W4FT on Amateur Radio

TA-33M and Cushcraft 11 element Yagi are halfway up!

I’ve been remodeling my house for a while now, so the radio shack and the antennas have seen frequent changes and moves.  Earlier this summer, I found myself wanting more than just my B&W 160-20 trap dipole hanging in the trees.  This would be a temporary install only. Sometimes, you just have to scratch an itch.  

Conveniently, I had not one, but two TA-33M antennas in the basement, along with the add-ons for 17 and 12 meters and for 40 meters. Over in another corner was a Cushcraft 147(?) 11 element 2 meter beam, along with a cheap but functional rotor. Looked like I had most of the pieces.  All I needed was something to put the antennas on.  A quick trip to a local supplier netted me a 50 ft. Rohn push-up pole.  That’ll do it.

Over the next few days, I built up the antenna stack on the ground.  First, the TA-33M with the 12m and 17m driven element. Next, I assembled all the other components into the stack – an 8 ft. mast, the rotor, the TA-33M and the Cushcraft 2m Yagi.  Add in coax, rotor cable, guy ropes, and tiedown straps, and that makes the full set.  Everything checked out for SWR, so it was time to put it up.

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, or in this case, creativity.  The next problem was how to get the assembly up. Plan A was to stand it up with the mast extended only enough to clear any low items that would interfere with the antennas – like the house.  But what’s the best way to stand the stack up?  Fortunately, I had a set of compound pulleys and a lot of rope to go with it.  I through a heavy line over the house, tied it to a tree on the other side and hooked one of the pulleys to the other end.  With about an 8 to 1 advantage, it was fairly easy to stand the whole assembly up.

I figured that once it was vertical, it should be easy enough to extend the mast straight up.  Bad idea. First, I should have had a clue from the weight of the stack as I was standing it up.  It actually went to vertical easily enough, but extending it was a lot tougher.  Raising about 80 lbs straight up on the edge of a deck isn’t that easy.  Also, I didn’t think I needed guy wires – worse idea.  I was able to extend it up, but while securing everything, the top heavy antenna buckled one of the mast sections and the whole thing folded over.  Ugh!  All you can do is watch it fall and either laugh or cry!

The resulting damage was moderate, but not insurmountable.  I had to cut about 3 ft. out of one section of the telescoping mast, so now my 50 footer was more like 44 ft. Next, the antenna needed attention.  Two element ends were buckled and there was some minor bending.  Remember that I said TWO TA-33-M antennas?  Spare parts!  I spent a couple more days reworking and reassembling everything and thinking of a new way to put it all up.  This time though, a new plan – maybe riskier in one way but more stable in others.  Instead of standing it up and then extending it, I decided to extend the mast to about 35 ft. on the ground and stand the whole thing up with guys already attached.  The pulley system would bring it up and the guy lines would keep it from falling past vertical or off to one side.  By shortening the mast, it put extra overlap between mast sections to strengthen it.  I just needed to go slow and keep everything straight.  

Did I mention that I did all of this by myself? Not a practice I recommend, but sometimes, it’s the only way to get the job done.