More Tower Work at WB4IUY

I finally had time to make a little more headway on my radio tower rebuild. I finished cold galvanizing the rest of my tower sections (I had previously used rust converted on them in preparation). I've gotta get this done before cold weather hits, I still have a lot of antenna work to do, once it's up. Here's a few pics...

Here's a few pieces of tower after the rust converter was applied... Kinda makes them look like a  sloppy whitewash was smeared on :-)

A 6el Force 12 HF yagi, awaiting installation. I've got to get busy and do this before winter sets in!
 

More tower awaiting rust conversion and cold galvanizing.

The top section with bearing, ready for the last cold galvanizing application. 

Another pile of antennas awaiting me to make repairs and  reinstallation on the tower. This is a pair of  17el 2m yagis.

My 5el 6m Cushcraft that was  converted to "CrushCraft" in the storm. I have another to replace this with, though I may repaid this one and re-use it...

A pic of 70' of tower that is currently erect and awaiting more to be stacked.

Almost finished with the cold galvanizing compound...

Another shot of the tower at 70'...
 

Right here is where the rest of this tower is going :-)
 

This is GOOD stuff. I've got some tower I did this to over 23 years ago, and it still looks great. It takes about 4 cans per section of Rohn25 to do the job correctly. 

Ready for installation!

 Dave WB4IUY
http://www.WB4IUY.net

More lightning strike damage...

What a summer... the nastiest in 23 years of living here, for lightning strikes and storm damages. I found another piece of lightning strike damage by accident. We recently had a storm that was nasty, and when I returned home I found all the breakers in my home workshop tripped. Didn't really find any damage in the shop, until now. I noticed the 2 meter rig (VHF radio) in the workshop wasn't receiving very well, so I decided to put the SWR meter on it and check the antenna. It sits on a grounded, wall mounted, metal shelf. I reached for the feed line connector near the radio and had to break it away from the shelf. Ruh Roh...

Check out the spot on the connector where it welded itself to the shelf...
 

It blew right through the powder coating on the shelf!
 

I haven't removed the antenna to inspect it, yet, but the SWR is about a zillion : 1  on it now :-( . I don't know if it's a direct strike, or a near strike, as there was a tree about 50 feet away that was struck. Whatever the case, this is a real eye-opener for what can come in on the feedline!

Dave
http://www.WB4IUY.net