Tuesday 14 August 2007

antenna height

Now, this is something i freely admit - ladders terrify me. Its not the height, its the ladders. I love being up high, i can stand on the edge of a roof and look down without a care. But actually going up ladders i hate. Yet its unavoidable if i want decent antennas. So, ive bought a new ladder, practically the biggest they had, and certainly more than enough to reach to and beyond the apex of the roof to work on the turnstyle antenna and the met instruments. Ive also bought a stay bracket that gives the ladder between 1-2ft clearance from the wall, so i'll have space to work. There was no point getting a smaller set of ladders that would 'just' reach. Even if i dont use these fully extended, that will just add to the stability and my safety.

So, next job then is to repair the vhf turnstyle antenna for the weather satellites. This needs a whole new coax run. I can check and test the anemometer in situ as well and recable that if required. I may rig a rooftop receive only random wire as well for the FRG-100 to replace the wire that goes down to the tree.

I also need to improve the support for the doublet. This im going to do by building a 25ft wooden mast. Built from tanalized 2x4, it should do a good job and be aethetically pleasing (or at least not too ugly). The difficult part, is that for it to be freestanding will require a foundation some 6ft deep. So i need to invest in, or borrow, some post hole diggers. I may replace the 1" allow tube mast at the roof apex with something a little stronger as well.

No comments: