[TowerTalk] As the antenna turns...

[Larry Loen]

Latest progress in the never-ending soap opera that is my antenna project.

Can anyone suggest how I might expedite progress on the remote head and M2
rotor projects?  But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here's what I did accomplish today.

1.  Got the tower down.  A bit sticky because some excess weld hindered the
initial tilt-over.  It went fine after that.
2.  Got the standoffs on.  Looked at the situation with the Orion and
decided I had to do a lot of work on the ground before putting it in the
tower.  That turned out to be an excellent decision for other reasons.
3.  I have, with some misgivings, removed part of the thrust bearing (I
don't know how to secure it with the mast removed.  It just seems to sit on
top of the tower; there are no real "bearings" here, just something that
fits on top of something.  I suppose this is something I have to keep
greased.

The big problem of the day turned out to be that once I got the thing tiled
back up, the tower would not raise.

After some initial panic, I suspected that due to the remote head feature
(which I am not ready to install), there was probably a "on by default
interlock" that keeps the tower raising switch at the tower from working.
At least, I hope that is the case.  The obvious stuff like "is there power
to the tower" were debugged; that part, at least, is fine.

Unfortunately, the manual does not have enough detail for me to know how to
wire things at the tower to enable a "tower side" raising at present.  So,
perhaps the tower raising has to wait until I get the remote "head" ready
to go.

Similarly, I have to get going on the M2 rotor in a serious way now.  I
suppose I should have been already, but there is just so much going on, so
much to do.

That, and the remote head.

Anybody know how I might expedite these projects?

The antenna and tilt plate should arrive this week, too, so it's all
getting to be closer to reality, but so much to do still.


Larry Wo0Z