Well, the BIG 24' HF vertical is up on the patio roof, the coupler (tuner) is connected to it and the isolation (choke) balun, and all the counterpoise radials I'm going to use for now are installed. Stringing 4, 34' #10 wires from the ground buss I made out to the furthest points of the yard was more work than I thought it would be. Two of them run almost 'textbook perfect' from the ground buss out to the far coner of the roofs on our garage, and the neighbor's. The other two run back towards the house, then up a bit, and are stapled to the eaves for the remainder of their length.The fiancee's youngest son is a weightlifter, and he muscled the complete antenna and base support up to the edge of the patio roof while I guided it, and then with a mighty shove, slid it far enough that it would stay there. The two of us then got it centered, and I fished the 25kV #14 GTO wire down through the roof, trimmed it to length, and put a lug on it to connect to the hot terminal of the coupler. Monday morning I'll start running the coax (Davis RF 'BuryFlex') and the coupler control cable to The Shack. After a bit of testing, I should be ready-to-go!
It's taken me about twice the amount of time I thought it would, not to mention the $300+ cost of the building materials I needed. At least I got a brand-new 8' fiberglass Werner ladder out of the deal!
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<i>The Fisher Saga</i> Continues - Act III -
Been working on this post since right after Thanksgiving. I'm making very good progress on the Fisher, and will most likely power it up...
Progress, however miniscule, is STILL progress :-)
ReplyDeleteYou betcha!
ReplyDeleteTaking a break from running the coax, which is almost finished. I'll have to make a wood "bulkhead" strip to bring the cables in through the window in The Shack, but that's no biggie.I'm just surprised we were able to get the whole shebang up on the roof as easy as it went. Having a 26 year old weightlifter in the house sure helps! It's not that it was heavy, but a 24' whip sure gets flippy-floppy when you start moving it around!