The Hexbeam is Up

Long live the hexbeam.

The first tower, although it is the crank up one, not the 90 foot permanent one going in the meadow, is up and running. Lots of work for about three hours as one of the tubes ended up being misaligned and the tower leaned. Kind of like the leaning tower of Pisa. Back down and a replacement section later, it was up and operating at 48′ above the ground.

It was so worth it for him, when he worked a country and got a report of “you are 59 plus 10”. In other words, a booming signal. Amazing what directionality and a good location can do. The wires will be coming down for all but a few frequency bands. This beam handles 10, 12, 15, 17 and 20 meters. All we need is the monster wire all the way down the property line out front for the 80 meter band, and the 30 and 40 meter wires in the back yard. Soon, a second crank up will handle those two. This summer the rest hopefully will get done.

It was a windy cold day. It even had snow flurries while we were out there. Wind gusts made putting the beam on the top of the rotor pretty exciting. Then a matter of cranking and adjusting guy wires.

The Glenwood DX chapter did a great job. My husband owes them lunch at the next meeting at the Lisbon Town Grill. Living out here in west county are lots of “hams”. Amateur radio operators who came out here for the space and the lack of covenants. All the guys out here today have towers and live less than five miles from us. They help each other with tower projects.

And now you know the answer to the question, How many hams does it take to put up a rocket launcher? Five. Thanks, guys. My OM is happily working rare DXpeditions as I type. Spratly Islands anyone?

One more picture. The difference between the altitude of the wire antennae and the new tower.

hocoblogs@@@