[TowerTalk] Keeping antennas straight

[Scott]

Joe you need to give more information as others have said.

First is you have a large torque transferred into a small area. MOST 
manufacturers don't provide very beefy plates and clamps esp for a 2" 
size mast. Large arrays such as 40m4, optibeam ob4-40, etc will 
require larger plates to hold them. 3" mast is imperative prefer 
chrome moly, as is a minimum of 4 heavy duty u bolts with machined 
saddles in each direction appropriately spaced. Heavy plate aluminum 
so you can get any deflection. I use minimum 3/8 plate on up to 40m 
antennas and larger for 80m and up. The plate should give you roughly 
5x the boom width for height and 8 times boom width for plate width.

After you got the boom to mast setup then drill your mast for a 1/2" 
bolt right through the rotor clamp. Don't care what the mfg says. Put 
a 1/2" threaded brass rod in there (available mcmaster carr) and 
secure. If you can break a gear or hardened steel shaft of 1.125 or 
larger as on most decent ham rotors with the shear force of a 1/2" 
brass rod then you got bigger fish to fry. Make this a maintenance 
item that you can pull and check each year for wear. I'm only saying 
this for large rotor stuff like a pst61 or larger, orion 2800, etc. 
Ham M, tailtwister etc all not apply but if your using something 
small like that there's lots of things you can do. A piece of emery 
cloth reversed on itself and slipped into the mast clamp will work on 
a tribander etc inside these lighter duty ham rotors.



At 01:24 PM 4/19/2014, ve4xt at mymts.net wrote:
>What about pinning antennas to mast (so they remain aligned to one 
>another), NOT pinning mast to rotator (so a really bad wind doesn't 
>destroy your rotator) and using a rotator without physical stops in 
>the rotation?
>
>I know the Spid doesn't use physical stops, are there others?
>
>With the Spid, calibrating rotator to antennas, no matter how far 
>out of shape, is an entirely electronic experience from inside the shack.
>
>Doesn't help if you don't want to change rotators.
>
>Is there some aspect I'm missing?
>
>73, Kelly
>ve4xt
>
>Sent from my iPad
>
> > On Apr 19, 2014, at 11:04 AM, "Joe Barnes" <n4jbk at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone have a suggestion other than pinning or the 
> Tennadynes Slip Knott for keeping antennas from moving around in 
> the wind? All of my aluminum has sprouted at over 100 feet in the 
> air and is a bear to keep straight in these winds that we get here 
> in Florida in some of these storms. Thank you for your input.
> >
> > Joe N4JBK
> >
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