[FieldDay] Antenna support suggestions

[Dallas]

The club I'm a member of has tilted up done 30' and sometimes 40' rohn towers with 3 element HF beams and rotors...  We do one for each station, CW, SSB, and GOTA (Novice Tech a few years back)...

We lost a 10 element 2m beam and bent a 50' pushup pole trying to get it up 30-40 feet...

To do a push up pole you have to have solid footing 8-10 feet in the air for 2-3 people... 1-2 to lift and one to tighten and pin the sections...   You have to have 4 to 7 folks to coordinate giving slack on the guy ropes while 1-2 heave the weight of the beam, rotor, coax, and push up pole in the air...   Plus you need 1-2 to give directions to the guy rope crews so they know who is to pull an who is to give slack...

If you have wind you have deal with that too...  If the push up pole starts to slip down you have to watch that somebody doesn't get their hand pinched...  Also sometimes folks pull the section right out of the lower section...  Try to put 20' of pipe, rotor and beam back in to a 2" hole...


With the tower, you can tie your guy ropes to the tower and to your achore points before you push/pull the tower up...  If you push/pull too far the two guy ropes stop the tower from falling over...  All you need is 2-3 HEAVY hams to anchor the base of the tower while the rest push up the tower...  It only takes 1 to pull the slack out of the last guy rope and help keep the tower from swinging...  

We start by resting the tower on a step ladder so we can mount the beam and rotor and do a last minute SWR check....  The 3 guy ropes are tied at the 20-25 foot area...  Two of them are tied to trees  or something that won't let the tower go all the way over...


Lots of luck...  

73 Dallas, KD4HNX









Dallas, KD4HNX

No politician or scholar assured your freedoms.
A Soldier, Sailor, Marine, or Airman did!

There are 10 types of people in this world, 
those that understand binary and those that don't.


--- On Mon, 6/2/08, Brian K. Gaskamp <ka5bkg at sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> From: Brian K. Gaskamp <ka5bkg at sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: [FieldDay] Antenna support suggestions
> To: fieldday at mailman.qth.net
> Date: Monday, June 2, 2008, 7:31 PM
> Hello group, our local ham club is planning a FD this year
> and I'm needing 
> some advice.
> 
> We will be using 2 wire dipole antennas for our HF work and
> also want to put 
> up a 3 element 6m beam and a 12 element 2m beam both for
> SSB.
> 
> The question I have is it easier to put up the beam
> antennas on a 40ft push 
> pole OR use abt 30ft. of Rohn 25 tower with a mast in the
> top.
> 
> To me the tower would be easier by attaching ropes and
> uprighting it, but 
> want some opinions.
> In the past years I have went always went to a FD site and
> operated but this 
> year our local club wants to do a FD.
> 
> So needing whatever info or suggestions the list might
> have.
> 
> 73,
> Brian 
> 
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