My CB station is finally coming together

[dxhound]

Well, for the longest time ive been using a Maco 5/8 vertical on a 43 foot pushup pole, and it has been doing very well even though its tuned for the lower portion of 10 meter and I use a tuner.

All of my antennas have been HAM oriented until now.

Heres where I am as of now. I have a Rohn bx64 that is in fantastic shape. bought for $200 and I had to dismantle between 2 bldgings only 3 feet apart and one of them had solar panels on the roof! NOT FUN!! I will use a home made tilt plate to erect the tower.

I have a hole dug and am pooring concrete tommorow. 5'x5'x6' $635

I just drove today to NJ to pick up 515' of NEW commscop 7/8 hardline 4 N connectors, boring tool, and hoist harness for $235.

My tower is about 280' from my house...hence the hardline.

I also bought a DRAKE CS-7 internal/external antenna switch for on the tower. the plan is to mount it at about the 58' mark and use 9913 to run to the dual polarity beam and vertical. I may hang a 10-160 inverted v from the apex of the tower as well. The CS7 I found on ebay for $300 in like new shape.

The plan is to get a yaesu 1000 rotor or any rotor to handle 20sqft and place a 4 element yagi or quad and the maco 5/8 above that. Still working the details of how to mount the beam and vertical and not interfere with each other and keep the mast as short as possible but not so short that the tower itself interferes with the vertical elements. I am thinking the quad will have less problems than the yagi with interaction, so im leaning toward the lightning 4+. The boom of the quad should be around 70'

I was thinking of going with a cubex 2 element multiband quad, but decided the gain on 11m wouldnt be what i want.

I have pics of everything so far and will post soon. cant wait to see how this setup works. This will be my first dual polarity beam.

It has taken me over a year to hunt out deals and collect all this stuff. After the concrete is poored, I will wait three weeks before erecting tower.

 

[kd-5-bgt]

Sounds like you are on the verge of having a nice antenna set up in the air soon...

Dont forget the pics during the process !!

 

[airplane1]

Yes we all love pics for sure.

 

[dxhound]

Took me about 5 hours to dig the hole. I had to stop at 5 1/2 feet because I started to hit water. So I ended up with 5x5x5.5 .

 

[dxhound]

2 to 3 weeks and I will install the tower

 

[gamegetter]

looking good for sure dxhound, love it when a plan comes together after all your planning...

enjoy good luck

 

[Zman]

Wow pro grade stuff. Makes my low budget station look like a pile of shit cobbled together....

 

[binrat]

Wow pro grade stuff. Makes my low budget station look like a pile of shit cobbled together....

Yup, that makes two of us then.:blush:

 

[dxhound]

Well, I pulled the trigger and bought a Lightning 4+.

I also decided that for ease of instal, I will use my maco 5/8 for backup and get an Imax 2000. That will allow me to mount a vertical and keep the mast as short as possible. There is a trade off in performance, but If I need to reach out........I got the quad!

 

[dxhound]

Wow pro grade stuff. Makes my low budget station look like a pile of shit cobbled together....

Nah, My first station was a rat shack 40ch $35 radio hooked to a rat shack magmount stuck to a steel chair on the roof.

 

[Mr Clean]

Well, for the longest time ive been using a Maco 5/8 vertical on a 43 foot pushup pole, and it has been doing very well even though its tuned for the lower portion of 10 meter and I use a tuner.

All of my antennas have been HAM oriented until now.

Heres where I am as of now. I have a Rohn bx64 that is in fantastic shape. bought for $200 and I had to dismantle between 2 bldgings only 3 feet apart and one of them had solar panels on the roof! NOT FUN!! I will use a home made tilt plate to erect the tower.

I have a hole dug and am pooring concrete tommorow. 5'x5'x6' $635

I just drove today to NJ to pick up 515' of NEW commscop 7/8 hardline 4 N connectors, boring tool, and hoist harness for $235.

My tower is about 280' from my house...hence the hardline.

I also bought a DRAKE CS-7 internal/external antenna switch for on the tower. the plan is to mount it at about the 58' mark and use 9913 to run to the dual polarity beam and vertical. I may hang a 10-160 inverted v from the apex of the tower as well. The CS7 I found on ebay for $300 in like new shape.

