Here are photos from the 2008 Beam Raising!
Put your mouse over a picture to get a caption and click to see the full size image.
Great Job Guys!!
The 2008 Tri-Town Dream Beam Team
By Jerry K9PMV
Many board meetings, regular meetings and simple bunker gatherings have gone on over the years. In these meetings, the concept of an HF triband beam, mounted on high, was unanimously agreed on but there always remained the question of how and when. There were many schemes, trial mountings, total rebuilds and, field day experiments performed using the club’s Mosley TA 33 jr beam. After all these efforts, it was realized that there can be no substitute for a beam to be mounted high and in the clear. On the beautiful early autumn morning of October 27, 2008, 10 TTRAC members met at the bunker for the day of the culmination of the dream beam.
A bit of history, perhaps, for the whole story. Past field days were the only time that an attempt was made to use the beam. It would be temporarily mounted on the old village tower or a mast and put to use. It was found that it’s performance was less than desired. We were not even sure it was pointing in the right direction. Before the 2007 field day Jim WD9GXU and myself spent 2 days taking everything apart, cleaning surfaces and carefully measuring dimensions. We also found a bad coax connection on the driven element that we repaired. For this particular field day, the beam was mast mounted on the fence next to the bunker entrance. The beam was only 15 feet high but it did seem to work. After field day 2007, Dave W9HW and Renee K9DO came to us and proposed a tower for the beam. So on 7/7/07 we began by digging a hole for the tower base adjacent to the west wall of the bunker.
After the hole was dug is when the engineering brilliance of Dave W9HW made it’s appearance. Dave fabricated an elaborate base reinforcing mesh that was placed in the hole we dug. It also had 9 “deadmans” anchored into the side of the bunker wall. Next we mixed 18 - 80 pound bags of concrete mix to establish the base. Friends of mine made a ½ inch steel base plate so that the first tower section could hinge over to the horizontal. Then Dave came up with a plan to use the winching part of the US 555 tower that we received a few years back. He fabricated the necessary parts to secure the winch to the roof of the bunker. After the dust settled on this project, we had our triband beam at a 40 foot level on a tower that can easily lowered to the ground.
So, on October 27, 2008, the dream beam team lowered the tower, replaced the old rotator with a hygain Tailtwister series rotator, added 2 - Rohn 25g ten foot sections and straightened out the beam elements, installed new RG8/U feed line which included a choke balun at the mast and extended the rotator control line. Ray WV9R took over duties of removing and replacing the beam and doing the final bolt down of all hardware. Dave W9HW was second in command as project engineer. Ron, WB9JYZ brought his power chain saw to do much necessary tree trimming . Jim WD9GXU assisted with the tree trimming and installed a new coax connector on the feed line. Mark KA9MDJ soldered an extension on to the rotator cable necessitated by the extra 20 feet of antenna height. Tom AB9LA, Rick W9KNV, Mike WA9ZPM added muscle power where and when needed. I did my part to make sure we had the correct beam heading before we winched up. President Jim NV9X had the honor of winching this beauty up to it’s rightful place in the sky.
On the same day, but a different project, Jim NV9X and myself bolted a Hustler 5 BTV vertical antenna to the back fence. It seems that our butternut vertical had a little mishap and snapped off at it’s base, so a good replacement was in order. The Hustler 5 BTV is a donation to the club from the family of Bob Nelson KA9PMZ (sk). The family had given the antenna to me for use at the club. While I had it at home, however, I made a tilt over base for it that bolts onto a chain link fence post. It worked well both at home and at it’s new location at the club station. I’m sure Bob is in ham heaven listening to his antenna work for W9VT.
Here are Movies from the 2008 Beam Raising!
Click the image to see the movie.
Sorry- No Sound on these. Caution! These are large Files!
Movie #1 
Movie #2 
