Hey Capt'n K info request

[BJ radionut]

CK: I was wondering when you restored your A4S or was it an A3?
What improvements did you make to keep the elements stable?
I hope to get one up next month or so that I purchased used...
I'm only going up on the short tower about 40ft till I get the 54ft freestanding completed in the spring.
This is the A4S+40m kit...I just want to get this up before winter then move it up later...also have the A3Swarc+30m kit...got them both for $250usd...took them off a tower for a ham who was moving and could not use them anymore...just something to play with till spring...
I sure miss my OLD Mosley classic 33(@ 55ft) that came down during Hurricane IKE...
Thanks
All the Best
BJ(gary)W9FNB

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

It was the A3 that I was working on.I still haven't gotten it put back on the tower yet and may not before winter. I have rotator issues to deal with and once October sets in it seems the wind never stops blowing. I don't mind climbing but I won't do it if there is any wind at all. It gets too hard to hold and manage something the size of a tribander in the wind.

The problem I had with the A3 was mainly the element to boom brackets.The boom and elements would crush if you tightened the U-bolts too much because the saddle brackets were toast and the wind and ice plays hell with antennas up here so you need them really tight to prevent them from windmilling.Even pinning the elements did not work as once the U-bolts loosened from the boom crushing under the constant strain the elements would wiggle a bit and eventually the bolts wore a big hole in the boom . One bolt actually sheared off.I searched my junk pile of aluminum tubing and broken antennas and found an old Sinclair VHF high band folded dipole that was the driver element of a VHF yagi. Sinclair makes superb antennas for the commercial/military markets and this one was built like a battleship. There was a two piece clamshell type bracket where it mounted to the boom which was made from 1/8 inch aluminum and the bracket was the perfect size to fit inside the boom tubing. I cut this bracket into three pieces, each about three inches long and inserted them into the boom at the point where the elements attached. This reinforced the boom and made it over 1/4 inch thick which was plenty thick enough to tighten the crap out of the U-bolts without the boom collapsing.In fact I believe I could twist the bolts off before the boom will crush. For the elements I used a piece of one inch fiberglass tubing with a piece of three quarter inch solid fiberglass rod epoxied inside. I used three pieces each four inches long and inserted them into the centre of each element. This left me with element attachment points where the boom was over one quarter inch thick and elements that were solid in the centre. NOTHING is going to loosen up due to tubing crushing now.

You could do the same thing with a piece of hardwood too I suppose. Just give it a coat or two of varnish to keep it from soaking up water.