K0JIH's Tower Work

I guess no one missed me on the air for the last three weeks.

 

My rotor was shot and the tuning wires on my 40 Meter beam had been damaged by age and the birds.  I found some used parts and bought some new parts from HyGain. 

 

Eight or nine years ago I had a guy weld me up a mast  which I put a hand operated pulley on and anchor it back to one of the anchors on a guy wire.  The purpose is to collapse the tower and hook the cable from the mast to the tower and let the tower down.  I put this tower up this way about 9 years ago.

 

When the tower had been brought down, I stabilize it with a couple two by fours which are visible in the picture.  Also I can do most of the work on the rotor etc from one of those good step ladders about 6 ft tall.  This also keeps some of the tower weight off the Antenna element which is on the ground.  The next this to do after you fix the antenna on the bottom side is to raise the tower and rotate the antenna and let it down again so you can fix the opposite side of the beam. 

 

Yes, I put new rotor control cable on but----I left the old in place incase I might need it for one reason or another.

 

The next move is to install a winch.  This is a 40 ft tower and it collapses to 22 ft plus 7 ft of mast.  I have the winch  and am going to get on it soon.

 

It has been too hot this summer to do anything.  Even during this three week period I did not work in the heat of the day.

 

See you later.

 

Bert