Fritz loves to ride in the cart as Steve (WA7DUH) goes to the shop to pick up SteppIR antenna parts.

Guy lines are Phillystran, a non-conductive arimid fiber. Cable grips are used for termination.

Here is the house ground rod as we found it. It doesn't meet code. Only one ground was found or wired into the electrical panel, but code requires two, with at least 6ft separating them. The solid copper wire is also too small, and the one rod was not 6 inches below grade. So we fixed that up.

Trenching between the tower base and the ham shack entrance. The picture doesn't really show the 18% downslope here, and the trencher was stuck and rolling into one of the deck support posts. Come-alongs are keeping the trencher from taking out the deck post plus the tractor is extracting.

Control lines from each active element and the coax switching relays come together into junction terminals.

Assembling an element housing unit (EHU) prior to installation.

The reflector EHU and element return fixture mounted on boom.

Drilling through mast for 3/8" bolt anti-rotation (no-slip).

Gary (W7TYQ) Dave (W7DJE) and Peter (AC7SB) attach the reflector Return Element Support to the boom.

There is a lot of electronics and relays that go into this antenna. Pictured is Gary W7TYQ that came up to help from Yreka CA.

Dave W7DJE looks through the boxes for parts. Duffy helps.

The interior of a SteppIR Element Housing Unit (EHU) with stepper motor that drives copper-beryllium tapes in and out of the hollow antenna element tubes. The tapes are the radiating/active elements of the Yagi beam antenna. This SteppIR antenna is able to be resonant anywhere between 6.5 Mhz and 54 Mhz by adjusting the lengths of the Beryllium tapes. The tapes are wound on the spools that are seen in the picture using the cogged wheel that engage holes punched into the tapes. Cogged wheel is driven by a stepper motor, which has absolute positioning capability. The computerized controller knows how far to position out the tapes in the driver, reflector and director tubes for any given frequency.

Fritz "I own this tractor. Let's go for a ride"

This is Duffy, Dave's (W7DJE) dog.

Let's break off some bolts with an air driven impact wrench. Luckily the manufacturer provided spares.

Hygain T2XD rotator mounted on the hazer.

Steve WA7DUH; Peter's wife Tacy (on the end); Gary W7TYQ and Dave W7DJE trying to program a 2M handi-talkie; and Peter AC7SB.

#4 solid copper over to the house electrical entrance ground. Found more irrigation, Spinkler valve control cable (run in water pipe PVC) and some Romex (indoor only) that the previous owner had run to some outdoor lights. Gotta fix all that.

Dave W7DJE helps measure out an element tube. These nesting tubes are pulled out, and the ends are trimmed to length with a hacksaw.