Monthly Archives: May 2009

Hot, hot, hot…

This weekend was very warm. We had around 25-30C in the shadow the whole time but still we got a lot of work done. SM3JLA and me went up from my SM3 QTH with a rotatable tower and some various other things.  SM3JLA cut a lot of wood and I worked on finishing up the base and bracket to hold the 16m tower in place.

To the base I dug a hole which was about 150l in size and was filled with concrete and some rocks found around the place. Now we need to wait until the concrete base is ready to take the load of the tower. I will also need to buy an extra winch and attach it to the tower since I forgot mine down in SM3. 2-3 trees will also be needed to be cut down but after that we should be ready to put the first beams up.

Cleaning and welding

This day started a bit slow. I did rest on the couch for most of the morning and when I got up it started to rain and we also got lightning far away, and this continued for most of the day. So I decided that it was time to clean out in the barn a bit. I moved all the stuff from the room with concrete floor to another room and started to remove old dirt etc from when they had animals in the room.

After that was finished I had a place to start welding the tower mount I started to work on yesterday. It is pretty much finished now, I might weld another support struct if I find a good one, I dont think it’s needed but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I will also paint the thing with hammarlack!

Here are the pictures…

To be continued…

Making the support for the 16m tower

I arrived to the QTH today Wednesday and decided that I wanted to clean the barn a bit. So I moved the stuff from the room with concrete floor to another room and started to do some cleaning. I will need to do a bit more though but will be doing that later during the week.

After that I started to work on the support for the 16m rotatable tubular tower. I used to have this tower in the SM3 QTH and it was held by a 4m long U beam. My dad brought that beam with him up last weekend so I decided to make the support which will hold the tower to the wall. I plan to use 4 pcs of 16mm bolts through the wall with some plate on the back to even out the stress of the tower. This tower is meant to be the 2nd direction tower for 10m but until we get sunspots it will be #1. It will hold a 6/6el stack which will be good enough until we put up the future big tower for 10/15m.

Here are some pictures of what is done so far. I will continue to weld the pieces together tomorrow so keep tuned.

The rest of the weekend

Was spent to finish up the guy wire anchor but also to cut wood. My mom, dad, girlfriend and the 9.5 year old dog Bishop came to visit and my dad brought equipment for cutting wood. So we did a few hours of cutting, a few hours of talking, a few hours of Eurovision and did also eat nice food that my mother cooked. I did however handle the barbecue.

Here are the pictures with explanations