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Home brew tower pics

I hooked up my 1/4 wave stainless steel whip on my tower to use temporarily on my base station and am using the tv antennas as a "other half" of the antenna. I have around eight feet or so of the feed line running vertical then is angled away from the tower to the house. No rf chokes were utilized as this is a temporary setup just to test what range I have. One guy thirty miles away can hear me now. However,when I key up,the tv loses it's signal feed. At one point my tv and radio feed lines are strapped together. I thinking about getting a 10' length of water pipe and making the "other half" of the antenna to see how that works. I read that if I make a horizontal dipole that during skip conditions because of the way signals are bounced from vertical polarization to horizontal that I could still get out. Most of the locals are within 25 miles of my local.
 
That's not a tower. :whistle: Now THIS is a real tower. :laugh:

BTW that tower you linked too was for commercial radio/cellular. The following is a ham radio tower at OH8X a contest station in Finland.

Tower 7
 
Watergate said:
I'm putting together material to build one for myself. Already have the jig built. I figure if I weld on opposite ends working towards the center I should avoid warping.







His was built 8 years before the digital transition, so I bet towers would have been harder to come by.

Out here in the west they rarely pop up for sale and are expensive when they do. Our TV antennas are on a tripod on the roof, and the station transmitter antennas are on mountain peaks so we don't have towers at the house for OTA television.

Cheapest used tower I saw recently was $300 for a 30 foot tower with a 6 element yagi. You take it down type of deal. Was gone when I called on it. Most run in the $1500 range.
Click to expand...

Did you build your tower yet? I'd like to see pics if it.
 
Found a "How to Build a Home brew Tower" web page.
http://www.rollanet.org/~rrars/tech_files/BUILD-A-35:d5-Tower-intro.pdf


A little info on tiltable tv antennas for antenna lovers.
Common TV Antenna Types
Solid Signal Xtreme Signal HDB91x High Definition Blade Xtreme VHF/UHF TV Antenna (HDB91X) from Solid Signal

Just a thought: a tv tuning section is nothing more than an antenna tuner.
Channel Master 4248
Channel Master 4228



Capacitance hat - This is a device sometimes found at the end of an element. It can be a cross, a disk, a ball, a loop, or just about anything conductive. It makes the element behave as if it is longer, maybe 10%-30% longer than it really is. It can save space with almost no drop in performance. Capacitive hats are uncommon in TV antennas. (The Channel Master 3671B has six capacitive hats.)

Hmmmmm. I'm thinking about the ball shaped bird cage on the Vector 4000.


Channel Master 3671-B with capacitive hats.
http://www.hdtvprimer.com/antennas/cm3671.html


Home brew uhf tv antenna plans
http://www.tvantennaplans.com/
http://www.mtmscientific.com/yagi.html
http://m4antenna.eastmasonvilleweather.com/reflector/Reflectors.html
http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/ganging.html

Tilting?
http://www.hdtvprimer.com/ANTENNAS/16bay.html
 
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