[TowerTalk] Broken Boom Stay and possums

[Don Tucker]

Suppose I'd need a pair, balanced of course, one each side of the driven 
element for maximum effectiveness. Sort of like the old ZL special for 10M 
back in the 50's

Now, a more serious issue.

The wire support stay (or link) from the front of the TH7DX boom to the mast 
broke at the boom.  The wire is now draped over one side of the driven 
element and the bottom of the wire is caught in the tower, preventing my 
rotating to anything between W and S.

The question is - why am I not seeing some serious deterioration of the beam 
operating characteristics? I am only noticing a very slight difference in 
SWR and the target frequencies (and not all at sure if it is due to the 
wire). If I had not noticed that the beam was stopping at W I would have 
never noticed anything at all. While reports can't be relied upon, it 
certainly hasn't affected what appears to be the usual operations.  Thoughts 
on just what IS happening?

Don W7WLL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Miller KG0KP" <JimMiller at stl-online.net>
To: "Don Tucker" <w7wll at arrl.net>; <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2010 2:56 PM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] antenna grease


The possums could be used to your advantage if you are having interferrence
problems as at your field day site.  They would form a  stub of sorts,
relatively broad banded because of their somewhat lower conductivity factor
and also resulting in a low velocity factor and actually causing the possum
to appear to be much longer than it really is and the frequency of resonance
to be lower also.  If they were tuned to the interferring frequency, you
might just be back in business.

Have you performed any testing using the possum stub?

tic, 73, de Jim KG0KP

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Tucker" <w7wll at arrl.net>
To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 11:08 AM
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] antenna grease


> Works for birds, the gulls here on the coast can't function upside down
> which is the position they end up in.  Big problem though! 'Possums can
> climb the tower and they think the upside down position is nifty.
> Significant SWR when they use the driven element though, target freq goes
> way down. So does the element if they get to far out.
>
> Don W7WLL
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "chas" <chasm at texas.net>
> To: "Chuck" <w5pr at swbell.net>
> Cc: <towertalk at contesting.com>
> Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 7:42 AM
> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] antenna grease
>
>
> Chuck wrote:
>> I don't think it would work.  Why would you want to take down the
>> antennas
>> every year to polish the elements and then put grease on them?
>>
>> Chuck W5PR
>>
>
> to make your antenna bird proof?
>
> fwiw
>
> chas
>
> -- 
> chasm at texas.net   k5dam  Houston, TX
>
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