Carolyn,
Beams make ham radio 10 times more fun but having a tower and beam and rotor
and yards and yards of coax and rotor cable to maintain ain't all cracked up
to what it is supposed to be. I haven't been able to climb due to my back
for a good 20 years and that takes a lot of fun out of it since it seems
like there is always some reason to be climbing the tower. I have a contest
friend in western Colorado who helped me put up my 2 element 40 meter beam
years ago and I was asking him one day which of his big contest antennas he
liked the most. He said, "My full sized 4 element 40 meter beam on my Rohn
45G 140 foot tower." I'd love to have that, I was thinking as he talked,
but then Bill said, "But what I don't like is the maintenance." I asked
him, like what, for example. "He said, "Every summer, I've got to climb a
140 foot tower to fiddle with the beam due to the wind screwing with the
boom and the elements. Sometimes," he continued, "I even end up having to
climb while it is snowing if we are in a contest." My 2 element 40 meter
beam was only up 70 feet and I am at the bottom of a high hill but the wind
still pushed the beam around once and awhile and I'd have to get a younger
pup to climb my tower and center the beam. Two meter beams are generally
lower and a lot easier to work on. That's why I normally kept my 15 element
2 meter beam on a short tripod on my roof so it wasn't much higher than
about 25 feet. People also think you need a really tall tower. My first
tower was 38 feet high and my antenna was a 4 element 20 meter mono bander
at 40 feet. I ran 700 watts output and often, I had a bigger signal than a
friend of mine a few blocks away with his 1200 watts output and 132 foot
tower. It used to make him so mad when we horse race and I'd beat him. Of
course, when the band started to drop out, the taller towers and bigger
antennas help a lot more. About this time, someone is saying, "Phil, why
didn't you and your friend pin your rotor to the mast?" Those would be guys
who don't have 70 to 110 miles per hour winds on a regular bases in the
middle of the winter. I climbed my tower on Christmas day one year with 24
inches of snow on the ground because a relay of mine burned out and I didn't
want to wait three months to fix it. Additionally, running 2 watts output
back in 1976 and 1977, using a 4 band ground mounted vertical, in 18 months
I worked over 600 stations and worked all 50 states including Alaska and
Hawaii both on 40 meters and the bands weren't very good either.
Phil.
K0NX
----- Original Message -----
From: "carolyn johnson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 2:36 PM
Subject: Re: Happy Ham's Day
>I don't even have up an antenna, but hopefully one day. I always dreamed
> about having a beam. I'll just make due now with what I have.
>
> Carolyn Kj4vt
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