Rebuild of the Higher Tower
Updated 01/23/2006

11/20/2005 - Today I removed the broken section of the old tower from the base section in concrete and replaced the bent house bracket.  Removing the broken section was a bit difficult.  One leg did not want to release despite the use of a Tower Jack.  So I had to cut one of the legs above the joint with a reciprocal saw.  With the Tower Jack, I was able to then pry the section off.

Once the broken section was removed and the new house bracket installed, I installed four new sections of Rohn 25 tower with a guy bracket just above the 3rd midsection at the 35' mark (shown in photo above).  I had hoped to install the first set of Phillystran guys today, but ran out of time.

The new sections did not go together as easily as I had hoped, and the tower jack again proved to be an invaluable tool on the tower.

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up, I hope to complete the tower by next weekend.  More updates to follow.

11/27/2005 - Over the 4-day Thanksgiving weekend I was unable to get much done on the higher tower.  I was able to complete the first set of guys at the 35' level on Thanksgiving day.  Friday was dedicated to putting up Christmas lights.  Saturday and Sunday brought high winds.  On Sunday I constructed the Cushcraft D40 dipole and prepare to do a mock-up on the top section mounted to the ground.

I secured the top section of the tower to a spare Rohn base, placed the base on a piece of plywood and secured the tower section to my big wooden spool.  I built the D40 on a 10' aluminum mast and then stood it up in the middle of the spool in order to install the element support.

I was disappointed the D40 did not come with an element support.  The antenna is very long and droops quite a bit with no support.  I built a support system by taking a 4' piece of aluminum tubing and inserting one end 12" into the top of the mast and securing it with two stainless bolts.  I then was able to find guy rings from my old A3S 40 meter add-on kit to fit on the element tubing.  I used new 1200I Phillystran guy line as the support cable.

At the end of the day, this is what the antenna looked like.

November 30, 2005 - Today I learned my position as field operations manager in New Orleans for CapRock Communications was eliminated and I am no longer employed for the first time in 32 years.  The only good I can see from this right now is that I should have plenty of time to get the antennas up before the Roundup.

December 1, 2005 - Today was the first "no wind" day in quite a while.  I was hoping to get a lot done, but that didn't happen.  I built a choke for the D40, installed the rotor in the top section mounted on the ground and placed the mast in the rotor.  I tried checking SWR on the D40, but it was pegged out all across the band.  The instructions to the antenna say it's not possible to check SWR with the antenna near the ground.  This sucks.  It started to rain in the afternoon and I had to quit early as a weak cold front rolled through south Louisiana.  The front is suppose to stall tomorrow, so hopefully it won't be too windy to put the last two sections of tower up.

December 3, 2005 - This morning I discovered why the D40 SWR was so high.  While tuning around in the TARA Melee, I discovered my radio was split with the transmit on 20 meters!  I guess this can happen when you haven't had the radio on in a while.  The SWR on the D40 is good, but is resonant at the very low end of the band.  This may be normal since the antenna is only at 17'.  I took the D40 off the top section mounted on the ground and re-measured it.  It was exactly the length is should be to be resonant at 7080 Khz.  Hopefully it will be correct once it's atop the tower.  The winds were 15-20 knots today but I felt I needed to get the last two sections mounted, so that is what I did in the afternoon.  It wasn't that bad and the lower guys really helped keep the tower steady while I stabbed the last two sections.

December 4, 2005 - I mounted the M2 2800 rotator on the top the tower today.  I had hoped to get more done since there was no wind in the morning.  But I had problems when I went to test the rotator while on the ground.  It didn't want to work right.  I burned two hours figuring out what I was doing wrong.  At 11 a.m. a FEMA inspector showed up to inspect our damages.  He had good news.  We can keep all the money we received from FEMA after Katrina.  When the inspector left, the winds were back up so I just ran the rotor cable up the tower and connected it to the rotator.  I then moved the gin pole up to the very top of the tower and got it ready to bring up the D40 whenever the weather will allow it.

