[Antennas] Tower Installation

[Eric Jones]

de N4TGC Eric - Florence, AL (in the Northwest corner)

As one who's stacked and unstacked many a (tubular-leg, mostly) tower, 
here's another caveat of the "embedded in concrete" fallacy:  the bottom 
ends of the legs MUST NOT BE PLUGGED!!!  I set the base section in gravel or 
sand, then pour the concrete, if used; it's not actually necessary in some 
well-drained clay soils such as I have here, tho that makes guy-wires 
essential.

If the ends cannot drain, they will accumulate moisture no matter how 
assiduously you try to prevent it - the legs will sweat inside, if nothing 
else.  While freezing isn't much of a problem in LA land (or southern CA, or 
FL, etc.), it is here.  The 50' tower I took down this past Thursday had the 
bottom 4' of the legs so badly split and curved, it looked like someone had 
run into it!  Needless to say, I didn't climb it very high - I was lucky 
that there was a nifty pine tree at just the right distance to tie off a 
pulley, so I cut one leg and 7/8 sawed the other two, and lowered it with my 
truck for 'easy' dis-assembly on the ground (it still took using a  Tower 
Jack).

I agree with the caveat about detuning - I wore myself out creating an 
inverted V here.  I finally got it to work right on a 30' push-up pole held 
in a 12' tripod, fed with 450-ohm window line.  It's almost self-supporting, 
so copper-clad steel antenna wire works as both antler and guys (the back 
stay is just the usual 7-strand guy wire).  Works great on 80, 40, and 20; 
the MFJ 941-D likes 15 and 10, but I haven't actually tried those bands; 
even the 974HB hated 160 (wire's too short ..)  It's topped with a TV 
antenna and a 2-meter Ringo Ranger II, neither of which were detuned - tho 
one time I was 'on the air' while my wife was watching TV, and she griped a 
bit ...

Don't waste your time using coax on a dipole; it's a lie perpetrated by the 
ARRL.  Use 450 ohm window line (or even 600 ohm ladder line), and you and 
your rig's tuner will be much happier.
    e