Antennas at W5JGV - WC2XSR/13

from W5JGV

Some Skywires and General Pictures

February 2006 comment - Every antenna you see in these pictures was destroyed during Hurricane Katrina. The only thing remaining is the lower 15 feet of my tower and the twu antenna tuning boxes that are mounted near the base of the tower. The roof-top mast assembly did survive - I engineered it to withstand 130 MPH winds. The antennas on the tower were damaged beyond repair.

It's a cloudy day, but you can see most of the antennas in this picture.

Starting from the lower left; two TV antennas mounted on the mast holding a 2-meter vertical antenna; to the right of that antenna is the rooftop tower, which supports another TV antenna.

Seen going up the tower mast are the lines holding the 3-element W9INN / W5JGV trap dipole for 160 - 10 meters, (including the WARC bands.) Open-center, KW level 300 Ohm transmission line connects the antenna to the hamshack.

At the top of the tower mast is the top-loading wire for the WC2XSR/13 166.5 KC vertical antenna (which is mounted on the right hand tower, which is partially hidden by the trees seen in the right side of the picture.

Visible just before the intersection of the lower wire on the trap dipole and the upper guy line to the right hand tower, is the top insulator for the WC2XSR/13 vertical antenna. The vertical wire itself can be seen going down from the insulator.

At the top of the tower, you can see a (useless) TH3-JR tri-band beam antenna. It's useless because the %^&*(%^$# oak tree in my neighbors yard has grown around the beam and I can't rotate the beam any more. Above the TH3-JR is the remains of a 2-meter beam. A hurricane several years ago removed several elements. Since I can't rotate that antenna either, I haven't bothered to repair it.

Blue skies, at last!

If you look just to the left of the right hand tower, silhouetted against the cumulus cloud, you can see the horizontal side arm that supports the upper insulator of the WC2XSR/13 vertical antenna. The upper insulator can be seen hanging just below the support arm. Notice the "missing" TV antennas. That's because this picture was taken before I reworked my TV antenna system.

All 16 of the guy lines holding the roof tower in place have to go somewhere. (It's guyed in four directions and at four levels.) There are four anchor points like this one attached to the roof structure. Each 2 foot long section of aluminum "U" channel is held against the roof by 4 1/2" diameter X 12" galvanized lag screws which are set into the doubled 2 X 12 beams directly below the "U" channel. 1/2" galvanized bolts are set crosswise through the aluminum channel to hold the guy line thimbles. A turnbuckle is installed in each guy line and a safety wire is threaded through the turnbuckles. The "U" channel and the lad bolts are set in place using a liberal amount of RTV adhesive to prevent water leaks into the building structure.

From the bottom up!

This view looking up the rear tower shows the TH3-JR beam snarled in the neighbors tree. The trunk of the tree is some 30 feet away from the tower!

The WC2XSR/13 vertical antenna is clearly seen descending from the crossarm extending from the tower. The wire comes down to the large double-ringed insulator seen in the upper middle of the picture. The vertical wire is # 14 AWG THHN insulated copper wire.

The bottom of the vertical antenna is held by the lower insulator. The insulator is attached to the lower horizontal standoff arm with Dacron line. The wire going from off at a 45 degree angle from the insulator comes from the antenna tuning unit which is mounted near the bottom of the tower. It was necessary to run the wire at an angle so as to keep it away from the garage roof (seen at the bottom of the picture) otherwise the RF losses increased dramatically when the roof became wet in a rainstorm.

This picture shows the top of the WC2XSR/13 vertical antenna wire where it attaches to the upper insulator. The horizontal wire leading off to the right from the insulator connects to the flat top loading wire that is stretched between the two towers. The insulator for the flat top wire is almost invisible between the tree branches, but it's there is you know where to look for it.

This is the outer end of the flat top loading wire for the WC2XSR/13 antenna.

And finally, here's W5JGV himself, standing beside the antenna tuner for WC2XSR/13.

Note the red plastic bucket - it covers the motor drive for the variometer inside the ATU cabinet. See the clear plastic pop bottle? It has a small fluorescent tube inside the bottle. The tube lights up so I can see it at night when the TX is on the air. It's just a reminder for me not to touch the antenna feel line! To keep the pop bottle from blowing off the cabinet during storms, I have glued the bottle to an dead storage battery, it's the small orange object seen below the bottle

73, Ralph W5JGV

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The entire contents of this web site are Copyright © 2002 - 2006 by Ralph M. Hartwell II, all rights reserved.