secure. If you can break a gear or hardened steel shaft of 1.125 or larger as on most decent ham rotors with the shear force of a 1/2" brass rod then you got bigger fish to fry. Make this a maintenance item that you can pull and check each year for wear. I'm only saying this for large rotor stuff like a pst61 or larger, orion 2800, etc. Ham M, tailtwister etc all not apply but if your using something small like that there's lots of things you can do. A piece of emery cloth reversed on itself and slipped into the mast clamp will work on a tribander etc inside these lighter duty ham rotors.



At 01:24 PM 4/19/2014, ve4xt@mymts.net wrote:
What about pinning antennas to mast (so they remain aligned to one another), NOT pinning mast to rotator (so a really bad wind doesn't destroy your rotator) and using a rotator without physical stops in the rotation?

I know the Spid doesn't use physical stops, are there others?

With the Spid, calibrating rotator to antennas, no matter how far out of shape, is an entirely electronic experience from inside the shack.

Doesn't help if you don't want to change rotators.

Is there some aspect I'm missing?

73, Kelly
ve4xt

Sent from my iPad

> On Apr 19, 2014, at 11:04 AM, "Joe Barnes" <n4jbk@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Does anyone have a suggestion other than pinning or the Tennadynes Slip Knott for keeping antennas from moving around in the wind? All of my aluminum has sprouted at over 100 feet in the air and is a bear to keep straight in these winds that we get here in Florida in some of these storms. Thank you for your input.
>
> Joe N4JBK
>
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