[TowerTalk] Cut off extra 7 ft of mast or leave it?

[David Winarsky]

Thanks everyone for all the great comments and advice!  It sounds like a lot of people have a similar setup and are actually utilizing the extra space space.  I wasn’t sure the extra length of mast would be stable enough to hold another antenna on its own, but based on this thread I’ll plan to put a 3 feet of the mast in the tower (with the rotator plate 3 ft down as Karl advised), put the Steppir a few feet above the top of the tower, and the JK40 all the way at the top. 

By the way, one additional question I forgot to ask— I had been advised to rotate the JK40 90 degrees from the Steppir to avoid interaction between the two antennas.  Do you folks advise the same?

Thanks again,
David K6ZD

> On Nov 22, 2020, at 21:51, Dick Williams <richardk8ztt at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Dave,
> 
> If you are not planning on stacking another antenna on the tower, why not move the 40M dipole up higher and utilize the additional 7 ft to get the 40M rotatable dipole a bit higher up?  That tower seems to have similar specs to my old US Tower HDX-54 that I have had up close to 20 years.  Like yourself, I have a 20 ft mast and the rotor (Tailtwister) is mounted in the tower with 3 or so feet of mast in the tower.  I use the tower to hold two Force 12 Magnum antennas.  One is a 7 element 12 M beam about 1 ft above the top of the tower, and the other is an 8 element 10 M beam about 3 ft from the top of the mast (the U Bolt and saddle that holds the truss cable for the 10M beam is at the top of the mast).  I live on top of a hill, and have had winds in excess of 70 MPH on more than one occasion. 
> 
> Have fun erecting the tower.  For the first time since I erect it, I had to do some maintenance last week, and it was sure nice to be able to lower it down!
> 
> Dick, K8ZTT
> 
>> On Sun, Nov 22, 2020 at 9:38 PM Gary K9GS <k9gs at gjschwartz.com> wrote:
>> I'd have to study this a bit more but why not put a 3 ele 6m beam at the top and stack with the DB11 on 6m?73,Gary K9GS
>> -------- Original message --------From: Raymond Benny <rayn6vr at gmail.com> Date: 11/22/20  10:23 PM  (GMT-06:00) To: wesattaway at bellsouth.net Cc: Tower Talk <TowerTalk at contesting.com>, David Winarsky <david at winarsky.com> Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Cut off extra 7 ft of mast or leave it? You paid big bucks for a good mast. 7ft sticking up won't hurt a thing.Besides, you may want to add another antenna in the future.Ray,N6VR/W7YAOn Sun, Nov 22, 2020, 7:56 PM Wes Attaway <wesattaway at bellsouth.net> wrote:> I would leave it in place because someday you might want to put a vertical> up there.>>      ----------------------------------->       Wes Attaway (N5WA)> (318) 393-3289 - Shreveport, LA> Computer/Cellphone Forensics>       AttawayForensics.com>      -----------------------------------> -----Original Message-----> From: TowerTalk [mailto:towertalk-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of> David> Winarsky> Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2020 8:39 PM> To: TowerTalk at contesting.com> Subject: [TowerTalk] Cut off extra 7 ft of mast or leave it?>> I'm putting up my first tower, a LM-354HDSP with a Steppir DB11 and a JK 40> meter horizontal dipole, both in the same mast. I have a 20 ft 2 in OD mast> from Tashjian and am wondering whether I should cut off the unused length> or> leave it?>> Karl at Tashjian suggested I install the rotator plate 3 ft below the top> of> the tower and the DB11 2 ft above the top, with the JK40 8 ft above that> (10> ft from the top of the tower). That will leave 7 ft of the mast unused.>> Do you folks recommend I leave the extra 7ft of the mast in place or cut it> off?>> Appreciate the input and any other comments or suggestions on my plan.>> 73,> David K6ZD> _______________________________________________>>>> _______________________________________________> TowerTalk mailing list> TowerTalk at contesting.com> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk>> _______________________________________________>>>> _______________________________________________> TowerTalk mailing list> TowerTalk at contesting.com> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk>______________________________________________________________________________________________TowerTalk mailing listTowerTalk at contesting.comhttp://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
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