December 10, 2005 - Today was a perfect day for installing an antenna.  With the temperature in the mid-40's, there was absolutely no wind.  The forecast called for 5-10 knots, but in the morning it was absolutely still.  I borrowed my neighbor Robbie to raise the antenna.  I putted the antenna and mast up together.  When it was near the top I climbed the tower.  Robbie lifted it the rest of the way and I stabbed it with absolutely no problems.  I ran brand new RG-214 into the shack along with the rotor cable and the antenna is resonant at exactly 7060 Khz, which is perfect for me.  The SWR is below 1.5:1 from 7000 to 7120 Khz.  I couldn't have asked for anything better!

With the D40 antenna completion, I must now set my sights on building and installing the new A3S.  The A3S will mount just above the top of the tower and about 8' below the D40.  Check it out below.  How do you like my Christmas star?  It lights up at night.

December 11, 2005 - The M2 Orion 2800 rotor quit working.  Today I replaced it with my old Yaesu G-800SDX which grinds badly, but still works.

December 12, 2005 - I took the M2 rotor apart on my work bench and called M2.  Wyatt at M2 was very helpful and in less than 5 minutes we diagnosed a bad reed switch.  It was shorted.  The M2 rotor has a motor inside which rotates a magnet when the rotor is turning.  The reed switch is magnetic and as the magnet on the motor passes by the reed switch, it causes DC pulses to be generated and sent back to the controller.  If the controller does not see these pulses, it will stop rotating the rotor.  I ordered a replacement reed switch kit for $20 to be sent priority mail.

December 13, 2005 - Today I finished building the A3S and tested it.  One thing that is very important to me, and something I didn't do a good job of in the past, was to properly seal the feed point of the antenna to prevent corrosion.  I had built a homebrew balun out of 8 turns of RG-214 coax.  I split the coax from the balun and attached it to the feed point of the antenna.  I wrapped the feed point first with Scotch 130C rubber tape, then with vinyl tape.  I then put a coat of Scotchkote on it.  When that dried, I applied a second coat.  I tested the antenna and the SWR was good on all three bands.

December 14, 2005 - I installed the A3S on the tower.  It went up easily (only weighs 26 lb).  I mounted it about a foot above the top of the tower which is about 7-8' below the D40.  I lined it up with the D40 as best I could.  When I got off the tower I see that I did a fair job of lining it up.  I checked the SWR on both the A3S and the D40 and they were great.  The A3S is resonant at 14100, 21100 and 28100 Khz and the D40 was still resonant at 7060 Khz.  I was happy to have both antennas on the tower, but there was still work to do.

December 15, 2005 - Today I re-installed my 80 meter inverted vee at 60' on the higher tower.  It was the only antenna to survive the tower fall.  I checked the SWR and it was the same as before the storm - 3585 Khz right in the middle of the RTTY band.

December 16, 2005 - I entered the OK DX RTTY contest low power and made 515 contacts.  The D40 worked very well on 40 meters that night.  The next day band conditions were not very good on the high bands.  There was a short opening to EU on 15 meters but basically that band never really opened and I made only 59 contacts.  I was very surprised to see the D40 was my best 15 meter antenna that day.  The A3S worked very well into EU on 20 meters Saturday morning.  It was not a great test of the antennas, but it did tell me that they worked.

December 19, 2005 - I finally finished guying the top of the antenna.  I was missing one guy line to the west.  When I originally calculated how much Phillystran I needed, I must have made a mistake.  I was about 40 feet short.  So I had to order an extra 80' piece from Texas Towers.  Also, the reed switch replacement kit arrived today.  So much for Priority Mail to south Louisiana.  It took a week to get here!  I replaced the reed switch in the rotor and tested it on the bench.  It worked perfectly.

