Friday, October 23, 2009

Thanks, Gabe!

We finally finished putting up the big yagi last Sunday. In typical fashion, the one weekend job ended up taking two full weekends to complete but we were taking our time and doing things right.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the tower is on the local water supply storage tank at the same location we do our contest operations from. The tank is 60 feet high and the tower is another 40 feet on top of that so a perfect perch for the big TH6DXX.

While I did most of the aerial gymnastics, VE8DW worked the ground end and snapped some great pictures.


Day 1. The old tower had not been used for many years.


Day 2. Tower is down and now mounting a gin pole to stabilize the old 18 foot long fiberglass VHF antenna as it comes off.


Day 3. Top section with rotator back on and assembling the yagi. I put the boom on first then rotated the mast to install the elements.


Day 4. Up she goes! The winds had been gusting all morning but right before we were ready to start the lift the wind stopped and the sun came out. Once we were done I Googled 'patron saint of ham radio' and found out it was Gabriel we needed to thank for the warm sunshine and the respite from the wind at the critical moment.

We'll find out how well it works this weekend during the CQ World Wide SSB Contest!

73 de VE8EV

1 comment:

gggggg said...

class one John,,,, hope to see you all next year, maybe get a chance to use it in 2013...hi de GI4SZW