Linx's Journal - Tower/Equipment Pics

[linx]

Well, I couldn't decide where to put this, so I'm putting it here. I've had a lot of folks interested in my setup, and there's good reason for that. It seems like I put up more antennas than anyone I know, lol. I will put a good setup up for a while, use it, and take it down and go on to the next thing. I started out with vertical antennas, and have now moved onto beams. In this first installment, I'll show my previous antenna, the Moonraker 4, and show my tower at it's current state. Me and Bushhog took my tower down today, so I could clean it up, and get it ready for the next series of antennas.

Here is a pic of the Moonraker that has now been removed and sold. It sat perched at 60 ft, with a 1 1/4" inch piece of schedule 80 pipe. This thing was a beat to install and to take down. I won't do quad, cube, or quagi again after fighting with this thing. The pic was taken in March.

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Here's another pic from March of the tower with the guy wires installed.

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Here's a pic of when I installed the guy anchors. I had my tower guy free for years, but after some heavy storms in February in TN, I decided to guy it off. The tower was starting to shift b/c I only had one set of bolts in each leg, instead of both sets. It now has both sets.

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Here's how the tower attaches to the house. It's also in 600lbs of concrete.

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-----------------------------------------

Fast forward to today, and we have the tower leaned down. I have my tower on a hinge setup, so it can easily be lowered with a pulley on the side of my house, and a winch from my Arctic Cat 4 wheeler. Each section only weighs in around 40 lbs, so you're looking at 160 lbs + pipe and rotor plate.

Me and BushHog started the morning by removing the tower from the house. We took the old piece of small pipe out, removed the bolts from the legs of the tower, painted the tower, reinstalled both sets of bolts (stainless of course). We also removed the coax and rotor cable from the tower before painting and removed the rotor plate and cleaned it up.

In these pics the tower is still lowered, but the tower is painted, and we have started reassembly. The rotor plate is in the tower, but I am not installing the rotor until tomorrow. The tower is bolted back together. We are building a stand off for a wire antenna, and I forgot to buy a pulley so that's where we stopped today. Tomorrow I will finish the stand off, and install it on the tower, install the rotor, and hopefully pick up a mast pipe from a local metal supply shop. We're doing stacked beams this time around, so the pipe is very crucial.

Here's a view of the tower this afternoon fully painted and lowered sittin on a saw horse.



Here's a side shot of the tower, you can see the rotor plate, rotor in the background on my ladder, and you can see where the guy wires attach. I removed them today to inspect them and paint around them, and reinstalled them this afternoon.



Here's a pic of where the tower attaches to my house, and my extension ladder. My house looks naked without the tower.



Right here you can see the hinge deal. It's not a typical hinge plate, but instead one of the tower legs comes undone, and the tower can be laid over. This section of tower was built by American Tower. I have modified it, and had to re-weld some shotty welds. Please ignore my crappy welds, I know they suck. You can see the old Coax and Rotor wire. I will be removing both runs of this coax to make room for better coax. I will probably keep the 1 run of RG-213U for my wire antenna.



Here's a pic looking from the base of the tower. In the background you can see my Ham IV rotor, and you can see the CushCraft A4S that is going to grace this tower until I get tired of it and try something else.



Here's a more detailed look at my guy wires. What I did was take some airline and cut it into like 1 ft sections. This protects the towers from the rubbing of the guy wires. The wire is galvanized wire, I think it was 3/8 inch in size. This is a heck of a lot cheaper then buying a guy bracket, and works just as good. I credit this to this forum for giving me the idea. I started a thread while back and this is what we as a group came up with.



A closeup pic of my Ham IV rotor. This thing has held through 95mph winds, holding a MR4 at 15 ft above my tower. Talk about a killer rotor, and it's fast to boot! You can see the Cushcraft HF beam in the background.



A picture of the top section. Cushcraft A4S in the background again.



Here's a front view of the cushcraft. Pretty shiny new aluminum tubing...mmm mmm good!





