Well as some of you know I am working on a complete overhaul of my antenna system here hopefully next year. I have already bought a HyGain Explorer-14 tribander and the QK-710 add-on kit for 40m as well as an Ameritron RCS-10L remote antenna switch. Hopefully a new 64 foot Trylon Titan T-500 tower will arrive next year to hang all the new and some old antennas on. In the mean time I have been left with an almost destroyed A3 tribander on an old 40 foot tower that has seen better days. I had hoped to install the Explorer-14 minus the 40m kit but after surveying things better I have come to the conclusion it is better left in the box for the new tower project.There is just too much tree trimming to do to accommodate the 18 foot turning radius. I am also getting fed up with using the ladderline fed doublet as I miss the gain and F/B of a yagi.Yesterday being an absolute beautiful day with zero wind I climbed the tower to remove the boom and director element of the A3. That was all that was left as the driver and reflector broke and fell to the ground this past winter/spring.
This is a good time to talk about safety when climbing towers etc. I ALWAYS use a climbing belt and sometime I use a climbing harness as well. The harness is the full body fall arrest type with the two gorilla hooks so you are always tied in. The belt I use has a seat harness to help take the load off your feet and allows you to lean back more comfortably. Yesterday I just wore the belt only and ascended the tow dragging a rope to hoist the ginpole etc behind me. I had everything ready to lower the boom having just lowered the element I detached from the boom beforehand. I was standing on a horizontal brace with both hands extended above my head tying the rope to the boom when I found the true definition of sheer terror. The brace I was standing on broke and I dropped about 9-10 inches to the X-brace below it.
Apparently I yelled out an obscenity as the wife asked me what had happened. I don't remember saying anything as I was too rattled to even think about anything other than if my underwear was still clean. Thank God for a proper safety belt! I had planned to pull the rotator and replace it with a spare but that was enough for me for the day so I called it quits and came back down. As it happens the rivet that held the brace on sheared off. I guess it diet time.
The old A3 is being reworked by straightening out the bent sections and adding reinforcements to the areas where the elements mount to the boom as well as the element centers where they mount to the boom. Half the problem with the old A3 was that the tubing would collapse while trying to get things tight and the elements would windmill after a few months. The element centers are now over 1/8 inch thick and the boom is fitted with two pieces of pipe.one inside the other, to make it over 1/4 inch think where the elements mount. I spent the day today working on it and will use the old beast yet one more year until I get a new tower and then rebuild it again to cover 12 and 17m and stack it above the Explorer-14.I am back to work tomorrow and it looks like rain the next few days but hopefully within the week I can it back on the air and have a working rotatable antenna system again. It's been two years without it and I am going nuts with the bands getting better.
This is a good time to talk about safety when climbing towers etc. I ALWAYS use a climbing belt and sometime I use a climbing harness as well. The harness is the full body fall arrest type with the two gorilla hooks so you are always tied in. The belt I use has a seat harness to help take the load off your feet and allows you to lean back more comfortably. Yesterday I just wore the belt only and ascended the tow dragging a rope to hoist the ginpole etc behind me. I had everything ready to lower the boom having just lowered the element I detached from the boom beforehand. I was standing on a horizontal brace with both hands extended above my head tying the rope to the boom when I found the true definition of sheer terror. The brace I was standing on broke and I dropped about 9-10 inches to the X-brace below it.
Apparently I yelled out an obscenity as the wife asked me what had happened. I don't remember saying anything as I was too rattled to even think about anything other than if my underwear was still clean. Thank God for a proper safety belt! I had planned to pull the rotator and replace it with a spare but that was enough for me for the day so I called it quits and came back down. As it happens the rivet that held the brace on sheared off. I guess it diet time. The old A3 is being reworked by straightening out the bent sections and adding reinforcements to the areas where the elements mount to the boom as well as the element centers where they mount to the boom. Half the problem with the old A3 was that the tubing would collapse while trying to get things tight and the elements would windmill after a few months. The element centers are now over 1/8 inch thick and the boom is fitted with two pieces of pipe.one inside the other, to make it over 1/4 inch think where the elements mount. I spent the day today working on it and will use the old beast yet one more year until I get a new tower and then rebuild it again to cover 12 and 17m and stack it above the Explorer-14.I am back to work tomorrow and it looks like rain the next few days but hopefully within the week I can it back on the air and have a working rotatable antenna system again. It's been two years without it and I am going nuts with the bands getting better.
