Wednesday, November 8, 2017

2017 goal: antenna tower up again!

Remember my yearly post "higlights and goals" from december last year. Well last summer I finally had time to apply for a antenna tower building permit. But things are going slow in our country so it took almost half a year before I finally got it. And if you think that's all, well when you get the building permit you need to wait for 6 weeks before it is official so any neighbours can make official complaints. But finally the mast is up again now since last saturday, the only goal I had for the hobby this year. I did some work on the winches and bought new clamps to fasten the cables. To mount the rotor and antennas on top will take a while. I decided to sell the Create rotor and take a look at the Kenpro KR600 again. Probabely the Kenpro needs a new potmeter as well.





Then last sunday I opened the "Electron". Which is the
monthly magazine from the VERON (Dutch hamradio organisation). One of the articles was about the PA-beker contest. A dutch national contest which I always participate in. I took a view in my agenda, it was not in! How could this be? I don't know but this contest happens upcoming weekend. I have no time to make any NVIS antenna this week. No time to install the 80m loop like I always did in previous years. Luckely I still had my old 80m loop copper wire (not the most recent) and figured out I could make a 80m band inverted-Vand mount it in the new tower. But how to feed it as I haven't got enough coax. No time to tune a antenna either and no time to construct a ladder line. So I've been searching around in my garage and found 4 pieces of 400 Ohm ladderline wich I soldered together so it was just enough to get from my shack to top of the "new" antenna tower. It seems to be working fine at least on the 80m band the signals are strong and compared to the old vertical noise is much less. It seems to have a narrower band width compared to the loop but tunes fine on all bands including 160m!

9 comments:

Artur Moreira said...


Congratulations for the tower good dx 73s

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Thanks Artur! 73, Bas

Paul Stam PAØK said...

Hallo bas, wow, dat ziet er goed uit. Jij boft maar met jouw locatie. Weinig city QRM denk ik zo, en nu deze mast. Tikkeltje jaloers natuurlijk ;-) Ben benieuwd naar je resultaten. Ik zal met de contest hier en daar wat punten uitdelen, ik an alleen zondag mee doen met SSB. Zaterdagochtend hebben we een crematie. Dus dat gaat niet. Ik hoop je zondag te horen, succes alvast. 73 Paul PC4T

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hallo Paul, ik hoop je te horen. Heb geen idee wat deze inverted-V doet binnen Nederland maar ik vermoed dat het wel werkt. Voor zo een mast moet je wel de ruimte hebben. Op mijn vorige QTH ging het allemaal net. Hier heb ik wat meer ruimte. Ik hoop voor de ARRL 10m contest de 5 elements 10m yagi er ook nog in te hebben. Tijd tijdens daglicht is alleen een groot probleem...73, Bas

Photon said...

Very nice tower! I also have a very old Kenpro KR600RC, and it is still working fine after years in our hurricane strength winds and sea air!

The nice thing with a tower is you can use the structure as the 'other half' of a half sloper. My slopers have worked out very well on 80, 60 and 40m, slightly poorer on 30m.

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Hello John, I know. I've done it at the previous location with a shortened 160m sloper. At that QTH I also had a radial network connected to the tower. Didn't do that this time. 73, Bas

Hans said...

Hallo Bas,
Wat staat hij al prachtig! Dat zal voor jou al genieten zijn. Eindelijk is het zover en zelfs je eerste antenne hangt voor nood al in de mast. Heel veel succes met de contest? Als ik tijd heb ga ik luisteren. 73 Hans, PE1BVQ

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Eindelijk maar toch....sinds 2008 lag hij in de tuin. Nu 9 jaar later pas weer overeind, tjonge. Hoop je te horen zondag. Dit keer wel regio 6 in mijn log! 73, Bas

ON5ZO said...

Good stuff Bas. A ham needs a tower ;o)
Ik herinner me nog heel goed het gevoel om eindelijk iets in de lucht te hebben i.p.v. op de grond. Een wereld van verschil!
Veel plezier er mee, ik lees het hier wel.
73!