Category Archives: Tower work - Page 2

Inband work and new towers

I worked a lot before CQWW CW and managed to get most stuff operational. We had quite fun even though propagation’s sucked big time. We had 1/3 of the score from 2014 but the inband test was a success even though we had a bit of phase noise issues when both towers were beaming US. In most other directions the problems were surprisingly small. Especially on 40 and 80m there were no problems at all to come quite close to the run frequency.

SM2VTS called me a while ago and said he knew of four 14m high freestanding light towers, something I had been looking for for the planned move of the 80m 4-SQ. I gave them an offer for them and they accepted it. SM2UVU was very kind and said he could with help of his friend with a truck with crane, take them down and transport them up to SJ2W. They also had 16 pcs of Metal-halide lamps of 2000W each, I will put one or two up at SJ2W to light up the yard when needed. When SM2UVU arrived there he instantly said “These are not 14m, they are probably 20m” and he was correct. Kind of perfect for an 80m 4-SQ but they are almost too good for it, but since they are conical the only use for them except 4-SQ is a small 20m tower, which is not much use. I am almost starting to consider a 27-30m high vertical 4-SQ for 160m 😉

I need to update the site with the results from CQWW SSB and CQWW CW, but I have the scores at SJ2W. In the SSB part there were a guys of contesting “rookies” of mixed ages and even though conds were horrible they seemed to have fun.

Better late then never :)

I have a couple of big updates coming now. I have been so occupied working and on the spare time trying to get the station ready for CQWW CW. The inband stuff has been a lot of work but I did manage to finish it up pretty well before CQWW. We had some issues but it was solved and it worked quite well, a bit of noisy on 10-20m when both the stations were beaming US but on 80 and 40m there was really no problem at all which is interesting, since it was the other way around with the vertical.

Trip to SM2EKM and RX-array work

I spent a couple of evenings at SM2EKM last week helping him with some tower work. It should only have been one trip but since I managed to mess up it needed to be two. I was going to disconnect one of his 5el for 20m since he has got a problem with one of them and extend the cables down to the ground so he could work on them himself. Unfortunately I mixed up the cables and ended up attaching the two antennas together and the coax leading into the shack was left hanging 🙂 So I went back the day after and fixed that. We also concluded that the top 20m yagi has got an issue which needs to be fixed, this will however be done next year and I believe I can do it in the tower by tilting the yagi without needing to take it down to the ground.

I have also spent time working on the RX-array. I got most hardware installed such as preamps, ground rods, coax etc. I also got the RF-link tested and it switches the array properly so now all that is left is to install the cabinet and pull out the 300m of coax needed to reach the array.

It was also very nice to get a visit from SM3JLA and his girlfriend and we concluded that he should start coming up more often again, at least I did 🙂

SM2OAN, RX-array and carpentry

Since we hadn’t finished up all work at SM2OAN I ended up going up once more. We first pulled up the 20m yagi (5el) into position and after that the 5el for 15m. When this was done we removed the tram wire and we lifted the 2el 40m a bit higher (as high as we could). The work has gone very well and I believe SM2OAN is now very happy about his setup, especially getting the 2el 40m added plus getting a stack on 15m as well. I also built a stackbox for him so that he can switch it. After we were finsished, we went to SK2HG since they had a meeting and it was very nice to meet some friends.

I have also spent quite a lot of time at SJ2W lately. I am trying to work in hours so that I can go down on Thursdays which gives me a whole day more. Normal weekends are way too short but this gives me another day. I’ve done a lot of work on the Hi-Z RX array building Bias-T to get DC power there, finishing up the RF-link to switch it etc. I used 16mm water tubing to protect the RG-6 coax going from the cabinet in the middle out to the verticals and I will have about 50-70m of it so that I can have the coax on the ground close to the RX antenna. Further away I will put the coax up in the trees as it protects it better.

I have also built some more protection for the rotors of the different towers, the military tower still need some work before its finished but I believe I’ve done pretty good progress on it at least.