Enjoy the pics. It will get better as I get the stand off built, the rotor installed, the 2m beam up top, and the big HF beam in the next couple of weeks.

Stay tuned, but for now, that's all folks.

[linx]

While I'm at it, I may as well post some equipment pics too. I've only got 1 thing to show today, b/c my office/radio room is a mess. I built a new room onto my house out of a covered patio, and it's still being finished, lol. That's why the patio is missing on the back of the house. That will be poured when I'm done playing with the tower.

Kenwood TS-2000. Fully Mars/Cap modded. This thing is a beast on the HF airwaves.

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[BushHog]

:D :D yea i do good work dont i

[Rex_foxhound]

Looks good linx!! Your part looked good too BushHog...whatever part it was you did
Glad to see somebody else likes Arctic Cat's too

[sugarcane]

it looks so massive!

You go on with your BADSELF!

[cobra jet]

Looks good Rob!

I'm a few steps behind you in getting up my newly restored 40 foot tower.

What wire antenna are you installing? A G5RV?

Bruce

[linx]

Hey guys, thanks for the positive remarks. I will be updating this every step of the way. I haven't ever documented it before, so this will be all new to me.

The wire I'm putting up is a Carolina Windom CW160! This thing is massive. It's 265 ft long. It's an off centered dipole unlike a G5RV that's a centered dipole and the wires are the same length. They're supposed to have good results, and I can't wait to get it up! It should be in the air by the end of the week. The cushcraft hf beam is going to require a bucket truck, so that will still be a couple of weeks out.

Rob - linx

[721HACKSAW]

Looks great Linx, the only thing I question is how the guy wires attach to the tower legs. Not much help there for the "twisting" effect. That big ole flat Cushman gonna try to twist back around in high wind and the guy is only pulling down. I copied the design off of Texas Towers site pieces with some flat steel bolted around the tower then attach the guys to each corner. I'll get some pics up later on today. You got a bucket truck to raise that correct? I don't thunk the 4-wheeler gonna do it!!

[linx]

LOL, the 4 wheeler works great raising the tower by itself, but we're going to use a bucket truck for the beam.

I ran the tower for so many years without guys that I'm not really too concerned about the guys. I am only using them to help stabilize the tower from side to side movement in high winds. It seems (and this may not be correct all the time) that the wind usually comes from the west at my house. So, my biggest concern was having the stability up there from the western winds.

With my MR4, it never acted like it was going to twist on me. Im sure it would under the right circumstances.

[linx]

Ok, Continuing....

I was going to use a piece of angle iron for my stand off, but BushHog has a brother in law that works in a machine shop. I ended up with a sweet scrap piece of 6061 aluminum bar. It's 2"x1" and is 31 inches long. Here comes some pics...

Here's the new stand off with me getting my tools out and ready to start mapping out and drilling holes for the pulley and for the 2 u-bolts that will attach it to the tower.



A closeup pic of the 6061 aluminum stamping (for all the nay sayers)



On this pic you can see where I have the pulley installed, and also where I have the u-bolts drilled and I'm checking for proper drilling. The pulley is a 480lb break strength and should easily handle a >30lb wire.



WooHoo!! Stand off fully fabricated and installed. Right here where the stand off is installed. At this point in the tower, it's right at 40 ft. It should be a good optimal point and should work out real well. (Watch out for the guard dog in the background, lol..)



A side shot of the stand off. Super sturdy, and ultra light weight.



Ham IV rotor installed



A shot of the rotor/standoff/rotor plate from a bottom view perspective.



Opposite view.



Rotor with back-plate installed.



2x 40 ft runs of Andrew Heliax. I soldered in the n-female connectors, and bought adapters to go from n-female to SO-239. I am making all my own coax, to be specialty runs and not have excess all over the place. From the heliax to the 2 antennas on the mast will be LMR-400. On the Carolina Windom on the standoff will be RG-213U that I am trading a radio for. I have some older 213U, but that's going to cut into runs to go under my house. These connectors on the heliax are all water proof. Why did I choose the n-females? Well, a ham Elmer gave me 2 of the n-females that were brand new. So, I installed them and bought adapters. I had to buy the other 2 connectors, and when I went to buy SO-239's they were about $80 each. I bought the 2 other n-females for $20 each, brand new, and did the adapters again. This stuff is overkill for the HF beam, but will be awesome for low loss on the UHF/VHF.



