Base Antenna Pics

[K8PBX]

Hello.... I'm new to the site, but thought I'd share some pics of my base antenna setup. I picked up a used 35' tower for $30. It needed a whole lot of work such as wire-wheeling, new nuts & bolts, spray galvanizing, paint, etc. but I'm pretty happy with how it all came out. I modified the base so as to allow me to tilt the whole tower down horizontally for antenna work or repair. The link below has pics of the tower, base, and bulkhead box I fabricated for multiple antenna feedlines.

I'm basically a die-hard scanner buff that does a little bit on 2m & 70cm as well.

http://home.comcast.net/~k8pbx/

Steve - K8PBX
Washington, Michigan

 

[KB8UYC]

Very nice setup! I like the way that you did that, and the tilt over base. Can we see pics of the shack next??

Eric

 

[K8PBX]

Re: Shack pics...

Someday soon. It's pretty well torn up right now. I'm revamping it as I finish my basement. Walls are framed and wiring all roughed in, but still gotta do drywall, ceiling, flooring, and most importantly - build the station console.

Now that winters here maybe I'll be able to get more done.

 

[KC2LVC]

wow! such a nice job with the whole thing. The wiring is so neat, and professional looking. It all is, actually. What's the length of the coax runs? I was planning on putting an antenna on the roof of my building, but because of the length, the loss would be too great, for transmitting anyway. For a scanner, it'd be ok. I'll probably just have it out in the back, attached to the fence for now, and see how it performs. I'm in an apartment building, so I'm pretty limited. some day... some day...

 

[K8PBX]

Re: coax length

Length of each coax runs is about 75 feet. End-to-end, from antennas to the connection panel I have in the shack. For the antennas used for transmitting I ran low loss military grade RG-214 made by Times Fiber. For the receive only antennas I used RG-6 Quad Shield.

 

[tonsoffun]

Amazing set-up. Thats not a tilt over, is it?

Take care
Ron

 

[K8PBX]

Yes, it's a tilt-over.

It wasn't that way originally, but I engineered it to be so. I reinforced the three legs by inserting about 4' of thick wall galvanized pipe inside. The beefed up tower legs bolt through the 1" solid square steel stock, which are sunk into a large concrete foundation. When I want to lean it down for service I simply remove four of the six bolts on the front two legs, loosen the union on the back leg, allowing the tower to pivot on the two remaining front bolts. It's not too bad walking it down hand-over-hand but I usually have my son lend some help just for safety's sake.

Steve

 

[OTTER]

Tower

Fantastic job Steve! Thanks for all the tips the past few days. I'm going to start collecting parts and hopefully by spring I'll be ready for the rising! Good luck if you decide to come to IL. George

 

[W4KRR]

Nice arrangement, Steve. What's the overall tower height, and what brand is it?

At my old house, I had a 40' tilt-over Rohn 25 tower. 40' was too tall for me to walk up by myself, so I constructed a cable and winch arrangement to let it down and raise it up. I could do it by myself if I had to, but it's always better to have a helper.

Come to think of it, when it was folded over, it wasn't too tall, it was too long!! :lol:

 

[K8PBX]

I'm told it's a Rohn-6 tower. Galvanized steel type, which has since been discontinued.

As to height, I have 30' of tower with 10' of mast up top. The Diamond discone is up at 40' and my two Niljon Super-M's are at about 35'.

Walking it down isn't too bad, but I don't think I'd do it by myself. I had thought of doing some sort of winch arrangement but haven't quite figured all that out. The tower's in pretty close to the house and I'm not sure just where I'd mount the winch. I walk it down only once or twice every summer just to inspect things or add antennas.

All the antennas I have up at present are omni-directional and although I'm pretty happy with how they perform, at some point in the future I would like to do some multi-element Yagi's on various bands along with a rotor too.

 

[Grog]

Come to think of it, when it was folded over, it wasn't too tall, it was too long!! :lol:

Sounds like a punchline to a joke :twisted:

 

[flyingwolf]

Seeing the pics I would suggest a good winch on the side of the house. Connection point on the tower at the gutter line and a pully just below the gutter. This would give you the best amount of both stability as you lowered it and strenght as you raised it.

I would personally put the winch in a box with a lock on it to prevent any one messing with it.

 

[crayon]

Are you running a CLEC out of your basement!?!

I thought I was pimped out with just two 66 blocks and a Toshiba 424 system in my house. Very cool setup!

I had 2020 SD's in every room, but the wife didn't like it because she had to grab line one or dial 9 to get an outside line. I ended up selling the cabinet, a CO card, several PDKU's and about 30 phones to a company that I did contract work for.

*sigh*

 

[K8PBX]

Naw, I'm not running a CLEC. I work on telecom switching systems for a living. After 20 years, I think it's just in my blood. Guess I hobby with phones as much as I do with PC's, scanning, alarm systems, and ham radio.

My family is pretty used to the convenience the phone system provides, but visitors that ask to use the phone seem to be taken back when told, "you need to dial a 9 to get an outside line".

The response is usually something like "Wha?"