The plan is to get a yaesu 1000 rotor or any rotor to handle 20sqft and place a 4 element yagi or quad and the maco 5/8 above that. Still working the details of how to mount the beam and vertical and not interfere with each other and keep the mast as short as possible but not so short that the tower itself interferes with the vertical elements. I am thinking the quad will have less problems than the yagi with interaction, so im leaning toward the lightning 4+. The boom of the quad should be around 70'

I was thinking of going with a cubex 2 element multiband quad, but decided the gain on 11m wouldnt be what i want.

I have pics of everything so far and will post soon. cant wait to see how this setup works. This will be my first dual polarity beam.

It has taken me over a year to hunt out deals and collect all this stuff. After the concrete is poored, I will wait three weeks before erecting tower.

Nice setup! Just wondering why you had to put the antenna so far from the house?

 

[dxhound]

Three letters....X...Y....L

HAHA nah. I live in the country in a beautiful setting here on my farm. I wanted the tower away from the house for a few reasons.

1) Noise generated in my house

2)lightning attracted away from the house

3)If a bad storm comes and I dont have time to tilt the tower down, It can fall and not damage my home....(This happened when I was a kid when my dads fell)

4) Open area for large dipole

5)Enough room for small shelter for remote equipment at the base for future projects. I poored extra concrete to support a larger/stronger tower in the future.

 

[jazzsinger]

Three letters....X...Y....L

the worst form of lifelong incurable QRM i ever encountered,

but i think you almost found a way to solve it, where you went wrong was dropping the tower down that big hole, had you dropped the xyl down it you might have finally solved the radio operators biggest menace.

 

[jazzsinger]

Three letters....X...Y....L

HAHA nah. I live in the country in a beautiful setting here on my farm. I wanted the tower away from the house for a few reasons.

1) Noise generated in my house

2)lightning attracted away from the house

3)If a bad storm comes and I dont have time to tilt the tower down, It can fall and not damage my home....(This happened when I was a kid when my dads fell)

4) Open area for large dipole

5)Enough room for small shelter for remote equipment at the base for future projects. I poored extra concrete to support a larger/stronger tower in the future.

pmsl, the power of positive thinking, on the downside the tower being so far away from the house isn't going to make much difference should an earthquake swallow the house up, but i guess you can't account for every bit of shit that can go wrong, despite the fact you've covered most of them.

p.s. i find this works best on #1 housebound qrm :

 

[The DB]

2)lightning attracted away from the house

Just so you are not surprised when it happens, this isn't as true as it sounds.

The fist thing you need to know about lightening is it doesn't follow the norms of low voltage DC electricity that people are used to. It is both high voltage and high current at the same time. Actually that is an understatement, I'm assuming you have seen something somewhere that has the words "Danger High Voltage"? Next to lightening that is nothing. It has the power to do what it wants while seeking ground, and this includes jumping from one ground to another, even arcing through the air and using multiple ground connections at once.

You have a wire, presumably the shielding in coax (not to say lightening won't use both), that lightening can travel to your house. Balanced feed line is also not immune. Any which way, like it or not, you have a connection from the antenna to your house for lightening to follow.

The best thing to do is connect all of your grounds together with 4 AWG wire. This works because lightening looks for lower potential ground connections. If all of your grounds are connected together they are all at the same potential. This is how broadcast radio stations protect themselves. Their antennas are hit with lightening more regularly than your antenna likely will yet they only very rarely are affected.

Grounds being at different potentials may be odd sounding, but hook up the ground rod at the tower and the ground rod at your house to the leads of a volt meter, you will see DC voltage. This voltage can change over time, including changing polarity. This difference is what cause lightening to jump from one ground to another (sometimes through your electronic equipment for which your radio will likely be the first chance) as lightening always seeks the ground with the lowest electrical state.

I would also run the feed line through a lightening arrestor where it enters the house, one that is connected to grounding system like the one mentioned above. This will do more than anything to keep lightening hits out of the house.


The DB