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Towers and antennas
The main triangular tower with a 500 mm face is 30 m high and supported at three levels with guy wires that are broken up with insulators to prevent interaction with the antennas. On top is a self-aligning bearing through which a 75 mm x 6 m mast with welded-on steps protrudes.
Right on the top, at 35 m, is a KLM KT34XA tri-bander with a 9,75 m boom, A M2 3 el 7 MHz yagi is mounted just above the tower. An 3,8 MHz inverted V hangs from the tower that is also linearly loaded for 1,8 MHz.
My tower deal came with a Hy-Gain T2X Tailtwister but I soon had to buy a spare one to replace it when it went faulty. The casing bolts would go missing due to wind vibration but I solved that with Locktite and double nuts but gears still had their teeth go missing. The constant rotator replacement, and the nagging for someone to come and do it for me, made me think of a heavy-duty Italian Prosistel rotator. Bernie ZS4TX warned me that two of them he knew of, had suffered cracked worm wheels and steered me in the direction of an aircraft prop pitch motor (PPM). I obtained one that I modified and paired up with a Green Heron controller and both have been performing faultlessly over the past three years. I have devoted a separate page to PPM’s where you can learn more about them.
The tower was manufactured by Henry van Reenen ZS6SR (SK) but all attachments and civils were done by me. The tower was erected 22 years ago and is still standing strong.
The second tower is a triangular 18 m aluminium tilt-over/ crank-up model that I manufactured in 1982 and it now supports a Hy-Gain DB-1217 7 el yagi for 18 and 24 Mhz that is turned by a CD-45 rotator. The antenna, a gift from N4XP, works amazingly well.
Unfortunately my dream station is no longer as I sold most of it to ZS6EZ when I relocated to Cape Town. |
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