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All of the guy wire anchors have now been mounted on the roof. Overall I did a good job hitting the rafter after using the little rafter locating tool I picked up. Hopefully the roof sealant I used will keep us nice and dry inside. So far, so good with that. I also have five of the guy wires...

M104C assembly done. Family stuff the rest of the day so measurement/alignment tweaking and tuning time with the beam and V58 above it tomorrow. It's getting into the upper 80s and humid here today, plus air quality advisory due to the smoke from the Canadian wildfires so my motivation for...

I had Digger's Hotline come and check the place I was planning on putting the 4'x4'x4' concrete base for the tower and found out I have both cable and electrical services running right through the dig zone. I was told I am not allowed to move the service lines myself nor can I just dig around...

Time to work out where to mount the guy wire anchors. I have two guy wire rings on the mast, one just below the rotor plate and one at the top just below the thrust bearing plate. Not sure if I really need two or if they're in the best spot but I have to start somewhere. I have about 420' of...

Lots of power, but I wonder how clear/clean the signal and modulation is. I've seen videos where the power gets cranked up but then the radio sounds like a bag of festering elephant droppings.

I will have to look that up because I don't know what it is. And yet more learning from the folks here... ;)

I assembled the elements, boom and gamma match for the M104C the other night and my wife even helped me do it. The extra set of hands sure did make measuring the element lengths a lot easier to do. Today I mounted the boom on the mast and gave it a test lift to make sure it was going to clear...

I was able to order the Alpha Delta ATT3G50UHP from the same place I bought the M104C. They have it in stock and I've had good luck ordering from them in the past.

Thanks Marconi. I am trying to put to good use all of the things I have been learning here. Back around 1980 when I was a kid, my best friend and I got plans from something like CB Magazine for a home made PDL2 and decided to give it a go. We could not afford aluminum tubing so we spent hours...

Based on the distance between the mast and the antenna feed, I think a 1 foot RG213 patch cable should work. I will find out. The additional coax has now been ordered from a bloke I've had great results with in the past. Coax I was receiving from Amazon vendors was too hit-and-miss for my...

Hmmm, I have two of the Palomar Engineer Maxi-Chokes, one for the M104C and one for the V58. The beam is being mounted horizontally and it looks like the best plan is to mount the Maxi-choke as close as possible to the antenna feed. I plan on sticking with RG213 coax like I use now for the V58...

Test lift with the rotor and 12" aluminum mast in place went well. I still need to align the lower rotor mount and upper thrust bearing mounts. Looks like it's time to start assembling the M104C. And I just realized I have not yet ordered the coax I need for the second antenna and also the...

Some 1/4" x 3/4" flat bars and two pieces of 3/16" x 3/4" angle iron and some 3/8" clamps. Good enough. I winched up the mast and it seems to have helped. I'll at least prime the bare metal pieces before this goes up for good.

I'm thinking of something like this mast sleeve but one that will fit a 2-3/8" pipe. If I had an acetelyene torch I may be able to make one out of 1/8" steel but all I have is a little propane torch. Might be time to put on my McGyver hat again and go rummaging through the "scrap metal and...

This is the joint I am looking at for additional strengthening with some type of outer sleeve (or maybe a really, really strong plaster cast. ;) ) It's the one connecting the bottom and middle sections of 10' long, 2" nominal schedule 40 pipe. The bolts in the picture hold a two foot length of...

I finished some of the fussy prep-work and was able to begin testing the various contraptions this morning. Overall I am satisfied with the results so far but I do have a few niggling concerns. I did decide to use the winch from my ATV as a counterbalance to the poles with the worm gear winch on...

I was able to grab a 4 cubic foot concrete mixer last night and went out at 6:30 AM today to do the support base for the tilting mast base. The concrete base is about 24" x 24" x 30" deep and it took 17 of the 60 pound bags of concrete to fill. I was able to mix three bags at a time so it went...

The fun continues. My wife and I were able to take down the Maco V58 and 30' mast last weekend with the only damage to antenna or bodies being a tiny bend in one of the ground plane radials. I won't be re-using them when it goes back up so no problem there. Early yesterday morning before work I...

Yup, that other forum member learned a few expensive lessons before they got their station squared away. :) The good news is the affected radio was sent in for professional repairs and again works as good as or maybe even better than new. And the KL503 is still sitting on the shelf unused...

Time for another update. Progress continues to be made but not always in a straight line. My abysmal welding skills were not being helped by the 20 amp breaker in the workshop in my detached garage tripping every 15 seconds. I needed to run the welder pretty hot because I was working with 1/4"...