Phil,
I think I'd play it safe and be like the other guys. Cut 10 feet off of your tower and mount the vertical. <grin>
Don W6SMB
On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 23:05:45 -0600, Phil Scovell wrote:
I sent this to the wrong list first.
> Several years ago, after fiddling around with two 18AVQ verticals on my
> roof, separated by 60 feet and fed broadside, I gave up. I discovered to
> two dad blamed verticals were not mechanically identical. I discovered
this
> by taking them down, putting them side by side, and starting from the
> bottom, feeling my way inch by inch up the tubing. I discovered they were
> slightly made differently. I did get them to work but I could never get
> them to match at 3800 where I wanted them. So, I figured, well, shoot, I
> don't have any rotating antennas on top of, at that time, my 55 foot tower
> so pick the best of the two verticals, and put it up there. I cuts 17
> radials, each, 65 feet or longer, got the vertical on top of the tower,
> which I discovered I needed help doing so a friend helped, and started
> stringing the wires out and tying them to trees, fence posts, the house,
and
> every thing I could find. It was August the first that day. I fired up
on
> 75 meters that night and the antenna, at 55 feet, with that much wire
under
> it, was a canon. Hot dog! I can't wait until the band builds up for the
> winter DX season. Two weeks later, a friend came over, he isn't a ham,
and
> worked on my computer. We were standing in the very room I am in right
now.
> My antenna was disconnected, all my antennas were grounded, and as we
> talked, my friend, who was born in Colorado said, Man, I've never seen a
> lightning storm like this before. It was a dry lightning storm. I could
> hear thunder rolling off the mountains but it was still far off. The
> lightning wasn't, far off, that is. There is a question in this story so
> keep reading. I'm leaning against my metal desk talking to my friend. My
> grounding switch with the antennas all switched to ground, was three feet
> away. Suddenly, my ears popped and switched off. I thought I had heard a
> small pop in the room. My ears rang but I could hear enough to talk and
> communicate. The man's wife had just walked into my office to see if we
> were about done when she saw the flash over on the coax switch but she
also
> said she saw a flash of light behind my equipment. Wonderful. She
reached
> over and grabbed my arm and said, Get away from there. Every breaker in
my
> breaker box had tripped. My ground rod is about 5 feet from the breaker
> box. It hit my 18AVQ at 55 feet, blew the top three feet off, which was
the
> 80 meter coil and whip sections, and from the energy build up in the room,
> popped a couple of diodes in my ten tec transceiver. It also burned up
one
> telephone and a few light bulbs throughout the house. The coax connectors
> at either end of the RG8 running to the vertical were burn black. So, I
now
> have the R7 and normally use it on my roof at about 15 feet. I have,
bolted
> to the back of my home, a 50 foot tower that had a two meter and 70
> centimeter 26 foot diamond antenna. We have high winds in January and
> February but this last season, was ridiculous. That dumb 400 dollar two
> meter 70 CM antenna didn't survive. Makes me mad. So, I both a shorter
> diamond dual bander and put it on the roof for safe keeping. So my
question
> is, I know this was an unusual storm but I am a little gun shy now about
> putting my R7 up on my 50 foot tower. I've talked with guys with R7
> verticals on 40 foot towers and shoot, all our repeaters around Denver are
> on 9 and 10 and 11 thousand foot mountains. So I keep trying to talk
myself
> into putting the vertical on this tower. What do you think? I like the
> idea because of not having to string radials all over the property. What
> am more afraid of is that the vertical won't take the wind more than it
will
> be hit by lightning.
> Phil.
> K0NX
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