Last pic for now is a closeup shot of the Andrew Heliax. You can see the model number and see that it's the real stuff LDF4-50A



I had hoped to have the heliax installed, and the rotor wire installed tonight, but I had to repaint a section of tower that got a little screwed up, and I didn't want to install the coax and wire on a wet painted tower. Also, I'm having a beast of a time finding a mast pipe. I shopped all day while out and about working, and have yet to find what I am looking for. The best thing I can find is 1.75" OD aluminum with a 1/16th wall. The wall is too skinny for my tastes. I tried to order a 1/4" wall aluminum pipe, but the price was $400, and I'm not paying that for a piece of pipe. I'd like aluminum, but it's starting to look like it's going to be steel.

More to come...

[PONY EXPRESS]

Ok, Continuing....

I was going to use a piece of angle iron for my stand off, but BushHog has a brother in law that works in a machine shop. I ended up with a sweet scrap piece of 6061 aluminum bar. It's 2"x1" and is 31 inches long. Here comes some pics...

Here's the new stand off with me getting my tools out and ready to start mapping out and drilling holes for the pulley and for the 2 u-bolts that will attach it to the tower.



A closeup pic of the 6061 aluminum stamping (for all the nay sayers)



On this pic you can see where I have the pulley installed, and also where I have the u-bolts drilled and I'm checking for proper drilling. The pulley is a 480lb break strength and should easily handle a >30lb wire.



WooHoo!! Stand off fully fabricated and installed. Right here where the stand off is installed. At this point in the tower, it's right at 40 ft. It should be a good optimal point and should work out real well. (Watch out for the guard dog in the background, lol..)



A side shot of the stand off. Super sturdy, and ultra light weight.



Ham IV rotor installed



A shot of the rotor/standoff/rotor plate from a bottom view perspective.



Opposite view.



Rotor with back-plate installed.



2x 40 ft runs of Andrew Heliax. I soldered in the n-female connectors, and bought adapters to go from n-female to SO-239. I am making all my own coax, to be specialty runs and not have excess all over the place. From the heliax to the 2 antennas on the mast will be LMR-400. On the Carolina Windom on the standoff will be RG-213U that I am trading a radio for. I have some older 213U, but that's going to cut into runs to go under my house. These connectors on the heliax are all water proof. Why did I choose the n-females? Well, a ham Elmer gave me 2 of the n-females that were brand new. So, I installed them and bought adapters. I had to buy the other 2 connectors, and when I went to buy SO-239's they were about $80 each. I bought the 2 other n-females for $20 each, brand new, and did the adapters again. This stuff is overkill for the HF beam, but will be awesome for low loss on the UHF/VHF.



Last pic for now is a closeup shot of the Andrew Heliax. You can see the model number and see that it's the real stuff LDF4-50A



I had hoped to have the heliax installed, and the rotor wire installed tonight, but I had to repaint a section of tower that got a little screwed up, and I didn't want to install the coax and wire on a wet painted tower. Also, I'm having a beast of a time finding a mast pipe. I shopped all day while out and about working, and have yet to find what I am looking for. The best thing I can find is 1.75" OD aluminum with a 1/16th wall. The wall is too skinny for my tastes. I tried to order a 1/4" wall aluminum pipe, but the price was $400, and I'm not paying that for a piece of pipe. I'd like aluminum, but it's starting to look like it's going to be steel.

More to come...

Looks Awesome

I need to get busy and finish my hazer project

[Punkin Head]

all I see is a mudduck station and hamwinkie junk lol






ok it looks good and I wish I had it but I didnt want to admit it.

