[SCCC] A wall entry solution for a YL
Wayne Overbeck
overbeck6 at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 22 15:25:10 PST 2010
At the other extreme, a single 3/4" hole in
the wall is sufficient to run all necessary
cables for a station with two towers and
antennas for all bands 3.5-144 MHz. That's
how it's done at W6TAI's cabin. Carrie wanted
a good antenna system but not a large cable
entry hole.
The 3/4" hole is big enough to pass through
one RG8 and two 8-conductor control cables.
The single RG8 goes to an outdoor Ameritron
5-position coax relay box. From there, five
cables feed a tribander (A4S with the 40m.
extension), an inverted vee for 75, a 5-band
vertical, a 5 ele. Yagi on 50 MHz and a 6 ele.
Yagi on 144 MHz.
One of the 8-conductor cables controls the
antenna relay box, while the other controls
both rotators. The trick there is to switch
a single cable between the two rotors with
another outdoor relay box. Yaesu rotators
require only a 6-conductor cable, so the
last two conductors provide 12 volts DC to
switch the relays that transfer the 6-conductor
rotor cable from one rotor to the other.
The result: one small (and sealed) hole in
the wall provides cabling for five antennas
and two antenna rotators. Having only one
rotator control also helps keep the station
itself compact. Carrie's entire station
including an AL-572 amplifier fits in one
small (18"x22") cabinet. The laptop and
an FT-857 sit on top, with a 40-amp power
supply and the rotor control on the middle
shelf and the AL-572 on the bottom shelf.
It's really compact, a requirement for a
YL-owned station in a small cabin. As for
the antennas, Carrie thought those were NOT
compact--until she saw photos of the antennas
at W6YI and K6NA.
73,
Wayne, N6NB
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