Tee section

Have now assembled the Tee section at home ready for installation. I need to get a firm measurement off the tower before deciding the height and final (oops, no such word when talking about aerials!) configuration. I think I could be a trifle ambitious aiming for 25 metres in total, 22 metres is the minimum. Anyway, the Tee extension is designed to get me up to 25 metres.

"Solid" work

Thanks to help from my sons Mark and Scott, the tower is now concreted into place. Chose a stinking hot day (well over 30C) and not a breath of wind. Both factors will assist as the tower will not be swaying while the concrete rapidly sets!

Next trip will hopefully see the top Tee section in place and aerials attached.

Cheers,

Paul

North American antenna fixed...

Thanks to David Headland, the North American antenna is up again. Took a couple of hours in warm, blustery conditions. Was pleased to find that someone had killed all the gorse, blackberry, briar and other scratchy, itchy stuff along the banks of the river. Along with the broom and other woods, some of which once supported the antenna so next trip will add a couple of metal poles and stakes to the recipe.

Updater - 29th August

Well, with the NZRDXL's 60th anniversary celebrations being held in the area in October, and many visitors wanting to try the DX at Waianakarua, I thought I'd better attend to a bit of maintenance.

Both Beverages needed repair the US antenna had come down across the river and the section between the cabin and the paddock had been temporarily repaired by a certain school teacher who should never be let loose near a tool of any kind. The job of re-stringing the wire across the river and along the very rough and overgrown land on the other side will keep for another day.

Then Latin aerial also has a break but in relatively open land so won't take very long at all to fix.

The three wooden poles on both Beverages have been replaced with 4m steel poles as the manuka wood so readily available around the cabin, rots too quickly.

The old faithful Villiers motor/generator set has been carted off to the dump. The 120Ah and 85Ah deep-cycle batteries have joined the motor-gene and been replaced with 160Ah and 95Ah units.

Little work has happened on the tower, though with the weather improving all the time, that will happen soon enough.

I am taking the last week of October off work, much of which will be spent on general maintenance. Hopefully, the cabin will get a bit more use!

Cheers,

Paul

30th April 2008

Sutton ZL4QJ and Ray VK4HDX getting serious...

The weather man was right! It rained most of the night and pretty much all day... finally clearing around 3:30pm but that was MW DX time so no work done on the antenna...

So it will be a couple more weekends work before RF starts emanating from the wires!

Here's a trail of some of what we heard...

560 0516 R Colon, San Juan, Argentina, distinctive mx, ids and temp.
570 0719 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format. Regularly heard.
580 0559 KMJ Fresno CA, gud w/promo on "the central valleys emerging place in California"
670 015 R Rebelde, Cuba gd sig w/ FA & MA then pops, //710 even stronger
690 0855 HCJB Quito fr w/Andean tunes in //3220.
820 0448 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format. Regularly hrd here.
830 0609 WCCO MInneapolis MN gd w/wx forecast for the twin cities.
860 0651 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format
870 0925 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format
930 0359 R Nuevo Mindo, Chile, gd w/id, dominant o/Colombian
940 0429 WINZ Miami FL local ads, promo and ids - dominant over Fresno
950 0811 R Reloj, Cuba usual morse ids and all-nx format
1210 0559 UNID SS relig "Cadena radial cristiana" maybe KPRZ San Marcos???
1280 0543 R Tupi, Brazil, up vry briefly w/ IDS in 30 seconds then gone...
1320 0430 R Apolo, Turmero, Venezuela, gud sig,many ids o/Peru
1540 0700 KGBC Galveston TX, nice surprise when waiting for a Latin to id, they faded and up popped this one, no news, straight into gospel mx but quickly disappeared.
1600 0459 WKWF (tent) Key West FL "Sports Radio 1600" ids, running Westwood One and Sports News radio progs.
1660 0523 WGIT Canovanas, Puerto Rico, good w/plenty ids and lively mx, dominant.
1700 0810 WEUV (tent.) Huntsville AL, promo as "the Motown sound" not many other likely takers.

29th April 2008

The Tee-section resting against the tower.

Prior to the impending arrival of Ray and Sutton for two nights of MW DXing, I spent the morning and afternoon cleaning the cabin and assembling the top T-section.

When the young lads arrived, they were pressed into service stringing the ropes for hoisting the wires and assembling the 80m delta loop. All in readiness for hoisting the next day, only the weather forecast didn't look too good.

After a cuppa tea it was time to check out the MW bands and settle in for some DX. The band was open to Florida and WINZ Miami, WHNZ Tampa, WKWF West Key were logged.

Tying Down the Tower

The top section, there is a pulley already at the top, to facilitate lifting the telescoping section.

To give some idea of scale and surroundings. At a rough estimate,the tower is 17m high.

The ladder in the centre will be very handy... accessing the top section won't be for the faint-hearted!

Here you can see the steel waratahs driven at nearly right-angles to the tower leg. The strong galvanised wire is commonly used on clothes lines here.

Today my son Scott and I tied the tower down using steel fencing standards.

Next step is to add a telescoping pole with a Tee top-section, pulleys at either end and nylon rope to hoist up antennas.

Ray VK4HDX and Sutton ZL4QJ will be here at the end of the month and will be pressed into service...