Tower Stuff

9/16/06

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9/16/06 tower party!

First: FULL results can be found on our club web site. http://www.nobarc.org/repeaters.htm, Scroll down a little and click on:

We have a LOT more green than we have had in a LONG time!

We had some beautiful weather! Awesome is more like it! We had three tower climbers this time, Bob N2LUD, Frank KA2QYE, and Matt (not licensed yet). We also had a wonderful turn out for ground crew. Jim K2LM who is the one that helped us in convincing Bob and Frank to help us out. Jim is also a very dedicated ham that has helped us maintain virtually every repeater we have. It was wonderful to see these guys all helping today. We also had quite a number of other NoBarc members help. Some from NewYork like Wayne K2WG plus we had Sigurd, Ed, Fran, Paul, Joe, Pat, and John (I am sure I messed someone!). Actually I think we were very nearly out numbered by DX help than Berkshire County help! It was awesome to see Matt (also from NY) come help. He is not even a ham (yet)! We had to take advantage of Pat N1LZH who stayed in Pittsfield on standby to bring up emergency parts. I accidentally forgot the packet antenna and Pat brought it up for us. Jim and Sigurd replaced the 91 power supply and peaked it up to max power out with minimum desense. They also discovered a working battery charger/switch in the old 6meter power supply so we still have battery backup! Sounds real good huh? Well part of that was because Frank discovered the hardline connector was bad. It was amazing to watch Frank put on a new hardline connected while hanging from the tower 50 feet up in the air! I have a hard time doing that on my woprkbench! 449.425 is back on the tower again and sounds real good huh? Well, that is due in part to discovering a jumper in the rack that had a bad jumper. The connector rotates all the way around and had no ground! We had such real good luck but it did end on 224.1. We spent a lot of time attempting to get it working. The tower guys had a very expensive nifty tool called a time difference relectometer (or something like that). It can find the location of hardline damage. It showed us that the hardline was damaged at around 69 feet from the inside of the bunker. We attempted twice to reduce the length of the hardline and put new connectors on (again while hanging in the air, just amazing to me) with no success. Bottom line is we are going to need to replace the 224.1 hardline. That will not be easy and we will need some younger guys with muscle. If you have noticed I usually show up for take downs on our messy events. It is often one of the most often overlooked parts of any ham event. Fun set up turns out to be painful cleanup. Well we had a mess of old useless PVC pipe from the tower. Obie N1QOV offered to take it and dispose of it properly for the club. Now that was a HUGE relief for us!
Thanks to everyone how helped out!
Tim KE3HT (2 meter repeater manager).

You think your job is tricky!

08/15/06 repair party:
Last night (8/15/06) a contingent of helpers showed up and fixed up the 222 antenna real nice. I think it is in great shape now. We also tested the packet antenna and found it to be good SWR wise. We still have no mounting ideas except to use rope to hang it on the tower. KJ1K, N1FGY, W1BS, KE3HT and N1LZH were part of this group. KJ1K and N1FGY worked on the 222 alone once before and figured out a nifty shrink wrap solution to keep moisture out. Things went well. Aside from stainless parts we are just about ready for the trip back up the hill with everything. We are flexible as to when we go (before the snow, hihi) so I am not pushing our valuable tower climbers but I have started them looking into dates they may be able to work together on. I will post that information as soon as I get it.

6/18/06 Tower party! Sunday at 8am Bob Isby, Frank, Dick WA2AAU, Ed N1FGY, Sigurd KJ1K, Tim KE3HT, Fran KB1HZL, Joe W1BS, Tim N1PTZ gathered on Mt Greylock for on a Sunday HOT Fathers day. We started at 8am because some of the fathers wanted to get home to the family. It was a gracious thing the families did letting the Dad's have fun (did I just say that?) doing tower work. Bob, Frank and Dick came over from New York. Bob and Frank spent 4+ hours continuously up on the tower in the hot Sun. True there was a mild breeze but it was still hot. These two heroes' to NoBarc worked hard too. They were not up there just having fun. They had to bust rusted bolts, catch the packet antenna as it was sliding into the tube and hang out on the limbs of the towers while doing it. I guess I have never paid a good amount of attention on what goes into climbing and working on towers till now but I would have to say there is no amount of money that seems worth the effort these two guys gave. First off let me say that it is impractical to do what they did with only one person doing it. It is just about as hard moving about on the tower as you might imagine working in outer space. You might not think so if you only watched for a few minutes like I normally do. I watched the whole operation and I am amazed at how much work it is to work on the tower. Even with two people there were times they had to move up and down to work together or apart getting things done. 20 foot long antennas are not handled very easily.

Down to the juices, I will attempt to remember some of the interesting pieces of this project but with so much I doubt I will get it all. First we took down 222.1 and its PVC tubing. The jumper between the hard line and the antenna for 222.1 was not in great condition. Then they went to do 146.91. As you might have seen on the web site (tower section) the 146.91 PVC was busted so any water that got into the top would sit on and around the antenna with the PVC pipe holding it there. They had to deal with some rusty bolts. Then they went to work on 449.425. Ouch, the feed line was not connected! It came out without unscrewing it! That might explain the 10to1 SWR! The rusty bolts on that side were so rusty they had to be busted off and the antenna had to be man handled 60 feet from the ground! The PVC pipe has still not been removed but does need replacement. This single antenna took the largest amount of time. After 449.425 was removed these guys noticed that the packet antenna was being held but the rope which had long since disintegrated. It needed to be re-fastened but we had to make something to do that and we were running out of time.

Right now as you can see on the NoBarc "Repeater Status" web page you will see that:

53.23 is up
146.91 is up on a temporary antenna
222.1 us up but on an indoor antenna
449.425 is up on an indoor antenna
921.1 is up still on the tower (the only antenna still there)
Packet is down. Might need a new antenna?
10ghz beacon is up.

Pictures are coming and I will post them on the web site:

http://www.ke3ht.org/tower/

Sigurds pictures: http://www.ke3ht.org/tower/kj1kpics

Tim

Official words:
From Pat and Joe 2/17/06 after speaking with Clebe Scott from the state.

2. Regarding tower painting: (dem) DPR needs a letter stating when and the color we will using. Generally the color we are using is most acceptable to Clebe. Must be done on a non-windy day so the paint doesn't spatter the building.

3. Regarding insurance for working on the tower. it's our tower---State has no requirements. We have our own insurance and worker should have his own. The worker should be somebody experienced and safety conscious.

Jud Snyder has the NoBarc 2m Spare antenna for 146.91. Plans are to work on this antenna then use it when we swap out the current one.

Tower painters commercial:
BERKSHIRE WIRELESS • JOHN KELLOGG • 480 PLEASANT ST • LEE, MASS. 01238, USA • Telephone 413-243-3331 • Fax 4132434119 • E-mail: JKELLOGG@CCITELE.COM • Locations in Texas

Tower stuff