Albums: WA7DUH And WB7CNV Tower Construction
WA7DUH And WB7CNV Tower Construction
Photo essay of tower project at the station of Linda WB7CNV and Steve WA7DUH. They live just outside of the Richland and West Richland city limits in Benton County. Project is to initially erect a 65 ft guyed tower, but to design it for 75 ft or higher. Benton County has an ordinance controlling "communications facilities" (BCC 11.65) which includes "communication towers and antennas." Many of the requirements are exempted for amateur radio towers and antennas not exceeding 65 ft.P1020686.JPG
Hygain T2XD rotator mounted on the hazer.
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Mast installed is 2 inch high strength galvanized steel about 8 feet long.
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Drilling through mast for 3/8" bolt anti-rotation (no-slip).
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W7TYQ (Gary) tightens everything down after applying antiseize paste.
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Fritz "I own this tractor. Let's go for a ride"
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Boom joiner on the SteppIR Dream Beam DB18E). Colored dots on the pieces helps the assembler to find and line up the proper pieces.
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Dave W7DJE looks through the boxes for parts. Duffy helps.
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How is this supposed to go???
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Let's break off some bolts with an air driven impact wrench. Luckily the manufacturer provided spares.
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Boom now mounted on the mast, which is mounted on the hazer (antenna elevator) using the thrust bearing (on top) and the Hygain rotator. The antenna will be pushed closer to the top of the mast assembly is complete.
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Steve is a slave driver. Time for lunch!
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Peter Rosenberg (AC7SB) from Fall City WA joins the antenna assembly team. Steve (WA7DUH), Peter and Gary (W7TYQ) apply anti-sieze compound to the staddles that will be used for one of the Return Element fixtures. Liberal use of anti-sieze compound is critical because of the many dissimilar metals used in both the antenna and hazer (aluminum, stainless steel hardware and galvanized steel.)
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Gary (W7TYQ) Dave (W7DJE) and Peter (AC7SB) attach the reflector Return Element Support to the boom.
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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.
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Assembling an element housing unit (EHU) prior to installation.
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Many parts to each unit..
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Steve WA7DUH; Peter's wife Tacy (on the end); Gary W7TYQ and Dave W7DJE trying to program a 2M handi-talkie; and Peter AC7SB.
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The reflector EHU and element return fixture mounted on boom.