Adding antennas to my tower

[airplane1]

Well I am finally motivated into getting my antenna system up graded with more antennas on my tower. What has been holding me up is I did not get my rotor rebuilt (HD73) and been very lazy for to long lol. I still in fact did not get my rotor done but can not wait till I get her in to Norm's rotor service, so I am mounting my home brew 10meter 4 element beam at 30 ft pointed in one direction. I can at least see if It works. I am putting my Imax above the beam by about 12 inches and my OCF dipole just below at 29 ft to the balun and the ends at 8 ft.

In early summer I plan to have my rotor ready and another section of tower to get it up to 40 ft and my Mosley TA33 jr up and a Diamond X50A side mounted.

Here are some pics for now and more to come as I get my setup together:

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

Looks good. I suspect there are a lot of guys chomping at the bit to get some antenna work done now that spring is starting. Which way do you plan to fix the yagi for the time being? I am still trying to get good weather and days off to line up to get my 2m and 6m yagis off the old tower to fix up and prepare to install on the new tower so I can get the HF stuff on the new tower. I thought I may get it done this week but I pulled a muscle in my right thigh last weekend at work and am in no shape to climb a tower right now. {Cry_river}

 

[2RT307]

Looks great! Sure will be nice to have it all up in the air and talking on it. I notice you have a neighbor very close to you with a tower and what appears to be an Antron or Imax up. Hope you guys get along! ^^ ab v c^^
It's fun when you have a cool neighbor... I used to "share" DX with a great guy that lived within 200 yards of me. We had a lot of fun making contacts and giving each other grief over who was getting the best signal reports.

73,
RT307

 

[airplane1]

Sorry you pulled a mucle, that hurts for sure. Yea with spring here I have no reason to not do it. I will be soldering ends on my other three coax runs from the remote switch to the antennas, putting a standoff on the tower for the OCF, mount the antennas and make a bracket today after work.

I did not decide which direction I want to mount my beam, I never had any luck getting Alaska or Hawaii on 10 even when I heard them at S9 so I thoght west would be good. If I mount it east though I could get Japan and other countries in that direction better than what I get them now. Maybe north over the cap LOL.

We will se, you know how things do not got.
AP

 

[airplane1]

My neighbor is a ham, been one for a long time. He never gave me any problems even when I was just a chicken bander lol,he never bleeds me and I never bleed him as close as we are. Today he came home from work and gave me the thumbs up.

The weather is great too, 68 and slight breeze. Here are some more pics, I added a side arm as you can see in pics. The beam is on the ground ready for mounting and a new 10 ft mast but 8.5 ft is inside the tower.

 

[wavrider]

That 2x2 standoff may not be strong enough to hold the wire antenna, or it may work.

I know from experience that standoffs can bend or break.

3/4" galvanized water pipe works pretty good. Drill a hole in it and mount a pulley, u clamps to hold it to the tower.

Make sure you get a couple extra pulleys on the stand offs so you can play with other wire antennas in the future. Fan dipoles or verticals etc etc.

Looks good.

 

[airplane1]

That 2x2 standoff may not be strong enough to hold the wire antenna, or it may work.

I know from experience that standoffs can bend or break.

3/4" galvanized water pipe works pretty good. Drill a hole in it and mount a pulley, u clamps to hold it to the tower.


Looks good.

Yea I was thinking it may not hold after I strung the wire of the OCF out to see how long it is. The long leg is 88 ft and it felt very heavy just that one alone.

I was thinking of a pulley, might get one tomorrow and that way I can lower the OCF if needed. I am going to glue a small piece or pvc pipe around the 239 connector on the dipole for a drip edge to help keep water out of coax.

So, maybe if I shorten the 2x2 it would make it stronger. It is about 3.5 ft now, could shorten it to 2 ft maybe and I could run it equal length on both sides of the tower and then pulley on each side to be able to run another wire antenna later.

The long leg will be running north east and the short leg south west and all but 30 ft for now. I will get it up to 40 ft in summer.

It is a work in progress so it will evolve as I go, this is all new to me.

Thanks for all the comments,
AP

 

[wavrider]

At that height it really does not make a difference how you run the leg as it will mostly be NVIS antenna.

Yep wires are fun to play with and you will figure out after you experiment with different configurations of what works best for your install.

Have fun, nothing like building your own antenna and making contacts on it.

 

[airplane1]

NVIS, I don't want that. I know the manual for the ocf says get it up at least 25 ft. I will not finish it this weekend, It is raining hard today and supposed to Sunday too. That is my luck.

AP

 

[airplane1]

This is what I would like to put up just to try it, it has been in my garage since 2003 when I got from some one who did not have it up long and it is super condition. maybe on another tower but the xyl might have a few words for me since I already have two towers standing.

I took the mosley out of the box to check it out, man are the nice. The tubing is very thick with no no line down the side like other tubing. very nice color coded ends and pre drilled holes to put it together for the phone or cw portion of the bands whichever one chooses.

I wish I had more $$$,

AP

 

[Mr Clean]

Nice Job!

 

[airplane1]

I mounted my beam in between the rain drops, we got little break but later more rain is coming.

Tomorrow will be nice in the after noon so they say, after work I will get the Imax up and hope to get the coax on. I messed up two 259 connectors today, I melted coax on one install, forgot to put the sleeve on one. I had to stop as I was getting a bit ticked.

 

[wavrider]

This is what I would like to put up just to try it, it has been in my garage since 2003 when I got from some one who did not have it up long and it is super condition. maybe on another tower but the xyl might have a few words for me since I already have two towers standing.

I took the mosley out of the box to check it out, man are the nice. The tubing is very thick with no no line down the side like other tubing. very nice color coded ends and pre drilled holes to put it together for the phone or cw portion of the bands whichever one chooses.

I wish I had more $$$,

AP

Looks like a PDLII beam, awesome antenna. I wired one with 10 gauge wire just to see what the band width would do.

Got 12 meters resonant. Do not know how it worked never tried it, gave it to a new licensed 17 yr old ham, he had a blast with it on ten meters,

10 and 12 fell into a good vswr curve,

 

[wavrider]

NVIS, I don't want that. I know the manual for the ocf says get it up at least 25 ft. I will not finish it this weekend, It is raining hard today and supposed to Sunday too. That is my luck.

AP

Dipole Antenna Radiation Patterns by WB4YJT

Some dipole radiation patterns.

Notice how the pattern changes vs height above ground.

With the OCF, the height plays a factor in the VSWR as it couples to the ground beneath it, if I am not mistaken, hopefully someone will chime in and correct that statement if I am wrong.

The OCF does work, it is current fed to get "close" to a decent VSWR match. DOC may add to the thread he is pretty savvy on wires as is CK.

I prefer a fan dipole, more effort is required to build it and tune it but the radiation pattern can be predicted with install of height above ground.
It is also a balanced antenna,

Of course if it is low bands that you are interested most antennas are NVIS

 

[airplane1]

Well I would have had this all up sooner but when I was soldering new ends on my coax I found that the outer braid was green from water intrusion, as I cut more and more off to find a good spot it just kept getting worse so I ordered all new coax with crimped ends.

Got her up Sunday after noon and it works amazing, I really see the biggest increase on my OCF dipole, I am making tons of contacts into Europe.

Wish I had a rotor ready.

here are some pics.