[TowerTalk] BIG array

[john at kk9a.com]

A discussion of this array was on towertalk about a year ago.  I don't 
recall if anyone ever found out his purpose for designing and building this 
system.  For normal HF communication there is no advantage for having a 
elevation rotator and being so high, there are a lot of higher angle nulls 
in the radiation pattern, unless he can compensate by element and phasing 
adjustments.  If not, there will be many times that a roof mounted tribander 
will be significantly louder.  I had hoped that K9LTN would tell us more 
about how he uses this monster antenna system.


John KK9A


To: towertalk at contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] BIG array
From: K7LXCDate: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 08:30:51 EST
List-post: <mailto:towertalk at contesting.com>

Howdy --

    I don't know if it's been mentioned before but I  was at the SteppIR
factory yesterday and saw an engineering drawing and photos  of the K9LTN
array.
It's a 270' rotating tower with an "H" frame on it with 4  over 4 over 3
element SteppIRs on EACH side of the H. The antennas have azimuth  AND
elevation
rotation. I heard that he was able to bounce HF signals off the  moon ala 
W0UN.
It is a truly amazing installation. Apparently they used Rohn 55  and 45 for
the vertical parts of the H. The vertical parts of the H are 100  feet! It 
has
over 21 dBi of freespace gain.

    I went to the website - _www.k9ltn.com/_ (http://www.k9ltn.com/)   - to
look at the photos and they're poorly edited and don't  show any finished 
shots
that I could see.

    I think that this is probably the most expensive  single tower
installation in the country. Everything except the antennas was  custom
designed and
built and professionally installed. I'd estimate that its  cost was over 
$100k.

    If anyone has pictures of the finished array,  please let us know where
they can be viewed.

    You've got to admire someone with that kind of  vision.

Cheers,
Steve     K7LXC
TOWER TECH