[TowerTalk] When a Yagi Loses an Element

[W2RU - Bud Hippisley]

In order of preference:
  1.  Hire KC1XX
  2.  Hire a crane
  3.  Disconnect guy wires and lay the tower over in the next windstorm
  4.  Follow my procedure below

I'm a little guy (160 pounds) and not particularly muscular.  Despite that, I owned a KLM 4-element 40 for a while, and I'd have to say the only way I could imagine replacing the reflector without a tilt boom/mast bracket such as the PVRC mount is to use a rope sling from a pulley or gin pole higher up the mast, as suggested by others on here, to support the boom while you slide the boom horizontally enough in each direction to temporarily remove the inner two elements one at a time.  (With my size, I'm always in favor of getting as much weight and as much torque off the antenna as soon as possible.)

Then, with two of the three elements gone, I'd try to continue the rope sling process until I had the remaining element in reach or at least until I had the center of gravity of the boom/element assembly right at the mast.  I'd follow K1TTT's suggestion to have a tag line to ground (or a lower person on the tower) from the end of the boom with no element on it.  At this stage, I'd also rotate the boom in the bracket until the element is vertically polarized.  Re-tighten the boom-to-bracket bolts, re-position the rope sling (or use a second one), and make a failsafe knot around the boom between the tower and the element.  (Use muffler clamps or other U-bolts to stop the rope from sliding unexpectedly on the boom.)  Then completely disconnect the boom from the bracket and while supporting the boom/element monstrosity with the rope from the pulley above, roughhouse maneuver the whole mess until the boom is vertical, hanging alongside the tower, and the director is horizontal, with its boom/element bracket laying against the tower some number of feet below the top.  (The reason you go vertical polarization before this process is so the director will clear the upper guy wires and so someone a little lower on the tower can catch the end of the director as you're performing this little windmill stunt, after which they can then gently guide the rotation of the element tip past the tower the rest of the way.) 

At this point, the whole assembly can be slowly slid down the tower a few feet until you can conveniently reach and work on the end of the boom that's missing a reflector.  Tie the boom off in a few places to the tower, haul the reflector up and reinstall it, add a heavy-duty tilt bracket to your mast, do the windmill in reverse direction, put your two driven elements back on with the aid of the tilt-bracket, and you're in business.

See how simple that is?

Or, you can follow an alternate conclusion, as has been suggested by Steve, and do as I did, too -- sell the beam....

HTH.

Bud, W2RU