[TowerTalk] Need help buying first tower

[Lux, Jim]

On 4/12/21 2:14 PM, GEO Badger via TowerTalk wrote:
>   John,
> I suggest you contact your school's governing body and municipal people. This needs to be a professional install, no jenkie ham install.
> While beams would be nice, and a tri-bander would be better than a mono-bander, you should use reality to define your goals, and install. Other have suggested wire antennas and I concur. Much less of a hassle to install and maintain, plus it's not your dream station. It's a teaching station. New hams, IMHO, should learn how to work with the basics, not a deluxe station.
> Have fun, involve the students in the planning, and let them see the results.

Ross (NS7F) the original question raiser may not be looking for "minimum 
cost".

In the big scheme of things, going out and getting a grant for $10-50k 
might be the same amount of work as for $1k.  The idea of using surplus 
gear and "just scraping by" might be a historical ham approach, but not 
might be the best in a educational environment. In fact, you want "low 
hassle" and "it works" - because you've got plenty of other problems 
that are non-radio related to solve.


Life with a decent computer, a modern digital interface radio, a beam 
and an autotuner might be better from a pedagogical standpoint - the 
computer will need to comply with the latest district cybersecurity 
processes (which in a school environment are very critical).  And by all 
means, it's going to be a brand new commercial tower, installed by a 
commercial contractor, with drawings signed off by the local authorities.







> ---
> Ciao baby, catch you on the flip side
> 73 de W3AB/GEO
>
> WA2LSI, KE6RJW, W7B, AAR9AG
> http://www.w3ab.org
>
> You can say "over", you can say "out", you just can't say "over and out".
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