[TowerTalk] Tilting Boom Design

[David L. Thompson]

There have been several tilt a boom designs.  The first was thje W4GL all
driven arrays back in the 50's with tilt a boom design. W4GL may have a lock
on the name at the time.  Hy-gain used a tilt a boom design at one time in
the early Thunderbird beams.  The design was fairly simple just use the
proper hardware for the boom to mast u bolts so that the boom portion tilted
the boom away from the mast so the elements pointed straight up rather than
horizontal.

Wingard the windmill tower people (the owner was a ham listed or shown in
their ads for a time) used a rotary adapter gear so you could tilt the
antennas at the top.  The towers are still standing at most airports in
North America.

We put up a T joint on a telephone pole so you could turn the antennas
upside down to remove.   We found with bigger antennas that it was best to
not turn the T but we had a guy stand on top ot the telephone pole a guide
the antenna into the open of the T.  The T did double duty as a sleeve
bearing and the rotor was mounted on another T below this.  Look in the old
ARRL handbooks and antenna books from the late 50's (the original article
was in a 1956 QST.).

73 Dave K4JRB



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