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!
More pictures
click here
Bob on top Frank below removing the
broken PVC protection for 146.91.
If you want to know more about the work
in progress
click here
146.91 on left, 449.425 on right
<>

You can see above that there are two jumpers going in the bottom right
tube. The second one is packet upside down in the bottom tube above the
921.1 antenna.
Here is a map of the contents of the tower.
This was verified June 19, 2006.
<--- North South
---->
What we are working on now 6/23/06 tpe
I would like to think we can get ready with in the next month
maybe less. I do not want to bother the tower climbers unless we are
fairly sure we can meet a date they might choose. So I have not even
attempted to set a date yet. Lets get our eggs in order with what needs
to be done first. These guys worked incredibly hard and I want to make
sure we will be properly prepared for the next trip and not waste any
of their time and efforts. GREEN
means we need volunteers. Purple
means we still need to do.
- Done...We need 3 or 4 20 foot sections of Schedule 40 3inch PVC
pipe. We
also need 4 end caps. George/Rick are apparently looking into one
possible option that could save us some money. Two chunks of pipe and
parts already cost us $80. We need more. Thanks Rick!
- Done...We
need
several sessions of a work party to repair/test antenna's. Ed, Sigurd,
Tim, Joe
- We can build the 222 PVC section using the
old one as a template.
- We need
5 jumpers for the hard line to
antenna connections. Female N on one end and appropriate N/UHF on the
other end. W1GPO has offered to make these up for us. 222 is UHF to N.
2meters is N to N.
- We need to investigate the
Packet
situation. The old antenna is homebrew and may need replacement. It has
rope and Duck tape holding it in place?
- We need new Z clamps (Dick Frey
will attempt to contact a local 2
way shop for those parts I think)
- We need new bolts, preferably
Stainless for the tower to antenna
clamps. I will obtain the necessary parts from Fastenal.
- We need new Stainless U bolts
for the PVC tube support. I will
obtain the necessary parts from Fastenal.
- We need to find a good group of volunteers
for the next trip.
- N1PTZ and KB1HZL worked pretty hard and
we could use more help on the ground. I saw Fran at work today and his
head seems to be tilted up to much! We are going to need to rebuild two
more PVC tubes while the climbers are aloft because we ran out of time
to get the 449 and 921/145.05 tubes down from the tower. N1FGY might be
away parts of next month so we need someone to take his place. So we
could possibly need a couple more volunteers to help replace/spell some
of the ground crew.
- Need Paint color and
acquisition?
- Thank you party/dinner planning and prep.
Work plan for 08/??/06
Overlap ground work with tower work, keep stuff flowing to the tower
crew. No waiting!
Eliminate a lot of ups and downs. Does have some side to side?
4 crews: tower-2, tower support-2, ground prep-3, ground test-1.
In case of WX or time I put in approx order of importance.
Upper section first:
- Tower remove temp 146.91 antenna.
- ground crew prepare tube MOD for 91 & antenna & jumper
- Tower pull down 449 tube
- ground prepare new 449 tube & antenna & jumper
- Tower put up new 91 tube & 91 antenna
- test 91?
- Tower install 449 tube & antenna
- ground prepare 222 tube & antenna & jumper
- test 449?
Lower sections:
- Tower remove 921 & tube
- ground prepare 921 tube, antenna (OPEN/fix??), 14505
antenna & jumpers.
- Tower install 222 tube & antenna
- test 222
- Tower install 921 tube, antenna, 14505 & jumpers
- test 921, test 14505
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
Pictures taken by K2LM 4/26/06 of some
of the antenna structure.
<>This
is on the upper section
<>
Top of the Monopole (10ghz is the little grey thing)

Here is a picture of the center of the Monopole.

Checklist for 2006 tower work:
PAINT: what color, who can take this task?
91 Alternate antenna. Ed / Sigurd might take the trip and pick it up.
Date(s): we might need two. Estimated sometime after June 14th.
Probably weekend.
PVC Parts: can anyone get some before the date of the climb.
Ground Ground crew desired:
- Antenna repair persons (1 or 2)
- PVC repairs (unknown what is involved here)
- Isby support (tools to coffee, keep him happy to be helping us)
- Hardline pullers (2)
- Runner down to town for parts/supplies (must have a pickup or van
with roof rack)
-
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
Garold Hoose gary@polepainter.com (989)382-8254 (951)283-8714
Tower climbers info
alg comm