December 20, 2005 - Today was a big day.  I spent the morning planning the re-installation of the M2 rotor.  I knew it would be a big job.  I wanted to do it on one trip up the tower.  I had to raise the mast, remove the G-800 and re-install the M2.  I had decided I wouldn't use a connector coming out of the M2, so I had to solder the connections to the rotor cable going back to the shack.  I already had AC power run up the tower to light up my Christmas star.  It was a chilly, breezy morning so I decided to wait until it warmed up.  After spending lunch with Shay, I went out and checked the azimuth of the antenna with a compass.  I had set it to 30 degrees with the Yaesu rotor before disconnecting it.  But I found the antenna to be at 26 degrees.  So I set the azimuth of the M2 on the bench to 26 degrees.  I then disconnected the M2 and brought it outside.

Before going up the tower, I tied the M2 to the rope going up to the gin pole and I tied another piece of rope to my belt and attached a tool bag to the other end of it.  I would also use this additional line to haul up the tool bag and later, to lower the gin pole when finished.  At 1 p.m., I climbed the tower. Once on the tower, I tied off the line I hauled up.  The tool bag was still on the ground.  I had put all the wrenches and sockets I needed in the tool pouch on my belt.  The Yaesu took a 13mm and the M2 took a 9/16" wrench.  The first thing I had to do was move the gin pole to the very top of the tower and raise it just under the D40.  I then went just below the gin pole and hauled up the M2 rotor and tied it off the side of the tower with a separate line.  I then took the end of the rope from the gin pole and wrapped it tightly around the mast between the D40 and A3S.  Before loosening anything, I looked down the boom of the A3S and spotted a landmark on the horizon to use to realign the antenna later.  I then loosened the thrust bearing and the mast from the Yaesu rotor and lifted the mast with the rope until it clear the top of the rotor but still stayed inside the top of the tower.

With the mast out of the rotor, I pulled the G-800 rotor off the rotor plate and tied it off the side of the tower with a separate line.  I then put the M2 rotor in place and mounted it on the rotor plate.  The M2 will not fit inside the tower with the mast plates installed, so I had taken them off on the ground and put them in the tool bag.  I then pulled the tool bag up and hung it off the side of the tower.  Since I would not be able to lower the mast and guide it at the same time into the mast plates, I decided to leave the mast plates off and lower the mast on the triangular piece of metal on the rotor top plate.  Since the antennas are light, I decided to go ahead and rest the mast right onto this triangular piece.  I went down below the gin pole and untied the rope.  When I let slack off the rope, the mast did not drop as expected.  The mast was at a slight angle and the weight of the antennas was not enough to break it free from the angle it was sitting through the thrust bearing.  This was somewhat alarming.

I thought about it a minute and decided to leave the rope untied and to climb back up the 10' or so to the top and lift the mast by hand and lower it onto the rotor.  So that's what I did and was relieved to see the weight of the antennas was not a cause for concern in lifting and lowering the mast.  It went easily onto the rotor.  I then installed the mast plates but didn't tighten them yet.  I tried to use a level to make sure the rotor was level with the tower, but it was too difficult to gauge.  I lined up the mast with the tower legs from all three angles the best I could and it looked good enough, so I tightened the mast clamps but not before pointing the antennas at my landmark.

With the rotor installation finished, I then had to solder the wires from the rotor to the rotor cable going back to the shack.  I got my soldering iron out and went to plug it in and realized there was no power to the extension cord.  I had my Christmas star on a timer set to 4 p.m.  I looked at my watch and it was 3:45.  I was disappointed in myself and contemplated going down the tower to turn on the power when all of a sudden the Christmas star lit up!  The light had come on early.  What a stroke of luck.  I soldered the wires together, wrapped them with rubber and vinyl tape, then put a coat of Scotchkote on the splice.

I then tied the Yaesu rotor to the rope from the gin pole and lowered it to the ground.  I then lowered the gin pole down with my other line.  I pulled my tool bag off the tower and put on my back with the shoulder strap.  At 4 p.m. I was on the ground.

Finally after 47 days, both towers and all antennas were completely installed.