Ham radio wireless communications for private citizens
Archive for the ‘HexBeam’ Category.
The mast is up, the guys are fabricated, and it is time to take down the Force 12 GT5 Sigma and move it to a lower mounting place.
It was a long day – lots of errors but the first level guys (10 ft level) are up and tensioned.
Tomorrow is finish installing the guys and get the rotator installed. Hopefully Wednesday the XYL will be able to help me get the antenna on top of the mast. It will be interesting!
I hope the weather holds today since i an trying to get my big wideband HexBeam back in the air.
Last Christmas we had a really wild wind storm and the guys were not tight enough or the dacron double braid I used for the guys really stretched. Either way the big beam came down and cracked several spreaders.
I spliced the broken pieces several times but they continued to fail. I got tired of trying to do half-hearted repairs and ordered new fiberglass for the broken parts. Got all of that put together last week. While waiting for the epoxy joints to cure and my bank account to recover, I planted a couple of 4x4s to serve as guy anchors and to reduce the guy length a bit. They will also serve as the mounts for a Force 12 Sigma GT5, 5 band vertical as well as an experimental short vertical that will also be used as the support for a 2 meter j-pole.
Well anyway I am off to the hardware store to buy guy material and a couple of other things I need.