Contest Antenna Additions
2005 -2007
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Contest Antenna Additions 2005 -2007
Note: You will need
Google Earth installed on your PC |
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As the VE3SY station began progressing into a contest station there was a need for additional antennas and a second tower. Click for Google Earth Placemark
The first task was to dig the hole for the base of a Trylon T500 72 foot (22m)tower. Luckily the sandy loam soil was easy digging - at least until we struck the water table just 4 inches (10cm) short of our depth goal. The good news is that the water did not fill the hole so we decided to just add 6 inches (15cm) of cribbed up concrete to the top of the base so the mass weight would be to spec. BTW that's yours truly handling the dirt removal service.
Nick and Yuri did very well as tower riggers mounting a Tail-Twister about 10 feet (3m) down in the tower and mounting a 24 foot (7.5m) schedule 80 ¼ inch (6.5mm) wall, mast to support the A4 and the 40m beam.
For improved receive performance on 160-40, we built a 1,000 foot (300m) Beverage antenna along the fence line behind my property. Luckily this fence line runs directly towards Europe. You can see a small section of the antenna just above the ground level in the above photo. Google Earth Placemark
The Beverage was built using 6 foot (2m)
lengths of rebar for supports driven about 3.5 feet (1.3m) into the
ground. These were sourced from Home Depot for about $3.00 each.
For insulators, the lowest cost solution is the molded plastic electric
fence insulators that screw clamp onto the rebar.
Nick, Yuri and myself can't say enough about how well this beverage performs. The first night we had it in operation it was just at sunrise in VQ9 land and we were able to break Larry VQ9LAs pileup on 160 CW. Larry was almost in the noise on the inverted V but sounded like a local signal on the Beverage. This turned out to be the norm on all future contests making a Beverage a must have antenna for serious 160-40 contesting or DXing. Now anyone who has been licensed for a few years in the snow belts will know full well how weather can play havoc when freezing rain and wind is encountered. Originally Nick and Yuri erected an aluminum 80m vertical comprised of nested pieces of aluminum mast. This antenna performed well for all of our 80m DX testing however the day before the start of the February 2006 ARRL DX CW, freezing rain and high wind reduced the newly erected vertical to what you see below.
While it appears the antenna is still within its safe bending radius, upon inspection the Friday morning of the contest, Yuri VE3DZ discovered it was in fact, scrap aluminum. Paul VE3TA came to
the rescue Friday afternoon and assisted Yuri in making the antenna
useable by contest time. By bending back the lower 20 feet (6m) of
the antenna to somewhat vertical, the guys (below)
were able to connect 47 feet (14m) of wire which was ties off on a slant
from the top of the 70
For the spring WPX CW
test I decided I would experiment with the 80m vertical to try and
achieve greater bandwidth than the basic wire vertical. Yuri had
suggested previous success by using two vertical wire radiators
separated with 2 foot (.75m) shorting spacers. . I decided to go with 3 foot (1m) spacing and used a 3 foot length of 1/2 inch copper water pipe and fiberglass spacers along with wire conductor shorting the two radiators. This resulted in much
broader bandwidth performance with an absolute flat response over 120
KHz. For the WPX test that Nick VE3EY was operating, I trimmed the
antenna to move the flat spot between 3500 and 3620. After the
test I moved the resonant point up so there was a 1.2 : 1
match at 3500 and 3800 kHz. This provides a good compromise
between my SSB operation and the CW operations of Yuri and Nick.
With the new Trylon tower being about 100' (30m) from the house, we trenched in perforated Big O 4 inch (10cm) drainage pipe. I learned a lesson on the main tower located 250 feet (75m) to the north not to use solid pipe. It's impossible to seal a pipe but very easy to let any water that ingresses to drain out - especially in our sandy soil. The adjacent photo showing the three of us was taken in the spring of 2006. Due to my legs I let Yuri and Nick do the digging while I did the back filling in a sitting down position. The installation went smooth, all of the grass has grown back in leaving no trace where the trench was made. And the perforated tile has proven to keep the feedlines and control cables relatively dry. Before it was buried, Google Earth even captured the feedline tile from its high resolution satellite . Click for Google Earth photo you will need the Google Earth application to be on your system. Of course on-going maintenance is always an issue. Again just days before the ARRL DX CW test in February of 2007, another ice storm broke off one leg of the A4 reflector and damaged the balun on the KLM 40m beam. Yuri and Nick both had
work commitments so I called on Schindler tower from Cambridge.
John arrived and quickly lowered both antennas to the ground for
repair and
John used a pair of clamps as steps to enable the additional height on the mast to get the required separation of the A4 above the 40m beam. Now with everything working perfect we all agreed more gain was needed on 15 and 10m. While the mono band Yagis on the main tower work well, they are only 3 elements which gives us, at minimum, a 1 hr delay in getting European runs started in the morning and loose another 1 hr as the bands start to fold in evenings.
I took the the adjacent photo during a dinner break at the IN-MI border. We encountered driving rain on the trip down which turned to snow on the return trip. Add all of the aluminum on the roof and in the van, the fuel economy on my Van was not impressive. A chuckle at the border as we approached the customs booth. The customs officer took one look at the van and said - "you guys must be Ham operators" - We paid no tax on the load :-) Contest Photos
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1251
This project started in
the fall of 2005 after discussions with Yuri VE3DZ (left), and Nick
VE3EY who inquired about using my station for major CW contests.
The guys agreed to provide the sweat equity in the project so in Oct of
2005 work began
On
the new 72 foot (22m) Trylon we temporarily mounted a tri-band Cushcraft
A4 as we were rebuilding an old KLM 2 element 40 m beam.
These
are about 50 cents each in bags of 20 at the TCS store. For the
antenna wire, again the lowest cost solution was the 14 gauge galvanized
electric fencing wire that is $32 per 1/4 mile (.4 km)
spool. You can just see the sun reflecting off the
antenna wire in the above photo. The end of the Beverage
was terminated through a 500 ohm resistor to 3 ten foot ground rods.
It was felt that with the low conductivity sandy soil, additional ground
rods should provide better performance towards EU.
foot
(22m) tower. The temporary patch was used the balance of the
winter then replaced with a wire element supported off the end rope of
the 80m dipole.
then
the next (very windy) day re-installed both the 40 meter beam and the A4
in just over 1 hr. In the bottom left of the adjacent photo you
can see the bend in my VHF/UHF vertical on the main tower so you know
what may appear like an optical illusion with John working on the A4
over 4 feet above the KLM.
When
we saw that Pat N9RV had his antenna farm for sale, I contact Pat and
purchased his 3 wide spaced Telrex mono band beams. This will give
us 4 elements wide spaced on 20 and 5 elements each on 15 and 10.
Nick and I drove to the Indianapolis IN area to pick them up on a snowy
day in April.
