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Working hard or hardly working?

By On · 3 Comments · In Amateur Radio

Today the winds finally settled and in between freezing rainshowers I decided to hoist up the  60 pound insulators and antenna wires for the King´s antenna.

The antenna wires are #8 CopperWeld – copper covered steel wires with a breaking strength of 2500lbs / 1100kg.

My good neighbor, Finnbjörn from Litlaeyri, Airport Manager, came to assist me on the ground and he took these photos on my camera.

I began by pulling up the right hand side insulator and antenna wires while still on the ground.   I then attached a climbing rope to my harness and the other end to the left hand insulator and antenna wires already assembled on the platform.

Attaching the right hand side insulator went well, but the climbing rope attached to the other insulator managed to wind itself around the feedpoint box at the bottom of the pole.

Finnbjörn came to the rescue and untangled the rope, saving me a trip to the platform and back up again.

It  was extremely difficult to attach the second insulator until I discovered that one of the antenna wires had snagged on the platform.  Finnbjörn also saved me a trip back down by untangling the wire.

This was the most difficult part of constructing this antenna and I am glad it is behind me.  I must be getting old :-)

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Omni-directional antenna operational

By On · Leave a Comment · In Amateur Radio

I have finished the task of installing the omni-directional antenna.

It is installed approximately 250 meters from the shack, and it is fed with 1-5/8″ Heliax.

It measures with relatively flat SWR from 3-30MHz.

It remains to be seen whether it is installed too close to some of the Beverage antennas, and whether the presence of the vertical will have any detrimental effect on the directivity of the Beverage antennas.

The structure is 60 feet tall and occupies a space of 40 meters in diameter (130 feet) and it was difficult to find a level area for the installation.

MilSpec communications.

By On · 1 Comment · In Amateur Radio

I am taking the opportunity while the weather is bad to work inside the shack.

New cables have been routed into the equipment room and a 19″ equipment rack installed for the Harris amplifiers.

Two cables were installed for future use with the ends coming out of the ground in strategic places.

Hopefully I will not need to route more cables into the shack.

Operating position “C” is now fully operational – I tested the Harris RT1446/RF-350K with the 1KW amplifier this afternoon and there seem to be no problems.

It only remains to connect and test operating position “D” and then the station will be fully functional.

I would be interested in comments on the quality of my signals.

Antenna Rigging

By On · Leave a Comment · In Amateur Radio

Building the guy wires for the King and the Rooks is difficult and time consuming.   I have now spent a few days on this task.

Most of the guy wires are made of 5/16″ galvanized EHS steel cable.

Guy wires – heavy duty

By On · Leave a Comment · In Amateur Radio

Guy wires broken up with insulators every two meters were installed on the King today.
During the operation, I used the backhoe to hold the King steady while the temporary guy wires were replaced with the new guy wires.
The final tightening of the guy wires will be done tomorrow.
Some of the photos were taken with my camera by my neighbor, Finnbjörn from Litlaeyri who dropped by during the work.

Control cables for the King

By On · Leave a Comment · In Amateur Radio

I have run out control cables for the King. The armoured cable contains 4 insulated copper conductors and there was enough on the roll to give me two entire runs out to the King – 700 meters each cable.

It has been extremely hard work to get the cable into position.

The cables may be used to get power out to the site and to install remote current metering or relay switching on the vertical.

Heavy Duty

By On · Leave a Comment · In Amateur Radio

I am now installing pole hardware for the guy wires on the two side poles of the 160M antenna.

All guy anchors are also in place.

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