Sounds as if those designs could be readily sold for people with similar
problems....
Never sell a new ham short...sometimes we all get caught up in the teaching
part that we forget to listen, or we dismiss the idea of teaching all
together and blame others for the downfall...
Sounds like a new fine addition to "hamdom"...
-----Original Message-----
From: towertalk-bounces@contesting.com
[mailto:towertalk-bounces@contesting.com]On Behalf Of Al Williams
Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2005 1:07 AM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: [TowerTalk] Steppr Monstr plus ...
It is quiet on towertalk and I have several related items that I think will
be of interest to some of you?
First, I met a newly licensed ham recently who had never made a qso. But he
is very enthusiastic and has an xyl ham also. He came over to visit and
when I told and showed him my Steppr that was still in boxes in the garage,
he volunteered to help put it together and up on my LM470.
Well, it turned out that he is a retired mechanical engineer and was far
better than me at understanding the assembly instructions and actually took
charge and I wound up helping him. Moral of this is that we often think of
us helping the NEWBIES, but they may be helping us.
Second, in order to get the benefit of a lower angle of radiation I had
purchased a 2 element Steppr that I wanted to mount between the Monstr at
the top of the 70' tower and ground. This NEWBIE designed a "sidearm?"
platform to bolt onto the top plates of the second section of the LM470. We
took it to a machine shop/ welding place who fabricated it. It fit
perfectly on the tower after drilling three holes in the tower plate.
Did the 2 element steppr work? The rotator is mounted about a foot from the
tower and I asked Fluidmotion to build the 2 element boom such that I could
end mount it to the rotator. It's cabling comes down on one side of the
tower and the cabling for the Monstr comes down on the opposite side of the
tower so there in interference. The 2 element rotates about 250 degrees
before coming close to the tower. During the recent cw sweepstakes, we
tried numerous time to qso with Alaska and Northwest territory without
success because of the constant pileup.
However, in both cases when we applied the 180 degree reversal with the
Steppir we made the qso. Others have given up on the idea of mounting a
beam lower on a crankup because of cabling interference but the Steppir
eliminates that problem.
Third, the NEWBIE planned how to raise the Steppr Monstr to the top of the
LM470. Here is how we did it. We made a number of sub-assembles of the
Monstr in the garage and then assemble the entire antenna on tables with one
end of the boom directly under the tower top and the other end straight out
from the tower. We then tied the close end of the boom to the top end of
the tower through a pulley with the rope going down to the bottom of tower.
We used the tilt winch to tilt the tower up pulling the Monstr up with it.
The far end of the boom was on a Nursery type wagon so as not to injure the
element housing. When the tower pulled the Monstr up, the wagon with the
far end of the boom was pulled toward the tower. The Monstr boom was pulled
up about 30 feet to a point where we had previously determined that the boom
would be at a 90 degree angle from the tower. The boom was then securely
anchored to stay fixed at this angle. The tower rope at the bottom was then
unloose
ned and the tower tilted back down until the tower mast was in line with
the Monstr mast plate U bolts. In about a minute or two we jiggled the
Monstr and extended the tower mast through the U bolts. It really worked
well. Of course we had to tighten the U bolts, attached and route the
cabling by climbing about 15 feet up a ladder.
Again this plan was the NEWBIE'S! Not only did we raise the Monstr fully
assembled but the tower also had the 2 element fully assembled during all
this too.
k7puc
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless
Weather Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any
questions and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
_______________________________________________
See: http://www.mscomputer.com for "Self Supporting Towers", "Wireless Weather
Stations", and lot's more. Call Toll Free, 1-800-333-9041 with any questions
and ask for Sherman, W2FLA.
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
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