[linx]

I'm a happy man this afternoon. I just picked up a shiney, and new piece of 6061 1.68" OD aluminum mast pipe. It's 15 ft long, and is just a small hair under 1/4" thick! This is going to be awesome. The big hf beam is going to mount 1-2 ft out of the top of the tower, so I'm not too worried about the pipe bending. The rest of the pipe (about 10 ft) will be above the HF beam, and will house my little CushCraft A27010S beam. This evening I plan on installing hardline, and mast pipe. I will keep this updated.

[linx]

Carrying on...

I didn't get off work until after 6PM CST, so I didn't have a lot of daylight left, and what daylight was left was full of mosquito's. I started off by installing my new mast I picked up today. It's 15 ft of 6061 aluminum at 1.68" OD with a wall between 3/16 and 1/4". I then installed the rotor cable including connectors, and installed the 2 runs of Andrew's heliax. Enjoy the pics. I am waiting on some gamma matches from CushCraft and some coax and the 2m/70cm beam will be installed and I'll be ready to raise the tower, then install the CushCraft HF beam.

If you look in this pic, you can see the aluminum mast pipe, as well as the rotor cable if you look closely.



This picture didn't turn out good, but it's showing the wall of the 6061 pipe. As state above, it's between 3/16 and 1/4 of an inch. The HF beam will be mounted 1 ft above the top of the tower, so I'm sure this pipe will be plenty sufficient.



On this pic you can see the mast pipe installed, and 1 run of the Andrew's Heliax installed.



Another view of the same picture. Helax and Pipe shown.



Yeah buddy! Got the 2nd run of heliax installed. You can see it in these pics. I ran it up as high as I wanted to. From the top of the tower to the antennas will be some flexible coax to make room for the rotor turning the whole setup.



Last pic for tonight, this is showing the tower, with pipe, and both runs of heliax installed. You can look down the tower and see some lumps in the heliax, but I had to work around the rotor plate, and I also had to work around the guy wire setup in order to not interfere with them. I had to install the coax on the same side as the rotor wire because this is the side of the tower that is not against the house. This way my brackets won't be in the way.



Tomorrow I will hopefully have my gamma matches for the A27010S and get it installed. I will then measure the coax and make custom coax jumpers by hand to avoid excess coax danging. I am also going to cover all my zip ties I used on the heliax with high quality electrical tape so they don't get UV damage and break and fall off.

Rob - linx

[721HACKSAW]

Great job, real professional Rob. Where did you score the mast? What kinda antenna you hanging off the side? Still going with a Hazer setup? Keep us posted. Man I got to get back to work on my setup!!!

[linx]

Great job, real professional Rob. Where did you score the mast? What kinda antenna you hanging off the side? Still going with a Hazer setup? Keep us posted. Man I got to get back to work on my setup!!!

Man, believe it or not, I owe you a debt of gratitude. Last night in the chat room you mentioned Metal Supermarkets. I had never heard of them, but I looked them up on Google, and as luck would have it, there was one in Nashville. I called, and he said he had what I wanted. I went down there, and took a look, and bought it. He was seriously a quarter of the price of my main metal supplier. He basically gave the thing to me for the price he sold it to me for. You're the man Hacksaw!

No more hazer. The antenna on the side is going to be a Carolina Windom 160. It's an off centered dipole wire antenna. I am using the pulley so I can lower the wire antenna and work on it at my leisure. Wire antennas require some maintenance, so this way I can keep the whole setup in the air except the wire, and I can lower it. I've already bought some high quality nylon/dacron blend rope for the pulley system.

Right above the top of the tower, I am installing that CushCraft A4S that is seen in some of photos in the background. The only thing the rest of the mast pipe is for, is for the CushCraft A27010S which is a 10 element vertical yagi for 2m/70cm. That antenna only weighs 1.4lbs, so I'm sure that big of a mast pipe is more than I'll ever need

If I get the parts that were missing in the A27010S, then I will have it installed. I bought it brand new and it was missing parts. Bummer.

