NEW ANTENNA ON TOWER

With the help of Daniel (ZS6JR) we took the two Cushcraft Antennae off the tower, and installed the 3 element SteppIR on the 16th June 2006

The antenna is working great, SWR is low on all bands

The antenna seems to be performing much better than the A3S on 20M, by about 2 "S" Points. haven't made any comparisons on the other bands

Also prior to undertaking the installation of the Stepper, I installed a 12V Electric Winch, to enable easier tilting of the tower

The winch works like a dream, and saves a whole lot of muscle power, hi !

Tower at full height

The antennae are at the following approx heights ; A3S at 21m (69ft), A3WS at 17m (55ft), 40/80M inverted V dipoles are at 16m (52ft)

The A3S was previously at around 11m (36ft) and the A3WS was at around 13,5m (44ft), effectively the A3S is at almost twice the previous height, and the other antenna's have also grown somewhat !

NEW TOWER

Finally Up

With the help of Daniel (ZS6JR) we got the antenna's, and tower up and operational on the 6th July 2002

It took us most part of the day to get everything together, that included mounting the flange-mount bearing (thrust bearing) at the top of the tower, mounting the rotator

We then removed the antenna's from the old tower, and gave them a go-over, and then fitted firstly the A3S to the mast, cranked the tower into the vertical position and then proceeded to fit the A3WS

Next task was cranking the vertical sections of the tower to a safe height, there is approx 2 metres of overlap between sections

TOWER SECTION

Prior to painting

THE BIG HOLE

Well not so big, approx 2 cubic metres

Concrete was poured as planned, 22nd January 2002. It took approx 40 wheel barrows of concrete to fill the hole, which equates to roughly 4,25 tons

The Day the "Old Tower" almost came down

Here is a picture of the day the old tower "almost" came down. We had a terrible storm, with exceptionally strong gusting winds

As you can see from the picture the tower got quite bent. With the help of ZS6GF (Tony), we did managed to straighten it, as well as re-enforcing it with stronger bracing

THE UNFAIR ADVANTAGE