[TowerTalk] repeating the N0AX/K7LXC studies

[jimlux]

Is there any interest in repeating the studies?  It's a huge amount of 
work, but technology has advanced, both in antennas and in measurement 
technique.

Seems to me that the big resource consumer is getting and assembling the 
antennas (and then disassembling and shipping back to whoever 
loaned/rented them).  The thought of a multi week antenna assembly fest 
makes my fingertips hurt to contemplate it.

With a bucket truck and suitable test site (which I might happen to have 
available) the antenna raising/lowering would be pretty speedy.  Maybe 
you could do one antenna a day. (From sitting on the ground next to the 
tower, hoisted up and mounted, spun for the measurements, then brought 
down).

Maybe a temporary tower or a crane..  Now that I think about it, the 
latter sounds attractive.  You could put a rotator with a sort of 
universal plate mount on the top (or in a 120 foot telescoping boom 
lift), bring it to the ground, bolt the antenna on, raise it up.(the 
bucket truck is controllable from the ground)  No high work at all 
(which is always slow).  It's not all that expensive to rent a lift for 
a week.


(or actually, we essentially have this on the antenna range at JPL..A 
big boom that can erect and has a precision rotator on the end of it. We 
use it for testing VHF and UHF antennas with a huge log periodic or horn 
as the probe. I wonder if we could permission to use it?)

Jim, W6RMK