[linx]

I don't have but a few minutes to post. I got the 2m/70cm CushCraft A27010S installed and got the tower raised with guy wires attached and the standoff line installed thanks to help from BushHog.

Enjoy the pics. The CushCraft A4S HF beam is going right at the top of the tower in a couple of days.










I wanted to take pics of the tower down with the VHF beam installed, but didn't have time. More to come. After both beams are in the air, the wire is going up, and then we're starting another project for an enclosure for all the lightning arrestors.

[BushHog]

yet again man it all looks great and no problem on the help part glad i can

[linx]

This morning I got up at 5am and starting putting the 40 meter kit on the A4S. The pics are not great, but you can somewhat see it. It's the huge element being held up by guy wires. That 1 element is 34 ft long in case you need a reference point.




I had a 100 ft run of 213U I was using on my Moonraker 4. Actually, it had 2 runs, but one is not at a friends house. I've phased out all the cheap coax on the system. It will require 3x 40 ft runs under the house. 1 for the HF beam, 1 for the HF wire, and 1 for the 2m beam. I took the 100 ft run I had left and cut 2x 40 ft runs out of it. I have 20 ft left over that I will use as jumpers. I also used LMR 400 at the top of my tower. I had some leftover, about 20 ft, so I installed PL259's on it as well. With the excess 213U or the LMR 400, I plan on making jumpers to go between the tower's Heliax and the lightning arrestors that I plan on making an enclosure for this week.

In this pic you can see 2x 40 ft runs of 213U and 1x 20 ft run of LMR 400. I put all the ends on myself, as always.



I'll have more updates as I get the HF beam on the tower, and the lightning arrestor enclosure built. The 2m beam is rockin right now, and I made a few contacts on 40m this morning at a whopping 6 ft off the ground. I've already worked several foreign countries on 20m at 6 ft off the ground.

Enjoy.

[linx]

Well guys, a lot has happened since the last time I posted, and I should have posted sooner but I've been busy. Between work, the kids, thw wife, and the hobby, there's not much time left in the day, and most of that time I spend on here.

Today, November 3, we got the antenna installed. I have a friend of the family that owns a tree trimming service and we got a bucket truck today. I will update more, and have tons of new pics to post, but for a teaser I'll post a couple today. I have new post of new guy 6x6's I put in the ground, a whole new lightning protection system, and lots more.

This is my 42 ft tower, attached to my house. The bottom beam (the one we put up today) is a CushCraft A4S with a 40m addon kit. It does 10, 15, 20, and 40m without a antenna tuner. It will do more with a tuner. The longest element has a guy wire on it for support. For a little understanding on how massive this is, that 1 element with the guy wire is 40 ft long....yes...40 ft long. The antenna on top is the one in previous pictures which is my CushCraft 2m/70cm beam.

I'll get more pics, but here's all I have tonight.

[BushHog]

looks great man cant wait to see it up close

[998]

Cool deal glad you got it going on now ^^^^^^^ in the blue that thing will make a good nesting spot for the birds

[linx]

My antennas have been working great. My Kenwood is working like a charm.

2 days ago I received a new microhone that I ordered....the wait seemed like forever but she finally came in. I ordered it from Cheap Ham and got a spectacular deal.

This is a Heil PR-781. I also purchased the Heil topless boom, the black shock mount, all the cables to go with it, and even got a foot switch to activate the mic. This is a studio mic and is of studio quality. The pics are crappy, but it was taken from my LG Voyager, so what would ya expect?

Anyway, here's pics of the new mic. Ignore the mess on my desk.

[drdx]

Man, looks pro-fessional. Hey, one question: What in the world is that pink thing to the right of the hy-gain rotor control box? It looks battery operated. -drdx

[Punkin Head]

Man, looks pro-fessional. Hey, one question: What in the world is that pink thing to the right of the hy-gain rotor control box? It looks battery operated. -drdx

LMAO!!! I had to go back and look again but sure nuff, there is a "Pink elongated, cylendrical device" in that picture. not sure what exactly it is but, I am now officially worried bout linx haha.