[TowerTalk] Bucket Truck

[Dale L. Martin]

Wow!  That was some fun.

Today, at the W5RRR/Johnson Space Center Amateur Radio Club
station, we had a bucket truck come out to assist with some work
on our A3S beam at the top of the 10' mast on the 50' tower.
Since I pushed for the work (it's our only 10m-capable antenna),
I got to go up and do the work.

What fun!

What a difference a bucket truck is from hanging from the tower
(although, there is a certain attraction to that, too).  We (the
bucket op and me) went up, zoomed up and between the A3WS
elements at 50' and nestled under the A3S at the top of the
tower's mast.  This is, indeed, the civilized way to do
antenna/tower work!

In no time, I (1) determined that the problem was not with the
antenna, but with the balun PL259 and the barrel connector, (2),
determined the feedline was in good shape (wattmeter and dummy
load being fed RF from the station, (3) replaced the balun, (4)
installed a 'jumper' cable from the balun to the tower top, (4)
rerouted the feedline back down to the tower top; (6) dressed the
cable, (7) checked cable clearance during antenna rotation, (8)
installed new tie-wraps on two messenger cable bundles to the
tower from the station building.

Next up is a crane for the 15m beam at 90' on the 80' tower.  The
reflector end of the 15m boom and the 15m reflector came off in a
tropical storm last year.  (interestingly, SWR is nominal and
there's no significant signal loss, but probably some f/b, f/s,
gain changes, I'm sure).  Fun!

Today was a good day!

73

Dale Martin, KG5U
kg5u@hal-pc.org
http://www.hal-pc.org/~kg5u



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